The Walking Dead: The Oath 3 - Bond (2013)

Review

Thinking Paul is dead Karina tells Gale how she killed a man earlier thinking he was a decay, that would be a walker to you and me Russ. A young girl rushed out of hiding but Karina left her alone and scared. Now Karina views being the final survivor from the camp as punishment for her sin, and her thoughts turn to suicide. Gale is only too happy to help as Gale's oath is to offer death to those who want it via lethal injection.

Meanwhile Paul wakes up in the cafeteria to find he has been locked in with a horde of zombies. Quick thinking gets him out of the undead jam he was in and he goes in search of Karina. Unfortunately things don't work out as expected leaving Paul to spray paint a familiar warning on the cafeteria doors and to then go Michonne as he keeps to the oath the original survivors made to each other.

** Warning Major Spoilers Below **

The final episode of The Oath clocks in at a satisfying 10:38 minutes and underlines the theme of promises that the webseries has been exploring through the two previous episodes. Everyone kind of keeps their promises during Bond but it comes at personal cost. Karina considers herself the last survivor standing and thus has fulfilled her oath, she has no compunction in punching out as she considers there isn't much to go on for. Gale has made a personal promise to give people the option to die rather than living in the new reality and during the episode she naturally enough fulfils this. And finally Paul also keeps his promise, just not in the fashion he would have envisaged while making the oath prior to the camp being overrun. It should be noted that in typical horror fashion both Karina and Gale pay for their sins, though Gale's fate is implied rather than explicitly shown.

Excellent ending to what has been an amazingly good series, sweating on the next one people

Before going on much further I wanted to remark on how well Ashley Bell gives zombie, excellent performance, Ms Bell nailing all aspects of her role. Someone get her in another horror movie toot sweet, I'll be right across that one when it arrives.

There's some debate as to whether or not the "Don't Open Dead Inside" cafeteria door is the exact same one that Rick Grimes experiences in the pilot episode of the television series. Okay firstly both series, The Oath and The Walking Dead, go down in Georgia, Director Greg Nicotero focuses on Paul's licence plate toward the end of Bond showing it's a Georgia plate. Equally Rick was at a country hospital when he woke up, not in Atlanta as many people are claiming. So just how many cafeteria doors in isolated hospitals in George would have the slogan "Don't Open Dead Inside" spray painted on them do you think? Clearly the doors are the exact same ones Rick finds after he wakes up, which immediately ties in both series in a fairly nifty fashion that I for one appreciated. Though the major question I was left with was where had Rick got to when events shown in The Oath went down. Either he was still unconscious, 28 days in a coma remember, and neither Gale nor Paul explored the Hospital fully, or he had already left by the time Gale decided to add to the cafeteria's population. Yes I'm being a Walking Dead geek, but someone has to ask the important questions.

Bond doesn't finish with any final solution, like most zombie outings the episode simply sees the survivor(s), in this case Paul, heading off to an unknown future. Now I know some folk are irritated by this approach, they demand that the story finishes, but for mine it works as it should do. Our story has been told and it's simply another interlude in Paul's struggles to survive in a highly hostile environment. What awaits him further down the road isn't important to The Oath, writer Luke Passmore knows when the story is done and isn't outliving his welcome.

I must say I was impressed with Paul going Michonne after Karina turned, excellent scene nailed by Director Greg Nicotero by the way. While Paul certainly doesn't use the full monty approach Michonne goes with, he is more into pliers and a straight jacket, the result is the same, Paul has a sort of domesticated walker. Not quite sure if the thud of Roos bouncing in the top paddock was setting in, but at least there will be benefits for Paul down the line as zombie Karina covers his existence from other zombies. To a certain extent it was a fitting way to finish the series, and I'm certainly amused by the concept of Fido zombies in The Walking Dead universe.

Well another web series bites the dust with an excellent final episode that had me glued to my computer screen. There were a couple of surprise developments, which I should have actually seen coming, in horror you nearly always pay for your crimes, and the tie in with the television show was worth watching the whole series for. Walking Dead fans will be rocking out to this episode, and indeed the entire three episode run of The Oath, but it would be a pity if people outside the fandom didn't tune in. Full recommendation, the series is free on the interwebs and well worth catching. Greg Nicotero and his team rock, they deserve every accolade they get for The Oath, it's professionally made and totally engrossing.