He tries to recruit Michonne, but sees that she’s not buying in. He refuses to let Merle go off on his own to try to find Daryl. It’s revealed that the Governor keeps his zombified daughter chained up in his home. After Michonne kills the zombies caged up, the Governor confronts her and again attempts to recruit her, but it goes south when she takes back her katana and leaves after putting it to his neck. He then goes to Andrea, trying to get her on his side.
During the gladiator battle, the Governor tries to explain to Andrea that it’s rigged and that the citizens of Woodbury enjoy it because it’s a form of entertainment. He sends Merle and several others to track down Michonne and bring back both her sword and her head. The Governor then hooks up with Andrea. When Merle brings back Glenn and Maggie, the Governor makes sure Andrea doesn’t go near them since she knows who they are and would most certainly question what was going on. He makes Maggie think he’s going to rape her but it seems to be a bluff when he backs off. He gets the information he wants once he threatens Glenn’s life in front of Maggie.
The Governor questions Merle’s loyalty due to Merle having said the prison couldn’t be cleared of zombies. He takes out Penny, his zombie daughter, and tries to see if there’s anything human still in her, but then locks her up again. He orders Andrea to help make sure everyone is safe as opposed to helping fight since he knows she’ll recognize the people attacking. The Governor pleads with Michonne not to kill Penny, but when she doesn’t listen, he attacks her. He injures her, but not as much as she injures him—with a piece of glass to the eye. He goes to the infirmary to have it tended to, and manages to get Andrea to buy his story. When Daryl is captured, the Governor calls out Merle in front of the town as being a traitor since he lied about killing Michonne, and pits the two brothers against each other in a gladiator battle.
The Governor walks in the middle of the chaos, seemingly enjoying himself. He casually walks up to a bitten man and shoots him in the head. He finally tells Andrea about her friends being alive, and he doesn’t care about calming the town down. Instead, he’s preparing for war with those at the prison. He praises Andrea for the speech she gave and tells her they have no reason to go against the prison group as long as they don’t attack again. The Governor tells her that she should take over as leader since the people listen to her. He leads a brief attack on the prison, killing Axel and letting in zombies, and then retreats.
The Governor decides that every man and woman thirteen and older is to be trained with firearms. He tells Andrea that if she goes to the prison, she should stay there. When Milton tells him that Andrea asked for help escaping Woodbury, the Governor says to do it. However, once she gets back, he seems okay with it. He goes to meet with Rick and tries to make him more comfortable by disarming himself, although he actually has a gun under the table. The Governor laughs at the thought of both parties taking certain territory. He then tells Rick about the day his wife died, which occurred before the outbreak.
The Governor reveals that he wants Michonne for what she did to him. He gives Rick two days to make the decision. When he gets back to Woodbury, he tells Milton that they’ll wait for Rick and whoever else he brings with him to give them Michonne, then kill everyone but her. He then sets up a torture chamber. When he’s told that Andrea has left Woodbury, the Governor goes after her, and nearly attacks Milton when he finds out that Milton told her things he shouldn’t have.
He eventually tracks Andrea down, surviving a room full of zombies in the process. He brings her back to Woodbury without telling anyone else, and stashes her in his torture chamber. The Governor kills Merle, but in a way that allows him to come back as a zombie. He figures out that Milton was the one to burn the zombies in the pit, and tortures the man for it. The Governor admits that his daughter would be afraid of him now but that she’d also still be alive if he’d been like this before. The Governor then sticks Milton in the same room as Andrea after fatally wounding the man so that he’ll kill Andrea when he turns into a zombie.
The Governor fires up the people of Woodbury to get them ready to go to war with the prison group. When they’re forced to retreat, the Governor loses it and kills all but a few of those with him.
Season 4
The Governor is abandoned by Martinez and his other former lackey. He comes across a family of four: two sisters, Tara and Lilly; their father; and Lilly's daughter, Meghan. He tells them his name is Brian and helps them out while bonding with Meghan. When their father dies, they hit the road and he and Lilly hook up. They soon come across a small community led by Martinez. It doesn't take long for the Governor to kill Martinez and then his successor, resulting in the Governor becoming their leader. He captures Michonne and Hershel and convinces his new group that the prison group are bad people. The Governor talks to Rick about letting them take over the prison, but Rick says they can all live there, and that they can come back from what they've done.
Proving him wrong, the Governor kills Hershel with Michonne's sword. A battle ensues, and he decapitates Hershel the rest of the way. When Lilly shows up carrying Meghan's dead body, the Governor shows no hesitation in shooting her in the head. He then goes on to beat Rick nearly to death, but is then stabbed in the chest by Michonne, who has reclaimed her sword. As he struggles to hold on to life, Lilly comes and shoots him in the head.
He is seen in the episode "After" as a corpse, with a bullet hole through his forehead.
