Phillip Jackson

"Go through the fences in your cars, get your guns, we go in -- Kill them all!"

—Philip to his militia, ordering them to attack The Prison.

Phillip Jackson, better known as "The Governor" is a survivor of the Zombie Apocalypse and a major human threat to other survivors. He is in command of the fortified town of Hoodsbury.

Appearance
The Governor is a tall, slim, physically built Caucasian male with brown hair, which is streaked with grey. He is often seen wearing a navy blue shirt with a vest, beige pants, a watch, and a sheath that holds his gun and a knife. After the severe damage dealt to his eye at the hands of Chris, Phillip is forced to wear an eye-patch.

Personality
In the beginning, The Governor played off a facade of a congenial man, but, in reality, was a volatile and depraved sociopath. He was a smooth talker, easily able to talk his way out of situations using his "charm", and was able to use his manipulative abilities to coerce others into doing his own bidding. He was obsessed with having superiority, and viewed any of those unwilling to follow him (such as Christopher Red or even his own militia) as a hindrance, and would coldly kill them to further his objectives or out of anger. He also had dark secrets, such as keeping his zombified daughter in his closet and having fish tanks filled with walker and human heads. Throughout the Zombie Apocalypse, he gradually became a much more cold-hearted and barbaric person. His dark personality was only exacerbated when Chris broke into his house and killed his zombified daughter, thus triggering homicidal desires within him. From then on, he lost most of his sanity and only desired to be on a warpath, seeking retaliation on Chris and Ryan's group (the latters attacked him and "took" Hoodsbury away from him). A couple years later, after wandering alone for months following the fall of Hoodsbury, The Governor adopted a "makeshift family", whom he found whilst wandering. He lied to them, keeping his past and his violent nature a secret, while convincing himself that he is doing this to protect them (which is true). According to Ashleigh later on, The Governor was genuinely fighting himself in a "Jekyll-and-Hyde" manner. This battle with himself ultimately proved to be fruitless, as his ego once again drove him into the ruthless role of a tyrant (first by blatantly killing Cari and then attempting to strangle Ryan). He dies an unremorseful mass murderer, and is put down by one of the very people he swore to protect, yet failed to.

History
Phillip Jackson and nine other survivors holed themselves up in apartment for an unspecified amount of time, before moving out, picking up new group members along the way, and eventually coming upon the abandoned Hoodsbury. As they secure the town and settle in (whilst their size continues to increase), Phillip establishes a leadership role and is branded the nickname "The Governor".

Jenny was infected and reanimated, though when exactly this happened remains to be known. Phillip could not come to terms with her death and kept her zombified body locked in his closet.

Phillip was first encountered by survivor Christopher Red, who happened to cross Hoodsbury following his departure from a small Zombie-infested town. In Hoodsbury, Phillip Jackson introduced him to Hofferson and Jackson (two of Phillip's trusted lieutenants), and also was offered the position of becoming Phillip's right-hand man. Christopher Red accepted, and carried out fruitless missions for The Governor. Two months following Christopher Red's arrival and Hanson's departure from Hoodsbury, a small group of survivors who had holed themselves up in a Prison a few miles away, led by a survivor named Ryan invaded Hoodsbury and stole from them Len and Judy Klapwyk (who happened to be Lee's parents). When it was discovered that Christopher's brother, Kenny, was among the so-called "terrorists", Phillip accused Chris of betrayal.

Chris and Kenny were put against each other in combat, but they were liberated by Ryan, Daryl, Merle and Jacob. Following this attack, Phillip declared this group a threat that needed to be taken care of for good. He also claimed that Christopher would pay for his "betrayal" in leading Ryan's group into Hoodsbury. Secretly, Chris returns to Hoodsbury and infiltrates The Governor's apartment. The Governor later goes to his apartment and is horrified to discover Chris with a sword and his zombified daughter, Jenny, prepared to execute her. The Governor pleads with her not to do it, but Chris kills her anyway, beginning a brawl between the two in the secret room. During the struggle, several of the tanks are thrown to the floor, spilling out the heads inside. During the battle, he attempts to drag her arm toward a walker's snapping jaws, but she is able to escape his grasp. As The Governor is strangling her, Chris grabs a piece of broken glass from one of the tanks and stabs The Governor's right eye, blinding him. As he is about to finish him off with his katana, Sara arrives with her gun drawn at Chris. The two stare at each other horrified, and Chris eventually leaves. Sara is even more horrified when she spots the fish tanks with walker heads inside, The Governor ignores her and hugs the corpse of his dead daughter while crying in disgust.

Later on, The Governor's injuries are treated by Dr. Stevens, who informs him that he can't recover from his eye injury.

The following day, The Governor goes to Ben's laboratory, confronting him and asking where his loyalty lies (in a similar way he did to Chris before the attack in Hoodsbury), a scared Ben promises that he is loyal to Hoodsbury. Ben is then ordered to keep an eye on Sara while, without her knowledge, The Governor, Hofferson, Jackson and two soldiers went out to attack The Prison in retaliation. The Governor makes his arrival at The Prison known by shooting Merle in the head from outside the fence with an AUG A1. During the whole shootout, The Governor seems to be enjoying it in a sadistic way. One of the Hoodsbury soldiers runs down The Prison gates with a truck full of Walkers and sets them free inside The Prison courtyard. The Governor and his men get in their car and escape during the distraction.

The Governor wants to avoid any more invasions by arming the citizens of Hoodsbury and teaching them how to shoot. Sara comes in after being informed of the attack at the prison, The Governor lies to her, telling her that he went to The Prison to negotiate and the group attacked them first. It is revealed soon after that he has people watching The Prison, as he knows about all the weapons that Ryan, Chris, and Jacob brought back from Hanson.

After a meeting being set up by Sara, The Governor finally meets Ryan face to face in an abandoned farm store. As noticing that Ryan carries his gun in hand, The Governor mocks him by pretending that he surrenders himself, "We got a lot to talk about", he says. He removes his belt with his pistol and calmly sits on a chair, he invites Ryan to do the same, but Lee just holsters his gun and still stands. Unknown to Ryan, The Governor has a taped a gun under his side of the table. Sara storms into the barn complaining that The Governor started the meeting without her, Ryan says that he knows everything about The Governor, about the raids, the heads in fish tanks and that he attempted to kill Taylor. The Governor asks Ryan for his offer, which is setting boundaries in the area: Hoodsbury takes west of the river, Prison takes east. The Governor refuses the offer; he wants Ryan to surrender. As the situation starts to get out of control, Sara interferes telling both men to calm down, The Governor asks her to leave him and Ryan to discuss this privately. As Sara leaves the barn, Jackson (who is waiting with Ben outside) closes the door.

The Governor and Ryan start to insult one another about their respective positions as leaders, but incredibly they show some amount of respect for each other. Even though, Ryan calls him a town drunk for killing Merle and running down The Prison's gates. The Governor asks if Ryan ever misjudged someone. He says that if he just leaves Ryan's group alone, his people are going to think he is weak. "That's your problem," Ryan says. The Governor shares a story about the day his wife died, he was at work when he received a call from the hospital telling him that she died in a car accident. She left a message to him earlier telling him to call her back, but he never managed to do so, "What did she want?" The Governor asks. Ryan remembers his grandpa and becomes visibly rattled, The Governor smirks. He gets up and tells Ryan that this fight will go down to the last man, but there is a way out: he promises not to do anything to his group if Ryan gives up Christopher.

Ryan is not sure about giving up Christopher, as he doesn't trust that The Governor will keep his word about leaving them alone. The Governor gives Ryan two days to think about the offer, saying that he'll be back in this farm store by noon. The Governor, Jackson, Ben and Sara head back to Hoodsbury. Upon arriving, The Governor instantly pulls Jackson aside and orders him to prepare an ambush on Ryan's group in the next meeting, he wants everyone dead, except Chris. Ben hears the conversation and complains about breaking the offer. The Governor simply tells Ben that they would have to get rid of Ryan sooner or later anyway, on the way back to his apartment, he thanks Sara for setting up the meeting, without her acknowledge of his true intentions to kill Ryan and everybody from her former group.

The Governor is inside a torture room hidden somewhere in Hoodsbury (This place is believed to be the "screamer pits"). He tests the resistance of the chains with a sadistic smile on his face. After a while, he is seen laying out tools beside a dentist chair, he looks back and notices that Ben is watching and approaches him. Ben tries to convince The Governor that he doesn't need to take revenge on Chris, that he can simply forget all of this and move on, leaving The Prison group alone. The Governor says that this is something he has to do, and asks Ben if he truly believes that Walkers actually have something left from their old beings inside them, Ben says that he believes, but Jenny is already dead, it's time to move on. The Governor refuses and says that he is going to do this. He later returns to the room with more tools and a recorder, he tests the recorder without knowing that Ben and Sara were watching him the whole time from a window. He is later seen walking down the street when he notices that Jackson is confiscating Sara's weapons, he tells Sara that is just for precaution, and says that he wants her to come with them the next day, when they close their deal with Ryan and The Prison group. Sara says she will and then walks off.

The Governor is then reported by Jack and Leah that Sara jumped over the fortified wall and escaped Hoodsbury. Jack says that Sara looked pretty disturbed with the town and is concerned about what this is about. The Governor lies, saying that Sara has mental issues for spending the whole winter alone in the outside world. After the meeting, Ben approaches The Governor and implores to let Sara go. The Governor realizes that Ben told her about the Christopher Red deal and she is going back to The Prison to warn everybody, he gets in his car and leaves Hoodsbury to go after Sara. While driving down a road, he spots Sara walking through a field and follows her, Sara panics and run inside a forest to avoid being followed. As the night falls, The Governor manages to find Sara once again, she runs inside an abandoned warehouse, he leaves his car and follows her inside.

The Governor listens for Sara's footsteps; he starts mind games, trying to scare Sara into revealing her location. The Governor grabs a shovel and start breaking windows and spreading glass inside the warehouse, so he will be able to listen for Sara if she walks over the pieces of broken glass. He continues with the mind games when he listens to a noise, while investigating, he discovers three Walkers wandering inside the place, and kills all of them easily. He then starts bashing one of the Walkers’ heads with the shovel. He listens to another strange noise and follows it, finally finding Sara as she stands in front of an old door. "It's time to go home," The Governor mockingly says, Sara opens and hides behind the door, releasing a small herd of Infected on The Governor. He fights the Infected with the shovel, a piece of metal, and empties his gun on them, Sara escapes the warehouse as The Governor is cornered by many Zombies.

By the morning, Sara finally reaches The Prison. She notices Ryan in a guard tower and tries to wave so he can see her. But The Governor returns after surviving the Infected in the warehouse and tackles Sara to the ground, Ryan fails to spot them and The Governor drags Sara away. The Governor returns to Hoodsbury, Jackson approaches him and asks about Sara, he says that she is still missing. Jackson also reports that somebody burned down the Walkers they captured, and is suspicious that Jack is responsible. The Governor talks to Jack and his group, explaining that they use the Walkers as a scare tactic and were never intended to kill people. Jack apologizes for being difficult. The Governor asks where Jack found the gasoline. "Come again?" Jack asks, confused. The Governor says it's nothing and leaves.

<p class="MsoNormal">On his way out, Ben asks if The Governor found Sara, he says that he didn't, but he will look again the next day. "It's a real shame about the pits," says Ben, "I hope you find out who did it." The Governor stares at Ben and says, "already have." Meanwhile, back at the hidden torture room, Sara is tied to the dentist chair with a gag on her mouth and the chains dangling behind her.

<p class="MsoNormal">The Governor and his men are waiting for Ryan's arrival at the farm store, preparing to ambush Ryan as soon as he shows up. But instead, a car playing loud music suddenly drives alone into the place, attracting many Walkers and forcing the Hoodsbury soldiers to defend themselves. Unknown to them, Kenny Red planned this to take out The Governor while the others were distracted killing the Walkers. As Kenny had his cross-hair pointed right at The Governor, George unintentionally walks in the way and gets shot instead, saving The Governor's life and revealing Kenny's location. Hoodsbury soldiers start to kick Kenny to the ground; The Governor orders them to back off, saying that he is going to take care of Kenny himself.

<p class="MsoNormal">The Governor drags Kenny back into the farm store where he was hiding and starts kicking and punching him. Kenny tries to fight back, but to no avail. The Governor starts choking Kenny and bites off two of his fingers, before breaking his bayonet arm and finally pinning Kenny against a wall. "I ain't begging you," are Kenny's last words before The Governor takes out his gun and shoots him in the chest, killing him. At that moment, Jacob arrives accompanied by Christopher Red, and ambushes Hoodsbury’s forces. Christopher Red arrives to find The Governor standing by his brother’s dead body and furiously attacks out of rage. The Governor easily subdues Chris and shoots him as he did his brother. Jacob attacks and battles The Governor, to no avail. Jacob is able to escape when The Governor is distracted by the reanimated Kenny and Christopher Red. The Governor kills both Infected and orders his forces back to Hoodsbury.

<p class="MsoNormal">The Governor has Ben tied up to a pipe in the shacks and beats him, blaming him for the death of his men at the hands of Kenny, since Ben burned up the Walkers they had gathered, which they otherwise could have released on The Prison. The Governor begins to berate Ben, and tells him to be stronger. When Ben asks about Sara's whereabouts, he takes Ben to the room where he has Sara held in, and orders him to kill her in order to get out of the situation...alive, and to redeem himself. Ben tries to attack The Governor instead, but the latter defends himself and stabs Ben in the stomach three times; he then decides to leave Ben locked up with Sara, since the latter will reanimate and kill her. Before leaving the room, The Governor says: "In this life now, you kill or you die...or you die and then you kill."

<p class="MsoNormal">He then goes outside, where the Hoodsbury Army is waiting for him. He reminds them that Ryan's group were responsible for the death of eight Hoodsbury defenders, and they will not stop until they are all eliminated. Jack and Leah inform him that they are not going to attack The Prison, since someone needs to stay and defend the townspeople. The Governor gives Jack a sniper rifle and coldly thanks him, he then gets in his car and the army moves out to attack The Prison. They arrive there exploding the guard towers, shooting all the barricades and running down the courtyard gate, but The Prison seems to be empty, and The Governor decides to move inside. They enter Cell Block C and find out that the place is also empty, The Governor notices a bible left on the table, he then hears a strange noise coming from the dark corridors, he decides to split the army in teams to search the corridors.

<p class="MsoNormal">While doing so, they are suddenly attacked by flash grenades and Walkers, everyone starts panicking and The Governor tries to calm them down, as they are running outside, Taylor and Daryl start shooting at them from the catwalk, telling them to leave The Prison. During the shootout, Judy and Len are killed by Hofferson. The Governor wants to stay and fight, but the scared army of citizens leave The Prison behind, prompting The Governor and his men to get in a truck and go after them. As they reach the army, they stop the convoy and The Governor leaves his truck angry at them, ordering them to go back to The Prison immediately. Hofferson and Jake agree with him, but the rest of the army refuse to attack The Prison again, since they are scared and want to return to the safety of Hoodsbury. The Governor loses his sanity and starts shooting everyone to the ground. Hofferson and Jackson watch horrified as The Governor shows no remorse whatsoever after killing 23 of his own people, including Jake. The Governor gets back in his truck with Hofferson and Jackson and they drive off to an unknown location.

<p class="MsoNormal">It is later shown that Ryan and his group move from The Prison to Hoodsbury. During a conversation between Ryan and Ashleigh, The Governor is mentioned.

<p class="MsoNormal">Daryl states that he's leaving the group, and that he will not rest until The Governor has been taken care of. Ryan wishes him well, and warns him to be careful, since The Governor killed Kenny, Chris, Merle and almost every member of the Hoodsbury Army.

<p class="MsoNormal">Jonah thinks he spots The Governor outside Hoodsbury's walls at one point and brings this up with Ryan, who becomes very worried about the apparent return of their old enemy. Skylar later asks Ryan about their past, and Ryan informs her that The Governor had attempted to wipe out their entire group when he had been in command of Hoodsbury, the very town they currently inhabit.

<p class="MsoNormal">After Jonah sacrificed himself to a Bloater in order to save Ryan and Skylar, The Governor appears to be secretly watching over The Prison from a distance. The Governor camps at the site where he massacred the National Guard soldiers with his remaining two men, Hofferson and Jackson. However, they grow wary of him and abandon him during the night. He then returns to Hoodsbury and burns it to the ground (Skylar being present with the others while Ryan is with an away team). After surviving for seven months on his own, he comes across a building with several messages and names written on them, one of which is Brian Blake. He stumbles across a group of well-armed Survivors and informs them that there is a secure Prison in which they would be safe forever. The group agrees to join The Governor. Firsthand, The Governor tells them they must rally a bigger attack force.

The Governor and his new group spend the next couple months uniting different Survivors to form an attack army. When the army is assembled, The Governor gathers up the people at his camp, and convinces them to help take The Prison for their own. The Governor's group then travels to The Prison and they start by blowing up a tower with the tank. He calls Ryan down to talk and tells him that their people must leave The Prison before sundown or else everyone there will die. Despite Ryan trying to convince him that they could live together, The Governor responds with "It could work, but it can't". When Ryan refuses to leave, The Governor loses control of himself and opens fire, prompting Ryan and the others in The Prison to return fire. He then orders his militia to take the fences down and kill The Prison group. As the Governor advances behind the tank, he takes cover behind a bus, though is tackled by Ryan. The two engage in a parlous fist fight, in which The Governor gains the upper hand. Just as he is about to kill Ryan by choking him, Skylar sneaks up behind Phillip and stabs him in the chest. She approaches him and leaves him to die slowly and painfully. Later, however, one of his militia (a man named Harry) approaches a dying Phillip and shoots him in the head, ending his life.

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