I enjoyed the finale, very much. I thought Morgan's return was fantastic and his anti-climatic reunion with Rick was handled perfectly. Immediate impressions:
1. What was conquered? Well, Glenn conquered some fear in letting Nicholas live. That was actually pretty impressive and it's consistent with his character. I guess Rick's way of doing business conquered the Alexandrian's denial. And of course Morgan conquered two huge scum bags with W's carved into their foreheads.
2. What was gained and what was lost? They lost an architect and a doctor but they gained a Jedi in Morgan and a huge dose of reality in the Ricktatorship's way of doing business. Perhaps most importantly Dianna lost a husband but gained a very competent general. I love that she gave the order for Rick to kill Pete.
3. Carol is the Paulie Walnuts of this Zombie Apocalypse. I keep thinking that she will die, but she hangs around. And she's also being asked to deliver some of the comedic relief, albeit a more ironic tone than Paulie's was on the Sopranos.
4. There probably will be a time skip but I don't think it will be as long as I had hoped. The Wolves are 50 miles out from Alexandria and I don't think those photos will have any revealing signs because Aaron knew they could fall into the wrong hands. The ones Rick saw had no such signs at least and the ones they added just showed people. (Probably in response to Rick and Michonne's freak out that there were no people in the pictures.) So they can play with the timeline as much as they want. I expect it will be like the jump between season 2 and 3: a few months but not more than year. Probably the first way to tell will be when we see Judith for the first time.
5. Morgan and Rick are going to have some great conversations next year. Lenny James has already revealed on The Talking Dead that Morgan had some kind of life-changing experience between when we saw him in Season 3 and his meeting up with Rick and gang in Alexandria. Rick of course has descended nearly into the kind of madness that Morgan was grappling with back when he had a booby-trapped town to himself.
6. The Wolves have great potential. I hope they don't screw up the casting. When Michonne first appeared in the Season 2 finale, they never showed her face. We did see a couple of the Wolves tonight but they don't have to be the, well Alpha males of the pack. So they will probably cast someone with at least a bit of name or face recognition for that part. The show has an uneven track record of casting. Hopefully they will cast someone more like Andrew J. West (who played Gareth) than David Morrisey (the Governor).
One interesting thing is that they do not seem to be well supplied. After all those 2 dudes that confronted Morgan had to do so with an empty 9MM. Makes you wonder how efficient that food trap is.
7. Negan is another year away. I don't think we will see Negan in Season six but he's probably on track for a Season 7 story arc. The Wolves should be able to up the cruelty ante and only Negan will be able to top that.
8. Lennie James is the best actor in this company and I love his British accent.
A Final Thought, Much Repeated.
Please for the love of God can this group think a little more Strategically next season? Now that they have a congressman, a UNICEF veteran and a Jedi to go along with the sheriff, the archer, the samurai and the soldier, there is no reason they can't start to think more than 2 moves in advance. A few suggestions:
1. Dig Zombie Pits. Why on Earth was the Governor the only person to figure out that gravity is our friend?
2. Send a search team to destroy that food truck trap. It's obviously a tool of very bad people. You don't want them to survive and you don't want them to kill any more good people, like poor Mr. Red Pancho. Send a team back and bring enough explosives to destroy that whole yard.
3. Eugene needs to contribute more. Maybe he can design the perfect way to destroy the Wolves food trap or figure out a way to make bullets. (Something he apparently does eventually in the comics.)
Law & Order was really successful show that eventually launched two spin off. Law & Order SUV was more salacious and less challenging than the original. Law & Order Criminal Intent was slightly brainier and attempted to be clever from time to time. Of course of the 3, SUV became the most successful and is still on the air. I'm sure Fear the Walking Dead will follow in that vein. But I'm a dreamer and I choose to hope that the smarter version of TWD will come along, eventually.
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