No Way Out (The Walking Dead Season Six Midseason Finale Predictions)

                                 Video Contains Comic Spoilers for the Current TV story line

A couple weeks ago I resumed watching old episodes of The Walking Dead on Netflix. I watched the finale of the first season and every episode of seasons two and three.  So before talking about tonight's midseason finale, I want to offer a little perspective on the series as a whole.

Much like with The Wire, Season 2 of the Walking Dead is its most divisive. There is less action, by far than any other season and lots of people complained about the slow pacing and rustic setting of the season.  But watching it now, with the benefit of what creative decisions would be made in the future was a striking experience. Put simply, the show was a lot better than. It was a show about intelligent characters adjusting to a new reality Their motivations were consistent and the emotional payoffs were big, because they were believable moments. The heart of the story was a love triangle, and we all knew who to root for. It all culminated in a somewhat absurd shootout at the farm, but not even that could take away from the season-long story arcs. It was a much better show then.

Season three brings a lot of changes, and most of them hurt the show.  The biggest problem was the casting of David Morrissey as the Governor.  He just was not right for the part. His accent is too forced and his motivations are all over the place. I think the writers were striving to make him complicated, but they wound up with a character that was merely inconsistent. 

The central story of season three is not a failure. The battle with Woodbury sets up a nice arc about the need to stay civilized in face of the world's brutality.  Michael Rooker's performance as Merle Dixon almost makes up for the poor casting choice for the Governor. But almost every episode is marred by one of our heroes doing something truly stupid and Andrew Lincoln loses his grip on the Rick Grimes character after Laurie's passing. Lincoln plays a good Rick, but that level of madness is just outside of his range, and those scenes are less haunting than they should be. 

The other huge change is the decision to stop killing major characters. At the end of the 4th episode of season three, Rick's group is down to just eight people: Rick, Darryl, Glenn, Maggie, Herschel, Beth, Carol and brand newborn Judith. In the first 23 episodes of this show, there was a real sense that almost any character could die. In the fifty episodes since, only 2 of those 8 have died and at leas one of them (Beth) was a very minor character. (Andrea was still alive but presumed dead by the group. The group had not yet met Michonne.)

Most of the deaths since season three episode four have been either bad guys or glorified red shirts.  A few others, like Bob and Tyrese were developed just enough to give their passing some meaning. But the show has clearly made the decision to conserve the original group for as long as possible, and that's probably a good business decision. The other thing that stands out when you watch the old seasons and episodes is that the show works best when it centers on the characters we care about. For me those are, in rough order: Darryl, Rick, Glenn, Maggie, and Michonne. Of the characters introduced since Seas.3/Episode 4, only Aaron seems interesting enough to attain that status. 

The Glenn story line from season six is most emblematic of this problem.  They led us to believe he was dead and then kept us in suspense about it for three full episodes, only to reveal that he was alive after all. In the meantime we learned that he's going to be a father and last week he seemed to take the first steps towards adopting Enid. This is all meant to up the stakes in his story line going forward. We like Glenn and that makes the show much better.

Now to the matter at hand. Tonight's midseason finale. At least three story lines will be tied up tonight: the breach of the Alexandria walls, the Wolf that Morgan spared in episode two, and the return to town of Darryl, Sasha and Abraham.  (Conveniently with a RPG launcher.)

The Midesason Finale Predictions.

A The Wolf.  The one rule of this show is that if someone's not included in the "In Memorium" segment of the Talking Dead, than he or she is not dead. And if someone is kept alive when they should be dead, that decision will comeback to get someone killed. The simple story line would be to have the Wolf kill Morgan, but I think the show runners have bigger things in store for Morgan this season.  

At the start of this season Scott M, Gimple described Carol as the safest character on the show. He explained that this was because she has become so valuable to the group and so capable as a fighter. But I think this was one of his many misdirects. I think the Wolf will Carol tonight and I think there will be some tie in with Jesse's younger son. Maybe she will die trying to save him in some way. Carol seems less necessary to the story now that Jesse appears well positioned to be both surrogate mother to Judith and a fledgling killing machine.

B. The Breach of the Walls. The worst aspect of this show is how stupid the main characters are whenever the show needs them to be. For the last 2 episodes they have sat passively by as a herd of zombies gathers at the walls. No effort made to thin the herd at all.  This is more than 2 years into the apocolypse. By now they should have some strategies for dealing with this. Consider: big knifes stuck to the end of long sticks, sling shots, Morgan's rat cages on wheels, and most obvious of all, Rosita using a gun with a silencer. There should have been an attempt to kill as many walkers as possible. Every dead walker is one less way to die and it's utterly crazy that our heroes have not figured this out yet. But no, for dramatic effect we have to believe that Rick and Deanna and Carl and Rosita were all too stupid to do any of that. And now Alexandria's walls have been over run.

So who dies at the hands of the hoard?  Obviously a couple Alexandrians will die. Maybe Rosita too if they are clearing the way for an Abraham/Sasha romance later this season. Obviously this chaos is going to play into the Wolf's story line. It seems inevitable that he will get someone killed and probably equally inevitable that he will die too.

They certainly planted the seed that Jesse's older son wants to kill Carl. If they stick to the comic book, that will not happen but Carl may wind up wounded. That could set up some awkward moments between Rick and Jesse. 

Death Prediction Probabilities for Tonight's Episode:

(Besides the obligatory Alexandrian red shirt or two)

1. The Remaining Wolf: 95%

2. Carol  60%

3. Jesse's Older Son: 55%

4. Jesse's Younger Son: 55%

5. Rosita 40%

6. Morgan 30%

7. Tara 25%

8. Abraham 20%

9. Deanna: 15%

10. Deanna's Remaining son: 10%
11. Father Gabriel 5% (He is beyond useless on this show, but we must have at least one actor from The Wire in the cast.)
12. Tara's girlfriend the Doctor 3%. (I don't think they hired an actress of her quality just to get one extremely chaste kiss on the lips. Plus, she will have to treat whoever gets wounded tonight.)

Safe: Rick, Darryl, Carl, Michonne, Judith & Eugene. (Believe it or not Eugene becomes an important character over time.)

The one nice moment we are sure to get is Maggie being reunited with Glenn. Of course it will probably happen 10 seconds before Carol or someone else we care about dies.

The Rest of the Season:

The second half of the season will focus one new groups, It has been widely leaked that the character of Paul Monroe (aka "Jesus") will appear in the second half of the season. Last week Darryl ran afoul of Dwight, who in the comic books is part of the group known as "The Saviors". And the biggest leak of all is that the part of Negan has been cast for the season finale. 

So tonight's episode will probably leave Alexandria in a certain amount of chaos. The group may patch the fence and move back in but it seems likely that they will have to seek refuge elsewhere. I think it's possible that Enid has connections elsewhere, probably on Hilltop. 

But I'll speculate more on that sometime between now and February.  As frustrating as this show can be, it still keeps me hooked.  The premise is just that cool.