Eenie Meenie Miney Blow (TWD Season Six Finale Reaction)

First of all, I hate this gimmick.  It's an insult to the audience. Who shot J.R. was a great gimmick. That was 30 years ago.  Now we expect a story to be told.  And who the hell wants to spend the summer watching trailers of Father Gabriel talking to Spencer. There are three huge problems with this cliff-hanger. One is that it's absurd to think that Negan could resp ond to the loss of 50 of his men by only killing one person.  Secondly, people will leak who was spotted on the set during the summer. And the biggest problem is that  by process of elimination, there's not a lot of suspense in who Negan picked.

My premise is simple. Negan needs to show the group and the audience that he is a bad ass. That leaves women and children out.  So Carl, Maggie, Michonne, Sasha and Rosita are out. That leaves six possibilities.  Eugene and Aaron just don't look that scary so I'll leave them out.  That leaves 4 possibilities:


1.  Rick.  He is safe. Not because he's the lead character but because if I'm Negan, I absolutely want this imbecile to be in charge of  my biggest threat.  I thought he was dumb all season but tonight he really outdid himself. He managed to look genuinely surprised that the Saviors kept turning up at all the dead ends.  And then he really seemed to think he could carry Maggie through those woods without getting caught.  Dumbass.

2.  Darryl.  Also safe. AMC gave him a reality show which is probably there way to pay him what he's worth to the network while locking down the female demographic over the summer.

3.  Glenn.  Well if they were going to repeat the comic story, then they probably would have told us that tonight.

4. Abraham.  He looks and is tough. He was present for almost all of the Savior deaths and he puffed out his chest as if to volunteer for the task.  The death of any of the other three characters would have been a big deal.  People would have talked about it more than the cliffhanger. Abraham? Not so much.

So I think Abraham is the victim.  But don't worry about waiting six months to find out.  Someone will spot him with or without that mustache by then.  Which is why this cliff hanger was dumb.

Another Complaint.

The Morgan and Carol story line was not well managed this season.  Tonight it became obvious that they were building to put Morgan in a situation where he has to kill someone.  It was a cop out to make the choice so simple.  Of course he shot the man who was about to shoot an innocent woman laying on the floor defenseless.  If they wanted to make this a bigger deal for Morgan, they should have made it a closer call. Even Eastman the cheesemaker told Morgan that he would not let Morgan kill him.  So yes, killing to prevent a different killing is moral. That's the first day of Intro to Moral philosophy. This show really should be more complex by now.

One Silver Lining.

But first, one more complaint. ;-)  Think about the last 2 episodes.  What was advanced in terms of story?  I guess Carol and Morgan had some resolution. But apart from that all we built up to was seeing Negan. Everyone knew that Negan was coming. So this was 2 and a half hours of air time to tell us nothing we didn't already know.

But what an entrance! Jeffrey Dean Morgan was great.  Ten minutes of monologue building to a bullshit cliffhanger.  But he kept it all fresh, fascinating and terrifying.  This peace of casting might even be the makeup we need for the Governor.  So as mad as I am by the finale, I'm already looking forward to Season Seven.  So my protests are meaningless in the marketplace.

Early Thoughts on Season 7.

The creators have put themselves in a bind for how to promote this season.  I think Morgan and Carol will wing up in a place called the Kingdom which will probably take up an episode or two but it's hard to say for sure what the central conflict will be.   I think the season will be political.  Rick will be plotting a war to kill Negan but he won't have the manpower to make that happen. Maggie and Michonne will be instrumental in that political process, as will Jesus and the people at the Kingdom.

But I really hope we get some good deaths. It's crazy that we went an entire season without losing anyone that we really care about. Doctor Denise had potential but she didn't get to make much of an impression. I could care less about Jesse and her idiot children.

So next year I'm hoping there's death and a tiger.   Google it.

No, Really, what was conquered? (Immediate reaction to The Walking Dead Season 5 Finale)

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.

Conquer what, exactly?

One of my criticisms of The Walking Dead has been its predictability. But I don't think tonight's Season 5 Finale has been telegraphed at all. For one thing, the title is "Conquer" and it doesn't get more vague than that. The last several episodes have had one word titles taken from something that Dale said all the way back in Season 1, episode 4,when explaining why he still kept time on his watch. The words in bold have each been the title of  a recent episode.

• ‘I give you a mausoleum of all hope and desire which will fit your individual needs, no better than it did mine and my father before me. I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you may forget it. For a moment, now and then, and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it.’

So what is to be conquered tonight? Alexandria? The Dianna Regime?  Time Itself  I really don't know.

 I have expected for a long time that this season would end with relative calm in order to set up a time skip for this off-season. And there isn't an obvious conflict to resolve tonight but it is a 90 minute episode and we do know about a few loose ends that need to be tied up. I think if you put them all together, you can get a good idea of what we're in store for.

1. Rick's Punishment.  Last week ended with Michonne punching Rick's lights out. We know from the previews that Deanna convenes a meeting to discuss what to do with him.  There is a shot of him in a small room that look like it was set up to confine him.  Of course the Alexandrians are going to be inclined to punish him but Dianna's made clear that killing him is not an option. And they're not about to exile the father of a teenager and a baby. We've already heard Deanna's husband rave about how many great things Rick's group said about him.  So they'll probably come up with some ham-handed BS punishment that involves him not being a constable and being put on some petty work detail.  But then....

2. Darryl and Aaron are in Danger and the Wolves are Not Far. Throughout this half-season we have seen a number of Walkers with a "W" carved into their forehead.  A screen shot from Episode 9 shows grafitti in Noah's neighborhood that refers to "Wolves Not Far".  This is probably a reference to a group of bad guys, although no such group exists by that name in the comic books.  Last week we saw Darryl and Aaron come across a couple horribly mutilated people and they saw in the distance the light from a camp fire.  So that's probably the antagonist for tonight.

3. Morgan.  One very clever detail from last week is that the one of bodies Aaron and Darryl came across seemed to match Morgan.  The hand was about the right coloration and it featured a wedding ring like the one worn by Morgan back in Season one.  The clothing also matches the sneak peaks we've seen of Morgan as this season went along.  This has naturally led to some speculation that Morgan is dead and maybe we will see his demise in a flashback of some kind.  I don't think that's right.  I think that was a purposeful misdirect by Nicotero's crew.  They like to have fun like that.

Morgan is the most popular character on the show after Darryl and possibly Michonne.  His return has been hyped since the season opener and I'm actually impressed that they have waited this long to bring him back to the story. They're not going to waste him on a one-off flashback of a death at the hands of bad guys we have never met.

So this is how I think everything gets tied together tonight: Rick gets put in the penalty box.  But then Aaron and/or Darry run afoul of these new bad guys.  My hunch is they have Darryl hostage but Aaron makes it back to Alexandria and wants to raise a posse.  Having been away when Rick went ape-shit on Pete, he will insist on Rick coming. Rick of course will jump at the chance and everyone else form our group (with the possible exception of Michhone) will want him to lead the mission.

He will.  But things will still be hairy. And the group will need saving.  That's where Morgan comes into play, earning hero status and joining our group in Alexandria for good.  All of which leads to the inevitable question about a season finale of The Walking Dead....

Who Will Die?

The Walking Dead's willingness to kill popular and important characters has become its trademark.  When the plot meanders, they usually justify it by killing someone like Tyrese.  And it's a pretty standard part of every season and mid-season finale although the season 4 finale was an exception to this rule.  Season 5 started with a lot of dead weight in the group and they have not been shy about shedding those folks this season.  I still think they have one more big death to go and here's who I think are the likely candidates.


a.  Carol. Her sweet-talking in public, threatening innocent people in private act is a time bomb.  I think someone will see through it tonight and she'll pay a price for her bullshit. Death Chances: 70%

b.  Dianna.  If the danger comes inside the walls, I think Dianna is on the short list of people to be killed.  After all, we need Rick to be the undipsuted Alpha character, right?  (65%)

c. Glenn.  All season long I have thought that Maggie or Gleen would die this year. Glenn seems to be in more danger, having punched that D-bag who stole Ricck's 9MM from the blender outside the gate. (50%)

d. That D-bag Who Stole Rick's 9MM from the Blender.  We need to have a kill to root for. He's the obvious choice.  (50%)

e. Pete See above (45%)

e. Tara.  She's not doing well and her friends are busy threatening the only doctor who can help her.  (40%)

f. Sam.  The story probably doesn't need another kid to slow the story down. But they can always re-cast another actor if they do in fact do a time-skp after this season (35%)

g. Enid.  It's probably better for her survival chances that Carl didn't actually kiss her last week. But she still could become a poignant symbol of Carl's suffering.  (33%)

h. Gabriel.  It's bad enough that the Walking Dead killed off Cutty and DeAngelo this year but is there any worse indignity for fans of The Wire than to make Carver a snitch?  (30%)

i.  Abraham.  Earlier in the season there were some ominous signs about Abraham but lately he seems to have settled in to his expected role as a bad ass and a 2nd tier leader. (20%)

j. Maggie.  I don't think they've set this up right, so I'm leaning against it.  More likely she lives to either Mourn and/or take over the administrative duties from Deanna in a new Rickatorship. (10%)

k. Darryl Okay. This is the big one.  Nothing would hurt the show more than his death. But there's always the chance that Norman Reedus over played his hand in contract negotiations.  I think it's unlikely but if they want to go out with a bang, this is the way to go.  (1%)