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.

Nothing Finale About It (The Walking Dead Season 6 Midseason Finale)

                                       This is a much better breakdown of TWD than I will ever write.

I am of two minds toward this episode. On the one hand, it a pretty tense and well-directed episode. The show runners also deserve some credit for tying something different this season.  Instead of using the Midseason finale to wrap up a bunch of loose ends they merely pushed the action forward and left almost everything in doubt.  But there are (at least) three significant problems with the episode.

A. Economy and Conservation of Characters.  This is probably a budgetary issue but I notice that as the seasons progress and the cast grows incrementally, they do not use some characters in episodes where they should be playing a significant role.  Last night's episode should have included Heath and Aaron, but they did not appear.  I guess the producers saved sizable checks in the process, but it does create some holes in the plot.  They are supposed to be good and trusted fighters, leaders of the new community. Presumably they were somewhere doing something to deal with this threat but we won't find out until February.

As for conservation of characters, I realize that the show is now committed to keeping the key characters alive for long enough that each of their deaths has meaning.  Previous midseason finales brought the deaths of Sophia, Oscar, Hershel & the Governor, & Beth respectively. I guess Deanna had more screen time and lines than Oscar ever got, but I actually felt more sadness when he died during the raid on Woodbury than when Deanna died last night.

B. The Wolf Fight Was Lame.
This is probably a direct result of the need to conserve characters but when Morgan knocked out Carol and then the Wolf knocked out Morgan, all I could think of was one of those lame WWE brawls where the referee lays around pretending to be unconscious while the bad guy gets away with some cheap shot on the good guy. And the Wolf's decision to no kill anyone rang false to, at least superficially. But there was one line in the scene that might be setting up something real.  (This will not justify why Tara, Rosita and Eugen stood staring at the door for several seconds instead of running to retrieve the 9MM and machete left lying on the floor next to Carol and Morgan.)

Going in to last night, I assumed that Carol or Morgan would not survive the episode. I know think they will both make it through this exchange and that the next story arc might involve Morgan bringing Carol back from the brink of insanity.  This would explain why they created the silly controversy over whether Morgan should stay or not. Even if he won't kill humans, he's a hell of a lot more useful than Father Gabriel, for instance. He will kill more than enough Walkers and train enough people in Akido to earn his gruel and shelter.

All of the social media response focused on how reckless Morgan was but I would argue that it was Carol who was being rash. There was no reason to have that fight during the siege. Carol knows she would have the support of the group to kill that Wolf after the hoard passes by. There's not much chance of him doing any damage in the interim.  She wasn't being cautious, she was being impetuous and Morgan merely stood by his principles.

C. This Whole Season is Rick's Fault.

I have to credit the Onion's AV Club for reminding me of this but the whole damn season's problems are Rick's fault. It was his stupid idea to lead the Walkers away from the quarry and slow march them 20 miles away. There were much smarter ways to deal with the problem.  Fire comes to mind, but even thinning the crowd with sniper fire makes more sense than trying to lead that entire herd up a two-lane highway for a day and a half.  And oh yeah, Rick ran back to Alexandria with a couple hundred Walkers on his heels.  Why the hell didn't he use the Guts trick earlier?  Or, as this Blog has argued earlier, make some effort to thin the herd at the walls with sling shots, rocks, arrows, etc.

Rick's biggest failure of leadership is to not implement all of the "Best Practices" he should have learned from other survivors. Alexandria should have Walker Pits, pikes outside the main gate, rats in wheeled cages, remote noise makers, and most importantly that sewer line that Aaron knows about should have been cleared out by now.  It's time to admit that Rick has balls but he's not very bright. Maybe Michonne needs to do more of the thinking going forward.  And that leads me to the good things about last night's episode.

1. Michonne finally has a story arc that doesn't involve killing people.
Michonne may be the most under-utilized character in the show.  Rewatching season three was almost painful to see how brooding she was for the first entire season. When they began to let her lighten up, she became much more likable but Deanna is right: she needs a purpose in life. I was really hoping that she and Rick would become a couple but they seem to have decided to avoid the Moonlighting Trap there.  So maybe Heath will be the lucky guy in the coming episodes. That's probably bad for his survival chances but it would be nice if Michonne got to show a softer side.

2. The Wolf May Do Something Human.

The Wolf tells Dr. Denise "you're what I like about people" just before taking her hostage.  I think this may be setting the stage for him to do something human. Maybe he will lead her through the hoard and decide to save her life at the last second.  He seemed to like her and maybe the hour spent listening to Morgan's story did some good.  I don't know why, but I think this story will end heroically.

3. The Saviors Will Amp Things Up.
The best scene last night was not part of the episode. The 2 minute prologue of episode nine set up what happens next to Darryl, Abraham and Sasha.  They are pulled over by a gaggle of nine bikers who demand possession of their weapons as a tax for Negan.

So far the best bad guys have not lasted very long. Shane was only really bad for one episode. Gareth was in three episodes. Joe's group was in two.  Only the Governor got a full season and a half of story time. And he was written so inconsistently that those episodes do not hold up well in hindsight. Negan seems likely to be a better villain, because he will be both ruthless and rational.

The exchange with Darryl, Abraham and Sasha is telling. Those bikers are bad ass, but they are more toll collectors than headhunters. It's pretty clear however that the penalty for not paying the tax is very heavy.

Predictions:

I don't know how the interaction will go but there's no way Darryl, Abraham and Sasha go without a fight. And there's no way that Darryl doesn' end up riding one of those bikes back to Alexandria. Maybe that's the trade off for giving up the truck and their weapons.

Consider the language used by the other saviors in Chapter six. The Saviors may be a mafia, but that implies a certain amount of exchange. Protection for extortion money. Of course the nitty gritty is much dirtier than that, but I don't think Negan's goal is to kill everyone in his way. He would rather tax them and benefit from their labor.  That has real potential to feed even better story lines. I can't wait to see how The Walking Dead screws it up.

More Specific.

- Glenn and Enid will be instrumental in saving the day. Glenn and Maggie will adopt her.
- Abraham will either die in Episode 9 or Episode 16.
- One but not both of Jesse's idiot sons will die in episode 9.
- Father Gabriel will do something heroic in episode 9, perhaps to save Judith.
- Rosita will not survive season six.
- There will be a point in the second half of the season where love is all around us. Rick and Jesse, Michonne & Heath, Glen & Maggie of course, Carl and Enid, maybe Carol and Morgan.  At some point the group is going to commit to living, and that means loving. Then it will all go to shit.

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.

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%)

Scattered Thoughts on a Jumbled Narrative: Walking Dead Season 5 Midseason Finale Predictions

The Comic-Con Pre-season Trailer, discussed throughout this blog in Italics.

Last week's episode was pretty pedestrian.  The previous three episodes focused on just one subgroup of the Survivor's-Beth in the hospital, Glenn and Maggie with Abraham's trio, and then Darryl and Carol's big adventure in Atlanta.  Last week they gave significant screen time to those three sub-groups as well as a 4th story involving Father Gabriel at the church.  The result was a narrative felt that felt rushed and only one truly suspenseful sequence.

More problematic than the distribution of screen time was the rather large story plot that involved Sasha getting duped into doing something incredibly stupid.  I just didn't buy that she would be that gullible.  But this was the device they chose to set up some suspense for tonight's midseason finale. I have also re-watched the pre-season coming attractions for clips that we haven't seen yet.  Discussion of such clips are in italics below, with the time stamp of where the scene can be found.

It's hard to intelligently predict what will happen tonight because the episode ended in a bit of a jumbled mess.  The clips on AMCTV.com are also unhelpful for making predictions about the whole story because the lengthy clip focuses on Father Gabriel. The description that AMC posted for the episode is "Rules and Morals have been tossed aside by new enemies. Rick will try to find a  peaceful agreement, but they might prefer violence." That's about as opaque as you would expect but there's at least one hint in there that's worth speculating about.  (See Below.)

1.  Father Gabriel, man about town.

Last week we watched Father Gabriel leave the church without a weapon. He duly ran afoul of a walker, who he was able to neutralize without having to kill.  The preview shows him making his way back to the school where the Termites were camped out when they took Bob captive.  He discovers Bob's charred leg on their abandoned grill.  I would be very surprised if he died tonight, becau he's played by a fairly famous actor, by TWD standards, and the audience has no emotional investment in him yet.  That means they spent money to get him and they're not going to waste him after a handful of scenes.  So he'll probably make his way back to the church and slip back through the crawl space.  Most likely he'll have to kill a walker while he's out there though. That will be his big emotional moment.  And that's just not very interesting so I hope they don't waste a lot of time on that.

2. Abraham and Company, Where to?

The worst story line last week was the one focusing on Abraham's group.  The obvious thing for them to do would have been to head back to the church.  The bit about waiting for Eugene to wake up before moving seemed forced, especially in light of the fact that they were within nose range of a colossal Walker herd.  And the only thing we learned about this group is that Tara is still capable of  joy because she found a yo-yo.  That's a small point but given that I often wish they would let the survivors have a little more fun, I was happy to see it made.  I think Gleen, Tara and Rosita might just be the three mentally healthiest characters left so it was good to see them off on a harmless jaunt to the creek.

What happens next?  The logical thing would be for them to get back on the road and head back towards the church. But I don't think that's going to happen. The only clip in the coming attractions of this group shows Maggie and Glenn in the back seat of what appears to be the Fire Truck.  Glenn has his gun drawn and Maggie looks scared. That doesn't tell us much other than the group runs into some kind of trouble.  One online theory is that Eugene actually died last week and turned to a Walker. I don't buy it, although I do think the show runners left that possibility open on purpose when they had Eugene moan in that awkward way as he regained consciousness.

My hunch is that this group will not meet back up with the church folks or the team in Atlanta.  I think the separation will continue into the 2nd half of the next season, perhaps with Team Glenn heading north for some convoluted reason. Maybe they get caught and/or distracted by a new group of survivors.

A very brief shot at 1:14 of the previews appears to show Glenn and some other characters approaching the giant herd of walkers that their fire truck is now close to.  It's hard to say for sure but I think the figures in the back ground include Glenn, Tara, Eugene, Maggie and Rosita. Two figures are impossible to identify but they could be Abraham and Rosita. They are walking on foot and the fire truck can not be seen. The herd seems to be behind some kind of fence so this might not be the herd that they smelled two weeks ago.

3. Michonne, Carl and Judith: On the sidelines.
One of the strangest points about the story unfolding thithats way is that it will apparently leave Michonne far from the action in a cliff-hanger episode. Maybe she discovers that Gabriel left the church and goes out to find him.  One hellacious possibility is that Rick and Judith will then be caught unawares by walker and Judith will end up dead.  I really hope they don't go for that because I think Judith is the heaviest emotional card that the show has left to play.  It would be a wasted to do it this soon and way too depressing.

At 1:15 of the coming attractions, Michonne is stomping on a walker.  I don't think we have seen this yet and it looks like it might happen near the church, perhaps after she sets out to find Father Gabriel.

4. Team Rick: heading for a fight.
I just watched the previews scenes slowly and learned a few things.  When Rick is shown introducing himself to (presumably) Dawn, Darryl is shown up on the roof of a nearby parking garage. I thought last week that he was with Noah but the pause button makes clear (about 28 seconds in) that it is Sasha.  Another clip appears to show Rick asking Sgt. Bob "Do you want to live." It looks like this scene takes place in the same building where Sasha was left guarding the three police officers.

This would imply that Rick heads back to that building.  Maybe they heard the tumult of Sasha being knocked out. Or maybe the cops get out of that place and confront Rick before he makes it to the hospital and a fight ensues.  I'm starting to think that the "main" story line tonight might be even more convuluted than last week.  Some of the rumors I've read online imply that tonight ends with a cliff hanger, just like last season did.  We might get another spectacular start to a half-season in February. (AMC has probably figured out that big starts lead to big ratings for several weeks after.)
So I think tonight's episode will end with Rick and Dawn in a standoff.  The biggest question is, who might die in the interim.


5. Carol and Beth: Darryl's Not-girlfriends.
Probably the biggest source of speculation on tonight's episode has been Norman Reedus' declaration that he cried for a half hour before filming tonight's episode.  The simplest reading of that is that Norman knows one of Darryl's good friends will die tonight.  Of course Norman could have been crying because of the loss of an actor that he admires.  And he could be exaggerating and he could be trying to drum up interest in the episode.  But precedent suggests that someone important has to die tonight, and Beth and Carol both seem like prime contenders.

I don't think Beth will die.  Two entire episodes have been dedicated to her story and I think she's supposed to be reunited with Maggie at some point.  They also have potential for a nice story line of her and Noah becoming a couple.  There is one clip (2:46) of her looking down an hospital elevator shaft. Another flash in last week's sneak preview showed her in a similar position. I think she lives tonight and I still am going with my theory that Dawn is somehow redeemed.

Carol is a closer call.  The driving tension of tonight's episode is that Rick will negotiate for the safe return of Carol and Beth.  When last we saw Carol she was still unconscious and being kept alive by an IV drip administered by Beth.  Dawn could use this as an excuse to not turn Carol over. "Why should we give you her if only we can take care o her?"  One popular theory is that Beth will die doing something heroic to save Carol.  I think it's more likely Carol will have a miraculous recovery, only to die in a horribly Walking Dead fashion.  Thinks about the guilt consequence for Rick, Beth and Darryl.  That could really drive some emotional baggage for a season and a half to come.

6. Death Predictions.
There is no single logical candidate for death tonight. But I think the most likely sympathetic character death is Carol.  Beth and/or Noah seem like possible deaths also.  Tyrese would be a logical candidate but I don't think they have hinted at that enough. The bald asshole from last week are most likely to die. I think either Dawn or Sgt. Bob will die tonight, and my hunch is Sgt. Bob.

7. Wild Card: Is Sasha Pregnant?
Sonequa Martin was a guest on The Talking Dead last week and revealed that she was eight months pregnant.  I'm not exactly sure of the shooting schedule but it would seem likely that this will become visible by the end of the season.  A convenient way to avoid that is to kill Sasha off. But there are dangers there for at TV show.  Huntery Tylo successfully sued the producers of Merose Place for $5 million dollars when they made a similar decision.

Now I have no reason to think that Sasha was going to be killed, but it would be reasonable for TWD to want to incorporate her pregnancy into the storyline.  Consider that Bob tried to kiss Sasha towards the end of Season Three and was rebuffed.  On that night episode of the Talking Dead, Ms. Green explained that Sasha appreciated the kiss as a gesture but made clear that she had no romantic interest in Bob.

Well something changed her mind.  Maybe the writers decided that it would be better to incorporate the pregnancy into the story line than to try to hide it for a half-season.  Babies certainly create tension and hope.  Tyrese's roll as Judith's primary caretaker takes on new significance if he's about to become an uncle to a child with a dead father.

Sasha being pregnant also repeats the story line of Lori Grimes getting pregnant in Season 2.  (Or One, if in fact Shane is Judith's real father.)  That story line put added incentive on finding a safe, stable place to live, the prison.  It is anticipated that the next major location for the show will be the Alexandria Safe Zone, a spot that has been one of the main locations of the comic book story line for the last several years.

So we may not learn this tonight, but my biggest prediction is that Sasha is pregnant, Bob is the father, and the two major groups will eventually meet up in Alexandria.  Rick and company after all have no idea that Eugene was full of shit. (They would probably pass the overturned church bus on their way north, but I think the producers are more than willing to overlook a detail like that.)

I will miss the show for the winter break.  It's a frustrating show but I've never enjoyed speculating about the plot of any show as much as I do this one.

8. Bonus Prediction: No Morgan Tonight.

Okay, the episode is about to start but I wanted to add a prediction that we will NOT see Morgan tonight but that he will be a major part of the second half of the season.  I'm still intrigued by the clip we saw of him after the credits of the season premiere.  He is in the area near Terminus and he notices an intricate carving in one of the trees.  I think that's a flash forward and we'll know before we see that scene pickup what the significance of the carving is.  The Hunters made a crude mark while tracking Rick's group but this is something much more involved. I suspect it's the sign of a group like Nagin's or some other new bunch of survivors. Okay. It's showtime!

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