Oh yeah...Zombies (The Walking Dead Season Six Finale.)

I used to post about The Walking Dead with some frequency.  I still watch and enjoy the show but I haven't taken the tie to write a post since November when only a few hours of the current season had aired. That post was called "All Tactics, No Strategy" and lamented the short-sighted nature of Rick's leadership.  This season has done nothing to change my mind on that point.

I'm writing this with just over one hour to go before the season six finale begins. This episode is the most highly anticipated because it is expected to mirror the events of the 100th episode of the Comic Book.  (Comic Spoilers ahead....)  In that issue, Negan arrives and beats Glenn to death with a baseball bat.  Ever since Glenn's bogus near-death experience in the beginning of this season a lot of folks have wondered if the TV show would match that story line exactly.  It certainly might.  But I hope it doesn't because I have come to conclude that for the good of the group, and the show, Rick should die tonight.

Let me state upfront that I think this is very unlikely.  The show is still a hero's journey and Rick is the hero.  He is who we met in the first cold open. This is a Western and he is the sheriff.  Killing him would be a monumental leap of storytelling that probably means the actor made unreasonable salary demands to go forward.  But if they go this route, then our merry band of survivors will be better off.

This season has been entertaining.  The production values are still remarkable for a cable TV show and the acting is fine even when the writing is uneven.  But this is the first season where it felt like the producers were hoarding the characters we care about.  No one of importance has died.  (Sorry Jesse and Dr. Denise, but you know it's true. The coolest character to die was probably the leader of the Wolves and I wouldn't put him in the Top 25 of characters the show has given us.)

So tonight they either go big or leave the audience feeling gypped. I think one of 4 major characters has to die tonight or else the show will feel lost its ability to make us feel like everyone is vulnerable. Those 4 characters are the only adults left from the first season: Rick, Darryl, Carol and Glenn. I will consider each in turn.

1.  Rick is an imbecile.  Don't believe me?  Let's review ever decision he has made since smoking the cannibals in Father Gabriel's church.

a.  Treat the Alexandrians like idiots.  What did that gain anyone?
b.  Lead 30,000 Walkers past the gates of Alexandria on foot.  What could possibly go wrong?
c.  Decide to walk a baby through a giant herd of zombies only to remember halfway through that babies cry.  How did that work out for Jesse?
d.  Kill 50 of Negna's men in return for a few weeks of rations from the Hilltop.
e.  Kill the guy claiming to be Negan before Carol and Maggie can tell him that the guy is lying. Gee, maybe that guy had some valuable intel on the Saviors.  But we'll never know, will we?
f.  Lounge around eating apples while bragging about how easy it will be to kill whoever is left of the group you have violently attacked on three separate occasions.
g.  Let 7 of your best fighters go chase Carol while Negan is preparing to storm your gates.  Tonight we'll find out just how expensive that stupidity was.

2.  Darryl would hurt the show too much.  If he dies it is because the actor got tired of the terrible plot lines and I will wish him well.   Also, the ratings will drop like a rock next season.

3. Carol is the obvious favorite of the writers. She is the best actress in the company and her story line has been compelling.  I think she escaped for a reason last week and I don't expect her to return in time to save anyone tonight.  We'll see her, but it will be next year and I think her story will take a big new turn that we don't see coming.

4.  Glenn.  Well, they are relying on the Comic Books more and more.  He is a fan favorite and his death would shock the audience, even those who expect it to come.  It is the safe choice in some ways but I think he will leave a hole in the show that won't be easily plugged.

One long shot possibility is killing Michonne or Maggie.  The audience cares enough about them but I don't think either character is ready to go.  The cruel thing to do to Maggie would be to kill Glenn and have her miscarry.  That seems to cruel.  Little Herschel ought to be here next year.

Death Probabilities tonight:  Glenn 60%, Darryl 25%, Rick 10%, Carol 3%.  Maggie & Michoone 1% each

Minor Deaths.

I think we'll get at least one B player death tonight.  Abraham would be the obvious choice. (In the comics he died 2 issues before tonight.)  Tara and/or Heath might get killed.  (Apparently the actor who plays Heath is on a different show starting this fall.)   Rosita, Sasha and Aaron would all be losses worth mentioning.

They will probably throw in a 3rd rate player too.  Tobin, Spencer, etc.  Someone that people will say "Oh that guy too, huh?"  Look for this in the 2nd act.


Scoreboard.
The biggest storytelling challenge is to make Negan the bad guy.  Consider the death toll so far:

Darryl killed 9 guys with the grenade launcher. Rick murdered 25 people in their sleep at the satellite compound.  Carol and Maggie killed 4 more at the slaughterhouse, then lured another 10 to join them in death. And Darryl, Abraham and Rosita killed at least 2 more by the rail road tracks.  That's 50 dead against only poor Doctor Denise.

Negan's going to have to make quite an impression tonight to make us feel bad about whatever it is he does to Rick's group.  Maybe killing Rick is the wrong way to go, thematically.  After all, Rick deserves to die.

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.

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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The Walking Dead: 2 Episodes to Go

Season 5 of the Walking Dead has inverted the arc of all its previous seasons.  It started with a large scale battle which spilled over into the next two seasons.  And then the story meandered through three consecutive episodes that did not feature Rick Grimes at all. First we found out that Beth has been kept in a hospital since she was separated from Darryl. Then we followed Glenn and Maggie tagging along with Eugene's group on an aborted trip towards DC.  Last week found Darryl and Carol attempting to spring Beth from the hospital.  Now with two episodes left, it appears ready to revert to form with a two-part siege of the hospital.  But I think the show might surprise again by doing something slightly different.

We know from the preview clips that we will see all three group's for at least some time tonight.  One clip shows Rick plotting some kind of attack on the hospital with Darryl and a few others.  Another clip shows Michonne, Carl, Father Gabriel (and presumably Judith) sitting around the church. That would be a logical group for Rick to leave behind at the church.  He wouldn't want his kids to come and he doesn't yet trust Gabriel enough to leave him in charge of the kids.  Another clip shows Glenn looking out on the horizon as if trying to decide where to go.

What We Can Glean From All the Hints?

1. Tonight's episode is called "Crossed".  That could be a reference to the crosses on the cars used by the police who run the hospital or to the Church itself but it probably also stands for a story point involving two groups crossing one another.  Maybe Glenn's team makes their way back to the church and meet up with  A more intriguing possibility is Morgan crossing paths with Rick (and perhaps others) for the first time this season.  I do expect to see Morgan either tonight or next week but there's nothing firm to go on there.

2. Michonne is left behind at the church.  The most logical candidate to stay behind and keep an eye on the children would be Tyrese. He's a lousy shot and has a deep bond with Judith.  Rick also can trust him implicitly given how much he sacrificed to keep Judith alive. But Tyrese is probably worried about Sasha who is still grieving the loss of Bob.  I think we might see Tyrese insisting to go along on the raid.  Michonne then becomes the logical choice. She's responsible and tough and has bonded a lot with Rick.  I think another dynamic may be developing here.  I think that Rick and Michonne will eventually become a couple. I think it will be a great story line and it was set up in one beautifully flirtatious line from way back in the scene from the season three finale which is shown at the top of this page.

3. I Think Dawn Will Survive the Conflict.  It would have been pretty easy to make Dawn a purely evil character but the writers made an effort to show that her situation is a little more complicated. Noah specifically speaks up with  her (to a point) when speaking to Beth. One common online theory is that Rick and Dawn knew each other form law enforcement circles before the apocalypse. That strikes me as a little too much of a coincidence but I think that Rick may end up making peace with her.

4.  Next Week's Episode is Called "Coda". If you're about my age or older, you probably associate that word with Led Zeppelin's last album, which was released after John Bonham's death and included mostly out takes and garbabe.  Dictionary.com tells us that a coda is a "more or less independent passages, at the end of a composition, introduced to bring it to a satisfactory close." (Think: Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits!)

If the mid-season finale is truly a coda that would mean that most of the action is wrapped up tonight.  But the description for that episode is New enemies disregard rules and morals. "Although Rick wants to find a peaceful agreement, the enemy seems to prefer a more violent solution." That seems to describe a stand off where Rick is trying to negotiate for the release of Beth and Carol but the cops insist on a conflagration.

So here's my official prediction/hunch for the next 2 episodes.  Rick and company head to Atlanta tonight.  Tonight's episode ends with a cliff hanger. Then next week we have a confrontation between the groups in Atlanta.  Meanwhile Glenn/Abraham go back to the church and are told about what's going on.  But I think Episode 8 will not end with a huge fight.  I think it will end with a cliffhanger and/or an unexpected character death.  This is keeping with the reverse structure of this season, and would allow the 2nd half to kick off with a big bang.

But for once I don't feel like the show is leading to a blindingly obvious course.  And that's a really good sign for the show's future.

One Last Point on Chronology.

The time lines of the three groups seem to be synching up.  This is my best estimation of how time has passed the last few weeks. If my timeline is correct, this whole half of a season covers about a week of time.

Day one: Darryl and Carol take off after the car; Bob is taken prisoner.
Day two: The Hunters try to take the church, Rick et al kill them; Darryl and Carol run afoul of Noah in Atlanta.
Day three: Abraham leads Team B north to DC; Darryl returns to the church with Noah.
Day four: Abraham finds out that Eugene is lying; Rick, Darryl, Noah, Sasha and Tyrese leave for Atlanta.
Day five: Maggie/Glenn/Abraham, etc. return to the church, then head to Atlanta.
Day six: confrontation at the hospital.

The Walking Dead: Choosing up Sides, Again.

 (Spoilers abound, if you have not seen Season 5, Episode 3: Four Walls and a Roof.)

Here's a first for this blog: a bible passage!  As Gareth and the termites were looking for the survivors in the church, the readings for the next week were plainly visible.  One of them was Luke 24:5.  The text of that passage is: "And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead?". 

So that was no accident.  And it's a sign that the writers are paying attention to the details of story telling rather than just relying on the zombie action to move the narrative forward.

Tonight's episode of the Walking Dead was especially strong. For once, they let our people be genuinely smart and they paid off on Rick's "promise" to Gareth from the season premiere.  It also ended on an appropriate mysterious note.  I also officially admire the show runners for making the season 5 premiere so deceptive. (Watch the above video from about :48 to 1:04 to see what I mean.) This gambit created genuine suspense in tonight's episode.  Well done.

The writers did cheat once in this episode.  I'm not sure it was really realistic for Abraham to split from Rick's group as quickly as they did, but splitting the group in two does make it easier to write complex and overlapping episodes going forward.  It's safe to say that the groups will meet up again, but it's almost certain that we'll lose at least one character from each side before that happens.

Here are the two rosters. The numbers match their ranking in my previous post, which was based on how much I would miss these characters if they died.

A-Team: The Ricktatorship                         B-Team:  The Small Bus to D.C.
1. Rick                                                            6.  Maggie
2. Darryl                                                         7.  Glenn
3. Judith                                                        11. Rosita
4. Carl                                                           17. Abraham
5. Michonne                                                  18. Tara
8. Tyrese (40%).                                           19. Eugene
13. Sasha
15. Father Gabriel

Well, the A Team is the A Team for a reason. They have the best leadership.  I would want Darryl, Rick and Michonne on my team before anyone from B-Team and Tyres and Sasha are also great survivors.  Even Carl is pretty useful, and getting smarter all the time.  Father Gabriel and Judith don't bring much to the fight, but neither does Eugene.

I assume that Abraham will act like the B-Team captain.  But we all know Maggie and Glenn are infinitely smarter than him and every bit as brave.  Abraham is a great NCO, but I suspect he's not cut out for major command. If this was my unit, I would hang Captain's bars on Maggie and let the rest of the team do their part to not screw things up.

There are some pieces missing from this chess board. Four, by my count:

C Team: The Wild Cards.
10. Morgan
14. Beth
16. Carol
20. Morales

Tonight's curtain line was Darryl saying "Come on out" to someone that we could not see.  Forty eight hours have passed since he and Carol got in that car to chase after the car that Darryl recognized as the one driven by Beth's abductors.  We know from the coming previews that next week's episode will show us that Beth is in some kind of hospital in downtown Atlanta.  I suspect that a lot of the clips we see will be from the weeks or months between Beth's kidnapping and the events at the church.  But I don't think the entire episode will be in that hospital. (Maybe I'm giving the writers too much credit here, but I hope they learned from the fan response to last year's Governor only episodes and the episode about how Darryl doesn't kiss Beth.)

I don't think Darryl is with Carol because his voice is very curt towards whoever it is that's behind him in the woods.  I don't think we will see Morgan just yet, as we know he comes to the vicinity of Terminus by himself.  So Darryl is probably with someone new.  There have been rumors that Morales might return to the show this year.  The actor who plays Morales stoked these rumors by posting some photos on social media that seemed to imply he was back on set.  Maybe he headed towards Atlanta after things went bad for him in Birmingham.  Darryl would have remembered him, so maybe that will be him stepping out to join.

Which still Begs the question: what happened to Carol. Obviously that story closely relates to Beth's whereabouts since she was last seen pursing her kidnappers. Darryl's company, whether it's Morales or someone else will probably know where Beth is. Those stories could connect in a big way and we probably will have  a feel for what the rest of this half of the season will be like after next week.  But here's my stab at what Primary and Secondary stories of the next 5 episodes will be.


The Coming Episodes, Predictions.

Episode 4 ("Slabtown") :   I want this episode to be equal parts Beth in the hospital and What Happened to Carol and Darryl.  But the title seems to refer to the hospital where Beth has been taken. My hunch is that 90% of the episode will be about Beth but I hope we at least get a few minutes at the end to show us who is with Darryl.  Maybe just a quick scene to establish that they have to go to Atlanta to find her.

Episode 5 ("The Choice"):   Rick and the A-Team set out to find and/or free Beth.  Maggie and the B-Team meander Northward, get hit by walkers and someone dies. I suspect "the choice" refers to either the A-team deciding whether to go after Beth or Team B having to choose whether to press on to DC or accept some sort of diversion, like helping a newly discovered group of suvivors.

Episode 6 ("Heart Drift"):   Resolution, one way or the other, of Beth's story and more complications for Team B on the Road to DC.  Whose heart could be drifting?  I really hope this isn't about Darryl being torn between Beth and Carol but no other options come to mind.

Episode 7 ("Crossed")  Well the title opens a few possibilities.  The Cross could refer to the cross on the back of the car that Darry and Carol chased after, but I think it more likely refers to the A and B teams crossing paths. (A phrase that was used by Gareth tonight.)  So I assume the teams will meet up, mourn their respective losses and then head north.

Episode 8: As Yet Untitled:  Arrival at the Alexandria Free Zone.  The Alexandria Free Zone is a major part of the story in the comics.  It is essentially several blocks of Alexandria, Virginia that have been made safe by a group of about 30 survivors.  That sounds pretty similar to Woodbury in the comic book, so they might want to mix things up somehow.  (In the comics Woodbury was never idyllic and the Governor was known to be a bad guy from the beginning.)

I suspect this half-season might just end on a relatively peaceful note.  It could end up looking like a mirror image of the first half of season 4, beginning with action and ending with Rick's people in a seemingly stable environment.  Of course, I think they will at least hint at the next big villain or challenge.  My other hunch is that this will be the episode where we learn that Eugene and his "cure" are a crock.

Uber-nerd alert: An almost frame-by-frame look back at the season 5 preview.
I just re-watched the Season 5 Preview, with frequent use of the pause button.  The only things that we haven't seen yet, with time mark are:

A-Team:
a. Carol and Darryl standing in the woods, weapons at the ready. (2:04)  Probably from the episode where we learn what happened to them after they took off in that car.
b. Rick, Michonne, and Sasha enter some kind of store or wardrobe room. (2:20)

B-Team:
a. Glenn kills a walker by the side of the road (1:49)
b. Abraham decapitates a walker with a baseball bat in front of a fire house (1:55);
c. Abraham crying in anguish at a roadside (2:03).  So someone from B-team catches one.
d. Abraham, Rosita and Glenn stand by the cab of a truck as the walkers exit that fire house (2:10)
e.  5. The church bus goes airborne over what appears to be a parked car.  (2:14).  This one has the look of Eugene screwed up again.

C-Team:
The last 30 seconds show Beth in the hospital, some of which we saw in the previews of next week's episode.   At 2:45 we see her apparently looking for an escape route. We then see either a walker or a female inmate/patient biting a guard.  Then we see Beth shoot a walker in the face with a hand gun.  At 2:50 she is shown running away from the building in her hosptial gown.  A male inmate/patient is standing behind her but doesn't look to be running.

Indeterminate:
i. Carl and Roista pointing guns at someone in an office.  (2:14)  This could be an outtake from tonight's episode.  The office looks similar to Gabriel's.  Or maybe they wind up in another office after the teams cross paths again.
ii.  A bus (but I don't think it's the church short bus) goes off of a bridge in downtown Atlanta. (2:23) This is probably from when they spring Beth out of the hospital.

Walking Dead Season 5 Preview (one episode late)

Last week's season 5 premiere of The Walking Dead was definitely the most action-packed premier in the history of the show.  I was very satisfied with the action and with the character development.  One thing that stuck out to me is how little dialogue our main characters had in the episode.

The most obvious difference between this and the previous seasons is that it (apparently) won't be be focused on a single location.  Season one took place primarily in the Quarry, two on the farm, three in the jail.  Season four was split between the first half in the prison and the 2nd half on the road to Terminus. Season five will apparently also be spent primarily on the road but it's not clear where they will head.  (Presumably they will eventually try to make it to D.C. in pursuit of Eugene's cure.)

The trap that the show has painted itself into is that the survivors seem destined to bounce from one horrible place to the next for as long as this show lasts.  (Which is going to be quite awhile, given it enormous ratings success.)  The only things I can say for sure is that they will encounter some new survivors (including Detective Carver from the Wire) and that they will again cross paths with Gareth again.  I think Gareth has great potential as a character.  It will be fun to see how he interacts with the survivors when they meet up again.  Most importantly, we know that we'll find out what's going on with Beth and with Morgan!  Lots to look forward to.

I like I that the story is unpredictable, at least for now. So rather than make a long list of predictions for the season, I'll focus on the perennial topic of the show: who is going to die and who is going to live.  I have ranked the significant characters below by how much I want them to survive. The number in parenthesis is my estimate of how likely they are to die this season.

1. Rick (0%)  To me, the show is still about him.  I know he's not always the most compelling character and there are some better actors in the ensemble, but I think the show is still centered on his journey through this apocalypse.  I want him to survive to a cure more than anyone else.

2. Darryl (0%). The best actor in the cast and the baddest character among the survivors.  Norman Reedus actually makes more money per episode than Andrew Lincoln, and for good reason.  Fans really would riot if he left the show.  The only way that happens is if gets sick of doing the show.

3. Judith (25%).  Obviously I have no investment in her as an individual but her birth and recent rescue by Tyrese are the only good thing to happen to this group in 4 seasons.

4. Carl (50%).  Similar to the above characters. He represents some semblance of hope for the future and has become a better actor as the seasons go by.  His age limits the story telling in some ways, because it's getting awkward that Carl has gone from 10 to 15 in the roughly 2 years since the apocalypse happened.  (Consider that Laurie must have gotten pregnant at about the same time as the apocalypse and Judith is only right about one year old.) So there must be some temptation to kill him off. But I don't want to see that happen.

5. Michonne (0%).  I still want to know how this woman got to be an expert at wielding a kitana, but I do see infinite possibilities for her in the future.  And she's way too popular to kill off.

6. Maggie (20%).  She's a good actor and very, very, very easy on the eyes.  Now that Hershel is gone, either she or Tyrese will emerge as the conscience of the group.

7. Glenn (70%).  Well, someone important has to die this season and Glenn seems most likely.  His death will be a lost to the cast, but I think he's well positioned to do other things in Hollywood.  And his passing could set up a deep story line for Maggie.

8. Tyrese (40%).  I still think of him as Cutty and I loved the scene last week when he beat that douchebag to death.  But they have clearly established that he is willing to take risks to do the right thing and that's not a recipe for long term survival.

9. Gareth (60%).  I found the Governor's story line deeply disappointing because I don't think the character was well written.  I think that Gareth has potential to be much better and I think the actor has the chops to elevate the story.

10. Morgan (20%).  He's such an integral part of the show, despite only being on 3 episodes.  I think that he's in for the long haul, but it's hard to say for sure.

11. Rosita. (25%) Any woman who makes the effort to keep shaving her legs in the zombie apocolypse deserves to live.

12. Bob (49%)  Ranked ahead of Sash solely because of the Wire.

13. Sasha (51%) Bob ans Sasha are now a couple, which makes me think one of them is doomed. I think Sasha is more likely to die, but I will switch that if Tyrese dies.  The show likes to have people around to mourn the dead.

14. Beth (10%) I think they are trying to open some new doors through her story, which probably means it will carry on for awhile.

15. Father Gabriel I haven't even seen him yet, but he's a Wire alumni so he can't be at the very bottom.

16. Carol (55%).  She's a good actress and her character has become a big part of the group but I just don't see a great arc for her. And if she does hook up with Darryl, she's doomed.  A season of brooding Darryl will be very good for the ratings.

17. Abraham (10%) He has potential in the story but I think that Darryl (who does not exist in the comic book) fills a lot of the space that this guy filled in the comic book.  But Michael Cudlitz is a good actor and I like the fact that he has a clear motivation.

18. Tara. (60%)  Not exactly sure why she's still alive.  I don't have anything against the character but I'm not really sure what she adds to the group, other than being the only gay character still alive.

19. Eugene.  (50%)  I've been waiting for an intellectual to join the group since season one.  And this is the doofus we get?  Oi vey.

20. Morales. (?) Remember him?  Season one. Left with his family for Birmingham.  As far as we know, he's still alive.  I doubt we'll see him again but 20 is a nice round number.