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.

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

I enjoyed the finale, very much. I thought Morgan's return was fantastic and his anti-climatic reunion with Rick was handled perfectly. Immediate impressions:

1. What was conquered?  Well, Glenn conquered some fear in letting Nicholas live.  That was actually pretty impressive and it's consistent with his character.  I guess Rick's way of doing business conquered the Alexandrian's denial.  And of course Morgan conquered two huge scum bags with W's carved into their foreheads.

2. What was gained and what was lost? They lost an architect and a doctor but they gained a Jedi in Morgan and a huge dose of reality in the Ricktatorship's way of doing business.  Perhaps most importantly Dianna lost a husband but gained a very competent general.  I love that she gave the order for Rick to kill Pete.

3. Carol is the Paulie Walnuts of this Zombie Apocalypse.  I keep thinking that she will die, but she hangs around. And she's also being asked to deliver some of the comedic relief, albeit a more ironic tone than Paulie's was on the Sopranos.

4. There probably will be a time skip but I don't think it will be as long as I had hoped.  The Wolves are 50 miles out from Alexandria and I don't think those photos will have any revealing signs because Aaron knew they could fall into the wrong hands.  The ones Rick saw had no such signs at least and the ones they added just showed people. (Probably in response to Rick and Michonne's freak out that there were no people in the pictures.)  So they can play with the timeline as much as they want. I expect it will be like the jump between season 2 and 3: a few months but not more than year. Probably the first way to tell will be when we see Judith for the first time.

5. Morgan and Rick are going to have some great conversations next year.  Lenny James has already revealed on The Talking Dead that Morgan had some kind of life-changing experience between when we saw him in Season 3 and his meeting up with Rick and gang in Alexandria.  Rick of course has descended nearly into the kind of madness that Morgan was grappling with back when he had a booby-trapped town to himself.

6. The Wolves have great potential.  I hope they don't screw up the casting.  When Michonne first appeared in the Season 2 finale, they never showed her face.  We did see a couple of the Wolves tonight but they don't have to be the, well Alpha males of the pack. So they will probably cast someone with at least a bit of name or face recognition for that part. The show has an uneven track record of casting.  Hopefully they will cast someone more like Andrew J. West (who played Gareth) than David Morrisey (the Governor).

One interesting thing is that they do not seem to be well supplied. After all those 2 dudes that confronted Morgan had to do so with an empty 9MM.  Makes you wonder how efficient that food trap is.

7. Negan is another year away.  I don't think we will see Negan in Season six but he's probably on track for a Season 7 story arc.  The Wolves should be able to up the cruelty ante and only Negan will be able to top that.

8. Lennie James is the best actor in this company and I love his British accent.

A Final Thought, Much Repeated.

Please for the love of God can this group think a little more Strategically next season?  Now that they have a congressman, a UNICEF veteran and a Jedi to go along with the sheriff, the archer, the samurai  and the soldier, there is no reason they can't start to think more than 2 moves in advance.  A few suggestions:

1. Dig Zombie Pits.  Why on Earth was the Governor the only person to figure out that gravity is our friend?
2. Send a search team to destroy that food truck trap.  It's obviously a tool of very bad people.  You don't want them to survive and you don't want them to kill any more good people, like poor Mr. Red Pancho.  Send a team back and bring enough explosives to destroy that whole yard.
3. Eugene needs to contribute more.  Maybe he can design the perfect way to destroy the Wolves food trap or figure out a way to make bullets. (Something he apparently does eventually in the comics.)

Law & Order was  really successful show that eventually launched two spin off.  Law & Order SUV was more salacious and less challenging than the original. Law & Order Criminal Intent was slightly brainier and attempted to be clever from time to time.  Of course of the 3, SUV became the most successful and is still on the air.  I'm sure Fear the Walking Dead will follow in that vein. But I'm a dreamer and I choose to hope that the smarter version of TWD will come along, eventually.