*Spoilers Ahead*
When I heard that the finale of The Walking Dead was going to be 90 minutes long I immediately expected an episode where something absolutely insane happens, the rumors of Daryl getting killed only fueled that. Instead, what we get is a much more subdued finale that puts a nice thematic bow on the season and promises a little of what’s to come.
We open up with Morgan, who is approached by a strange man with a “W” on his head. The “W” stands for the name of his group The Wolves and they don’t seem like friendly people. Thankfully, Morgan is able to subdue the man and his friend with just his walking stick. It’s a great opening and I’m hoping that next season gives Morgan a lot to do now that he’ll finally be a regular on this show.
After the credits, Rick awakens to find Michonne watching over him. Michonne explains that Pete has been placed in a separate house and the Deanna is holding a meeting to discuss Rick. Carol and a few others show up and Carol immediately pins the stealing of the guns on Rick, because Carol is awesome.
If you needed more proof of how awesome she is, she later pays a visit to Pete, under the guise of giving him some tuna casserole and threatens him. It’s a great scene that establishes Carol as someone you don’t mess with and plays into her feelings with being a former victim of abuse. It also exacerbates Pete’s already unstable condition following being separated from his family.
Deanna, meanwhile, seems to have made her mind up about Rick, despite the protests of Maggie. It’s implied that a large portion of this also stems from the death of her son, Aiden, but Rick waving a gun around and yelling at the townspeople probably didn’t help.
Elsewhere, Glenn sees Nicholas climbing the wall and goes after him only to take a bullet to the shoulder from Nicholas. The two fight and Nicholas runs away and leaves Glenn for dead as walkers come. Glenn survives and points a gun at his head but decides against killing him. For a few moments, the show actually made me believe Glenn would be the big death, something that doesn’t really happen this episode, but I’m glad they decided against it. Glenn getting to prove that he is still a good guy no matter what is thrown at him was nice as well.
The show also plans out a meeting between the two most suicidal character on the show currently, Sasha and Gabriel. Gabriel has been a bit more subtle with his feelings, maybe because he doesn’t hop into a ditch filled with corpses and just lie there for a bit. Instead, Gabriel decides to take out his issues on a zombie, one he initially planned on having kill him. It all comes to a head when Sasha shows up at the church and asks for help. Gabriel says she doesn’t deserve to live and the two fight. Sasha almost kills Gabriel but thankfully Maggie shows up and the three end up praying together. While I enjoy getting into the heads of some of these characters my main issue with this plot is that it just feels too neatly tied up, something that I also felt about the end of Rick’s story.
The final part of this episode belongs to Daryl and Aaron, who are tracking a man in a red poncho only to fall into a trap set by The Wolves. Daryl almost sacrifices himself but Morgan shows up and saves the duo. Aaron tells Morgan about Alexandria but he turns the offer to go there down, he’s looking for someone. He shows Daryl the map that Rick gave him all those season ago and the gears begin to turn.
While walking around Rick notices that the gate has been left open and that walker have gotten in. He hunts them down and disposes of them, literally opening one’s neck and shooting it through the wound, and then brings their bodies to the meeting, to make a point. Before he arrives at the meeting the rest of the group show up to defend him. This is where the issues I mentioned above with the Sahsa story come back into play. After all the build-up in Alexandria it feels a little too safe to just let Rick get what he wants. Pete even shows up to ramble like a lunatic and kill Deanna’s husband. This allows her to give Rick the okay to kill him. Rick doesn’t even hesitate. In the aftermath, we hear Morgan call out Rick’s name and the two stare in disbelief at each other.
Normally, I hate when a show makes a change and then immediately steps back from it. In this case, however, I almost want it to happen. I get that Rick is our hero but the way he has been portrayed, even in this episode, suggests that he is still deeply screwed up. I hope we see more of that next season.
Overall, while I don’t rate individual episodes, I will give a rating for the whole season. Season 5 has been the best one this show has done yet. It’s amazing that a show as old, for television at least, as The Walking Dead is having it’s greatest season yet but it finally feels like the show knows how to juggle it’s themes with it’s characters and make both of them matter. Here’s to next season!
Season 5: 7.5/10
Bits ‘n Pieces
- I just wanted to reiterate that Morgan is awesome, just in case you didn’t catch it.
- I had actually forgotten about the mentions of The Wolves in the first episode post-break. It’s nice to see the show doing some decent teasing.
- Abraham and Eugene get a nice little scene to patch up their differences. I really hope we see more of these two next season, Rosita too!
- We got a teaser for the spin-off show tonight, Fear The Walking Dead. I’m not sure if I want to know about what caused all this, either way I’ll probably end up reviewing it here.
- I enjoyed the shift between Morgan and Rick since the last time they met. Morgan was the one who had been changed drastically by the world and Rick was trying to make him see that things could be different. Here’s hoping Morgan returns the favor.
- Zombie of the Week: Hangman Zombie. I almost gave it to the legless zombies in the truck but Hangman Zombie got an awesome kill.
- “Because these people are children and children like stories.” Carol is the best.
- “Simply put, there is a vast ocean of shit you people don’t know shit about. Rick knows every fine grain of said shit.” Abraham, doing his best Mr. Lahey impression.
- “Why? Because all life is precious, Daryl.”
- That’s a wrap for Season 5 of The Walking Dead. Thanks for reading, I’ll probably be back in October for Season 6 I hope you reader will be too!
If you’d like to give me feedback or just chat about The Walking Dead you can email me at theSuperAlbino@gmail.com or hit me up on Twitter @JesseSwanson