I officially have too many posts dedicated to The Walking Dead. However, I decided after my last one -- which pointed out how boring and nonsensical the middle episodes of the second half of this season have been -- that I would need one more follow-up after the season finale, just to see if the story redeemed itself in the final episodes. As it turns out, it didn't. I was pretty frustrated by where the show has been headed (nowhere), but the season finale seems like the final nail in the coffin. The new writers don't seem to know how to create and maintain a story, let alone an interesting one.
The entire season has been building intensity between Rick's group and the Governor, who has proven again and again that he's completely insane. We should have learned our lesson in season two, when way too many episodes were dedicated to the same thing: Shane going against Rick. We all knew Shane's death was coming because he became so illogically disagreeable that there was just no place for him in the group. Now we have the Governor, who is senselessly evil. From the very beginning, Michonne suspects that he is crazy, and we side with her because, well, she has a cool sword. Other than that, there is no revelation of his motives or what makes him evil. He's just 'the bad guy.' So by the end of the season, he should be dead, right? And it should be some epic battle between him and Rick, or at least their respective groups. Of course, we're expecting other casualties along the way. That's the fun of the show, right? And there haven't really been any deaths recently, with the exception of Merle a week before.
There are also the comics to consider. Will this finale in any way bring us back around to something even resembling the source material?
The answer to both of these questions is a resounding NO! Rick and the Governor don't even see each other face to face. The Governor and his people storm the prison, which apparently Rick's group has booby-trapped and temporarily vacated. Some teargas cannisters explode and the Governor is forced to retreat. And...that's it. That is the resolution to the conflict that has been building for months. No one dies. No one of importance anyway. I guess we're supposed to assume some of the Woodbury people get killed at some point; Maggie and Glenn shoot at them all for a while as they run for their trucks. Rick and the others aren't even around.
The Governor leaves, alive. Down the road he decides to open fire on all of his people, because he's evil, and that's what an evil person would do. For some reason, none of them fire back. And the Governor and his two main henchmen drive off. Rick shows up at Woodbury and invites all the remaining people -- including Tyreese -- back to the prison.
And if that sounds out of character, it should. Rick has proven time and again that he doesn't care about other survivors. If anything, they represent a threat. But I guess they saved all of his character development for this last episode, where he completely changes his mind and rescues a bunch of women and children that for months had been told to fear him and his people. Also, Carl shoots an innocent kid, only reinforcing what we already know, which is that he has lost his humanity. Except even this is inconsistent with a scene earlier in the episode where he was lovingly cradling a picture of him and his parents.
As for the comics, I guess the writers just use them as toilet paper. The whole point of the prison shootout is to get Rick and Carl out of the prison and on the road alone, so the story has somewhere to go. Now they are still there, with an even larger group. People who should be alive are dead, and people who definitely need to die are still breathing. At least at the end of season 2, they got off of that unbearable farm. I'm not sure where they plan on taking the show next season, but I am starting to lose interest. There was no cliffhanger, other than the Governor still being alive. I hope we don't have to sit through another season of him trying to attack the prison. Then again, I'm not sure I'll even watch next season.
Anyways, this show has been moved to my WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED? list, right there with Dexter and True Blood.
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