The Walking Dead is an immensely popular television series, based on a graphic novel of the same name. While I admit to following the series since the early days of its paper publication, I absolutely cannot tell you if the last few weeks of episodes have been entertaining at all. At its best The Walking Dead is a shambling mess of overplayed tropes, stereotypes, barely-functioning heavy-handed thematic elements and one of the most brainless casts full of stock cardboard cutout characters ever seen on television. I don't dislike the graphic novel--in fact, taken on its own the comic series is a frantic and often very entertaining affair. No, I'm here to say my peace on the embarrassing schlock of AMC's TV version. There will be spoilers and borderline nonsensical rants for both the television version and the comics, but allow me to enlighten you on why this tripe is a special, insidious kind of bad.
Take note that I wrote a majority of this directly before the penultimate episode of season six aired, so much of this is frustration over the initial run of this season. After six years of giving the televised series an unwarranted amount of attention I will no longer support AMC's television show. I hope this gives you some insight into why you shouldn't return, either.
Empty Promises
The first season of The Walking Dead begins with one of the highest and most ambitious openings in recent television; on its own, the show's pilot episode is a harrowing zombie story about loss and isolation. Every last thematic element is presented and resolved in some way--Morgan's isolation involves the death of his wife and his attempts to kill her zombie while Rick's isolation is a separation from his wife and kid who may not even be alive. The episode itself ends with Morgan tearfully refusing to put his wife out of his misery while Rick stumbles into a situation which leads to another group of survivors, which then leads to the discovery of Lori and Carl. The first episode exemplifies what should have been the norm for a television adaptation of a comic book: comic book readers get new information and a new interpretation of the comic while TV viewers can appreciate the original story.
While the series was being announced many readers wondered how the show would adapt the comic, though the general consensus seemed to be that each season would likely--depending on the number of episodes per season--adapt one or two trade paperbacks of the comic. As of the air date, issue 78 (then-to-be-released trade 13) had just been released. Breaking it down further, the first season of the television series had six episodes: trade volumes have six issues, so the math would have definitely worked out. There's no way to tell how these things will turn out, but my own sinking feeling with the series began in the fourth episode of season one
To overly complicate the plot, one of the members of the Atlanta survivors is locked on a roof for the survivors to return to later. The survivor's brother, Daryl, demands Rick's group return to Atlanta immediately to find his brother Merle along with a bag of guns Rick had dropped. This is close enough to the comic to be an inoffensive change, but something happens in this episode--something sinister that nobody could have possibly interpreted as a problem. Well, I did, but I don't expect you to be as immaculate at critical thought as me.
At the end of the third episode Merle's amputated arm is discovered, and while I don't appreciate "filler" characters I was interested to see how this could be incorporated into the plot. If you've seen later season you know how it turns out, but Merle really compliments the Woodbury plot. It's fine, he's fine, whatever. The biggest disaster happens in the following episode, when a random group of thugs waylay Rick's group and demand his guns. What follows is an insufferably bland, useless side story that takes an entire hour to play out and by the end, nothing is resolved. Mainstream TV viewers likely don't know what the real problem is, but as someone with a passing interest in anime, I saw the seams immediately and realized that The Walking Dead was going to be utterly inundated with filler.
Filler Hell
Filler is the laziest tool a television writer can use and is absolutely antithetical to adapting written work. The entire reason to watch a television show or a movie adapted from a written work is to put less effort into absorbing the medium--with the exception of movies like The Godfather, The Shining, Jurassic Park or even Let The Right One In where a celebrated director cuts the fat out of a bloated novel most adapted movies or television shows are missing vital details. Months after The Walking Dead aired, HBO began airing their televised adaptation of Game of Thrones (from A Song of Ice and Fire). As of the time of this writing, season six of that show will be airing soon and spoiling a large amount of content in novels that have yet to be published. Opposed to The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones has not only cut vast swathes of content but also will be creating an ending that will be only remotely similar to what George RR Martin likely has planned. While characters have been switched around and events are somewhat different, Game of Thrones has avoided the drastic problem of filler in exchange for a tight, compact version of a story that, as a series of novels, goes into even minor details (many of which I feel make the novels overly bloated, but this is not a review of Game of Thrones).
There are two types of filler, and I've already described both of them. I genuinely enjoy filler like Morgan and his wife--it's in character, expands the story, and most importantly small moments like this don't eat into episode runtimes. While I enjoy having large amounts of episodes to go through, when it's all filler with no substance there's absolutely nothing to enjoy. Currently The Walking Dead has 16-episode seasons, and if they tried to make each episode correlate to one issue of the comic the show would catch up to the comics in just a few seasons. A perfect compromise would be to adapt two trade paperbacks per season, occasionally sprinkling in filler to compensate for the extra four episodes, either by adding in minor details or expanding upon subplots. I guess this is too intelligent for AMC, though, as season six ended with roughly the 100th issue of the comic series. Despite tons of filler, the showrunners have so little forethought that they sped through some of the more interesting story beats to rush the introduction of another major villain--but I'll get to that in a bit.
Long-time viewers of the show remember well the absolute disaster of the second season, but to give you a reminder, the entirety of the first half of that season involved a desperate hunt for Carol's daughter, Sophia. Sophia is still alive in the comic series, but as an interesting twist the AMC version kills off the little girl after the characters make several attempts to search for her. While I'd normally consider this an interesting twist, looking back on that season is almost entirely a negative experience. Entire stretches of episodes amount to characters just sitting around and moping while daytime soap opera-tier drama unfolds with characters who could solve all their problems by talking to one another like human beings, but even today most of the cast are brainless idiots who just watch as their lives crumble because each person has some stupid secret--in the zombie apocalypse. Where walking alone in the woods leads to disastrous results as exemplified by Sophia, who is revealed to have been dead the entire time.
While the twist was very welcome for the comic faithful, the truth of the matter is that the suspense was raised so high that it became utterly absurd. Half a dozen episodes for it to all end with "she was on the farm as a zombie the entire stupid time" might have made for good week-to-week tension, but the writers apparently either didn't know or didn't care that revisiting these story arcs would be a near waste of time. Compare that to the TV-exclusive quarantine story arc, which is rife with tension and meaningful character development. The most important twist in Carol's character happens here, which makes her arc in recent episodes frustrating as we've seen (especially in this case) that the death of Sophia has hardened her to a strong, while merciless character.
That said, even this story arc is marred by the presence of the Woodbury refugees, who make up a vast majority of the deaths when the flu hits. In trope terms, almost every death in the first few seasons are inconsequential "red shirts"--a term coined by the Star Trek fandom for no-name characters who are killed in order to create tension for the main cast. The Walking Dead always has a certain gravitas associated with the deaths of main characters, but having such an interesting story arc wasted by an entire army of red shirts ruins the suspense in repeat viewings. And that's not even to say say anything about the Governor, who AMC saw fit to completely water down to a point where he simply wasn't very imposing in the long run. The character of Merle is revisited here as the Governor's right-hand man due in large part to how completely nonthreatening the Governor ended up being portrayed. Rick's group lost everything by not agreeing to simply merging with Woodbury. Several important characters died and looking back, nobody has anything to show for it. The entire reason the Governor was such an interesting character in the comic series is because he was the first human shown to have become a complete monster from the zombie apocalypse while still retaining his humanity in the form of his (ironically) zombified daughter. In the show he's just a gentleman with a morbid interest in dead things stretched thin over uneventful episodes of negligible menace.
So why even have so many episodes per season anyway? Both Game of Thrones and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia run on ten-episode seasons and the best show in recent memory, Boardwalk Empire, ran on twelve-episode seasons (aside from the final season, which contained eight episodes and ran into severe time constraints). The Walking Dead has no reason to have seasons with so many episodes, especially considering so many episodes are absolute, pure filler. You (you, the reader) gain nothing from filler. It exists to waste time, both yours and the producers of the show. Filler exists entirely to kill time until the series can meander to its next plot points, which I still believe are genuinely well-done in AMC's interpretation of The Walking Dead.
Consider the loose adaptation of the Hunters story arc, embarrassingly fumbled into the Terminus arc in the television show. AMC could have easily turned this group into a frightening gang hot on Rick's heels, but they're almost completely wiped out within a few episodes' time. Why waste such high potential to then throw it away in favor of rushing to the next villain? It's complete, utter schlock.
Here's a recent example of pointless filler: episode 13 of season six involves the characters Maggie and Carol being captured by members of The Saviors, a gang extorting from The Hilltop and other nearby colonies. This episode contains zero plot development, opting instead to develop the characters. Character development is just fine, but this episode is an example of the bloated, pointless filler that serves nothing and just wastes the viewer's time. Several themes are explored which have already beaten the viewer to death: loss of humanity, survival at any cost, and nihilistic determinism. Carol's loss of humanity is a complete slog, especially given her dramatic character arc. Given characters like Michonne, Carl, Daryl, and especially Rick have explored this theme numerous times (as well as the theme of survival at any cost, for that matter) and at this point you, the viewer, should be sick of seeing it. You know what to take away from this theme, you know exactly what it does to characters. Seeing it happen to a character who has been dead in the comics for years and has come a long way to get to this point. Having her character flip means all that development has been a complete waste of time.
While it's interesting to see this unfolding with Maggie, especially given that she's pregnant, the viewer should really keep in mind that every single character on screen told Maggie to not come on this mission. This is the dumbest thing a character in her position could ever do, and her contribution is harmful at best. Maggie's development is "she is an idiot" and even after the episode is over there's no way to sympathize with her. Yeah, it's so horrifying that she can't listen to people tell her she's a liability and just has to get involved. Guess what? She's a liability and shouldn't have gotten involved. She gets herself and Carol captured because she wants to be helpful, and the viewer is supposed to sympathize with the fact that she had to mass murder a bunch of people who murdered, raped, extorted, and caused chaos across the countryside.
Boohoo.
Alongside this absolute slog of an episode is the most boring, cringey, edgy characters seen in the show's history. They laughingly throw around the most lame, hamfisted atheist insults seen in TV history (who thought that something like this could come off as so boring and one-note?); characters throw a fit, smoke, melodramatically talk about their history and act like actual teenagers. The entire motivation behind the leader of this small group is that she was a secretary whose boss just wanted coffee. That's it. That's all she ever says about him. Am I supposed to sympathize with a secretary who gets coffee for her boss? Is the implication that this is demeaning or evil in some way? She's forced to wait at her office when the zombie breakout occurs and it causes her to miss her son's death. And? Did she want to die with him? So she had to sit in an office with her boss she doesn't like because he likes coffee. Give me a break, Rick had to lay in a hospital while his wife was getting it on with his best friend. Comic Rick has to watch his wife and infant daughter get turned into paste! All I got from her was that she's a whiny, petulant idiot and nobody should ever have felt sympathy for her. This is all even more annoying given that the youngest person in the room, Maggie, is in her thirties yet acts like one of the few adults in the room. Wasting time with these characters is painful at best, and every one of them is killed in the episode's climax. What did we gain from this? Anything? Annoyance? Get out of here.
Compare to this to episode 14. Every single character gets development (especially Denise and Eugene), the plot dramatically moves forward, and some legitimately shocking twists pop off within seconds that even surprise comic readers. It's a great episode and I enjoyed watching almost the entire thing, more than most episodes this entire season. We learned things about some characters that weren't major revelations, but still made the character sympathetic (which made her death even more shocking). Before this, The Walking Dead was having a problem killing off pointless Red Shirts and for such an important character to die (at a different point from her comic death) was an interesting twist. Especially given that her death replaced a major character who died at this point in the comics.
So why does this make me so annoyed, aside from the obvious hour of my time wasted by s6e13? As soon as it aired I knew deep down it would somehow be one of the highest-rated episodes of the season, if not the entire show, because it tricks the audience into believing meaningful development and themes are being presented. And, of course, I was right--look at the Rotten Tomatoes scores for both episodes I mentioned. The "nothing happens" episode is sitting pretty at a 100%, while an episode with real character and plot development is barely over 53%. But it doesn't matter if you like it or not, because to viewers The Walking Dead appears to be a major critical success...because it's tricking you into this as well.
Critical Pandering
The Walking Dead has the curious (and dubious) "honor" of having complete media saturation, including its own hour-long pandering session hosted by the insufferable Chris Hardwick. As soon as every single episode ends this hyper idiot jumps around on camera screeching about how amazing and crazy and intense the thing you just saw was. For people who haven't developed critical thought, the first reaction they can ever have to The Walking Dead is complete adoration. But it's far more insidious than you might imagine.
See, the human brain is designed to make very fast decisions--typically, an opinion is formed after a first impression. Think about yourself; how many times have you argued against an opinion or stance merely because you were introduced to its counter-points first? Most people will say it's basically immediate: the first review you read for a movie is usually what you go into the theater expecting, for example, even if it's the unpopular opinion.
So you watch an episode of The Walking Dead and stick around for the credits to see a preview for the next episode. Your mind takes a moment to summarize what you just saw and forms an opinion based on that--but before you can critically reach a conclusion that vapid, obnoxious idiot immediately inundates the viewer with high praise no matter what happened in the episode, regardless if anything happened at all. Before most viewers can think of elements to criticize from the episode they're overwhelmed by this energetic moron convincing them that what they just watched was perfect, infallible high art.
Most people won't think any harder about The Walking Dead after the episode is over, and those first several seconds of "what an amazing/stellar/breathtaking episode" is going to be the point many viewers stop thinking critically. Even if you have no interest in the show's follow-up series The Talking Dead, it's very difficult to avoid the glowing critical praise immediately after the next episode preview. Take this and the immediate glowing reviews by websites such as IGN and The Walking Dead becomes this cynical, impenetrable wall of critical praise with very few outlets decrying its enormous shortcomings.
And that's not even the worst part. Beginning with season six Talking Dead has begun cutting into the main show's air time, particularly around the final commercial break, simply to plant those seeds in the viewer's head just in case someone with a brain criticized an episode before the credits rolled. To AMC, even the minute of credits is too much time for the viewer to form an opinion, and I won't be surprised if more commercial breaks are inundated with this complete schlock over time. Because of this The Walking Dead has met with very little real criticism, which is strange as the writers have taken every opportunity to indulge viewers with fanservice in regards to characters like Daryl.
Daryl.
I hate this character, and even worse I hate that I hate Daryl Dixon. Daryl is a fascinating example in a TV-exclusive filler character who has grown far past the source material; he's grown so popular, in fact, that Robert Kirkman has played with fan expectation about including the character in the comics (usually in the form of April Fool's jokes). Why is this a problem? Well, Daryl (played by the wonderful Norman Reedus) has a very big problem with being a huge Mary Sue.
For reference, a Mary Sue is a self-insert character who is seemingly flawless with an emotional past and is loved by much of their surrounding cast; if you want to be technical the male version of this is a Gary Stu, but let's not make this thing more convoluted than it already is. With few exceptions Daryl meets all these requirements: he's an unstoppable killing machine who is perfect at everything he does and compliments Rick as his right-hand man. Daryl is also met with the fan outcry of "If Daryl dies, we riot." As such, nothing of note has ever happened to Daryl. His brother and close friends have died around him, yet he's still an indestructible force of nature that everyone loves and at times pushes many of the show's numerous plots forward.
While I have my hopes for this character's demise, the truth of the matter is that I've never once felt tension when Daryl is on-screen because he is surrounded by the most ludicrous plot armor I've ever seen in a show this focused on keeping characters in constant peril. Carl can lose an eye, but Daryl can't even lose his leather vest or zombie-slaying crossbow for more than a few episodes. In fact, in the penultimate episode of the sixth season (s6e15) Daryl is ambushed and shot, point blank, in the chest. As soon as the episode ended I turned to my girlfriend and said "if Daryl isn't a corpse in the next episode they're outright lying to us." Not only is Daryl not a corpse, he's shown with a minor gunshot wound and appears in better shape than many characters who are sick or beaten. To have Daryl die at such a shocking and unexpected moment would have destroyed just about all of my points here, but instead reinforces all my complaints about the character.
Despite all this, I'll admit I was very excited when Daryl was pushed to the forefront in seasons two and three. I thought he had a great character arc and he contributed to the plot in a handful of ways. Over time, though, all Daryl began to stand for is massive fan outcry. The Walking Dead is surrounded by an echo-chamber preventing negative criticism from even forming for most of its audience, yet the show has cultivated fanservice in such a way as to be jarring compared to its main theme and Daryl symbolizes all of that.
After those first two or three seasons, Daryl became one of the main reasons I stuck with the series, but not because I have any particular fondness for the character. No, the interest in this character was that I believed that he would become a surrogate for another major character who meets a gruesome fate in the comic's one hundredth issue when Rick's party is finally confronted by Negan. You've seen most of this scene in the show by now, but I'll get to that in just a second. No, I was hoping that because Daryl had easily become the fan-favorite character after this long that AMC would dare brutally kill him off to punctuate Negan's arrival, a kick in the face to viewers who believed anyone was actually safe. But the season finale...oh, the season finale.
The Season Six Finale is Insulting Tripe and You Should be Outraged.
The season six finale is possibly the worst, most insulting thing I've ever seen in my life. Worse than the final episode of L O S T. It's worse than the Star Wars prequels. You know what, let's stretch this out a little further. The season six finale of The Walking Dead makes the ending of Mass Effect 3 look like a literary masterpiece. It's blatantly designed to be a spit in the face to fans, a cynical dangling-of-keys because AMC believes you, the viewer, are too vapid to think about what you just watched and you'll come crawling back to beg for their scraps.
So let's get into this. The crux of this episode involves the Alexandria group bringing Maggie to the Hilltop Colony; since Denise is now dead, there is nobody in town who can help her after she becomes violently ill. Fearing for her and her unborn child, Rick decides everyone needs to come along so not to be ambushed by Negan's Saviors and give some extra manpower. Or something. Frankly the premise is weak to begin with, but their journey is punctuated by some very menacing, very poignant threats by the Saviors. They're constantly blocked on the road by the armed gang, given harrowing death threats, and eventually are railroaded exactly where the Saviors want them. It leads to some of the most tense and striking visuals of the entire series so far, and I was almost prepared to give the show a pass.
I should also mention that the subplot with Carol and Morgan is somewhat wrapped up here, but the outcome is left to a cliffhanger. The entire subplot was a waste of time and will lead to nothing next season--aside from Morgan using a gun, but the only reason he wasn't using one in the first place is due to the influence of just some rando teaching him aikido (in an unintentionally humorous short span of time). We get closure between these two characters, but what's the use? Morgan isn't a pacifist now, but he shouldn't have been one in the first place. It's the result of a hamfisted filler subplot that went nowhere. All the characters involved in Morgan's pacifist phase are now dead (and all of them were filler, I should add), and Morgan's flawed reasoning is "Denise would not have been able to save Carl because she would have been killed by Walkers if not for Duane." Except she wouldn't have been out on the street at all, much less not in her clinic, if not for the fact that she had to cross the street and tend to Duane before he dragged her into the street in the first place. It's a complete mess of a story arc that contradicted itself in every single way and this was just a messy way to tie that loose end.
Then several minutes are spent wasted on Eugene, possibly the best of the main cast, as he tearfully forms a plan to have the entire group carry Maggie to Hilltop through the woods while he distracts the encroaching Savior party. This entire scene is set up to imply that this is Eugene's final stand, that his death is imminent and that we should prepare for the worst. Despite wasting a non-inconsequential amount of time on this brave sacrifice, he's captured by the Saviors and just gets a black eye from the ordeal. Why even bother wasting that moment and queuing up pointless "sad piano music" for this scene if it was going to lead nowhere?
That's not the real final nail in The Walking Dead's coffin, though. The climax of the episode finds Rick's group kneeling before Negan, played masterfully by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who calmly (but firmly) reminds Rick that he has caused untold amounts of damage by interfering with his business, and this just will not do. JDM commands this scene, an intimidating and effortless reminder that Rick might not be the baddest dude around. All they had to do was just play this scene as it appears in the comics and you'd have me hooked. Instead some bumbling idiot at AMC thought the viewers needed an extra incentive to keep talking about the show until its October season begins, but if the official Reddit thread is anything to go by the only topic of discussion between fans is "how many of us are boycotting this travesty?" I don't even use Reddit and here I am, linking to their discussion page just to show how absolutely pissed I am.
In probably the most amateurish, embarrassing gimmick twists seen in any sort of filmed media, the moment Negan chooses Lucille's target the scene shifts to a first-person perspective. I'd read a spoiler before this but was hoping it to be fake, and I'll mention my girlfriend again by saying I wish she'd been filming the look on my face: enraptured by Negan, completely taken in by his on-screen presence; then confusion, followed by disappointment and eventual seething anger. It was like I experienced every single stage of grief in a matter of seconds because I knew, deep down, that The Walking Dead was treating me like a chump.
What follows is perhaps the sloppiest death scene in TV history. Negan swings his bat flaccidly at the camera, which shakes a bit. He says a few words but the entire cast is completely quiet as they watch their friend beaten to a bloody pulp by this complete stranger (who, for no reason at all, they believed was a collective of thugs or some stupid contrivance) who is determined to leave his mark. Slowly, a comical 2D blood effect that looks like it came straight from a decades-old After Effects release covers the screen as it fades to black.
The television equivalent of gunshot, cut to black is the season finale of one of the most-watched shows in recent years, one which ended on a cliffhanger adapting the most anticipated, most iconic scene from the comic book. And here it is. The moment I'd stayed on board for to see if AMC would actually kill off a character as big as Daryl, and some corporate goon decided to pop up and say "no, actually you have to wait six months. See you then ;))))))))))))))))))))))))))"
Imagine if the the first season of Game of Thrones ended right before Ned was executed, that when Ilin Payne brought down Ice the screen cut to black and the last few seconds of the episode were just screams from the crowd. How many people would have stuck around after that? Instead, the show presents this scene tastefully and continues into its season finale following the execution. The stakes are raised, the protagonist is murdered on screen, and viewers are treated to scenes of the villains having a victory lap before leading us into the following season. No cheap gimmicks, no lies to the viewer. But The Walking Dead? The viewers are stupid, a follow-up would just alienate them! Or something. Or did an exec believe that the viewers were too stupid to realize this wasn't the series finale? Either way, this is entirely the result of belittling the viewer's intelligence.
No. Nope. Not having it. This season alone lied to the viewers on more than one occasion. Glenn, in an episode before the mid-season break, appears to be eaten by zombies but miraculously survives by crawling under a dumpster. As stupid as this already is, especially considering he's a very viable candidate for Negan's show of power, it also lies by showing a terrified Glenn watching as intestines are pulled out and eaten by a herd of zombies. Oh, nope, that was actually some stupid red shirt who fell on top of him. Fooled you kids.
The second time I already mentioned: Daryl should not have even been alive for the season finale. He was shot point-blank in the chest and the episode ended on, you guessed it, a cheap blood splatter followed by a cliffhanger. Then we have this ending, where character dialogue is cut out to create an illusion of tension--go to that Reddit thread, someone found leaked audio from that scene before it was all cut out. The character Negan murdered outright has their name shouted in the clip, but it was cut to continue the false suspense. Another theory is that the audio was cut because AMC wants to consider who to actually kill in the next few months leading into season seven, but what kind of poor planning and judgment would professional showrunners have to have in order to blunder so heavily?
See, the reason why Negan's reveal was so mesmerizing in the comic is that he appears and, in the same issue, brutally murders one of Rick's most trusted allies and then gloats about it. He beats this character to jelly, and readers will tell you frankly that it left a huge impression. Here's a guy we were completely underestimating, especially compared to the much more intimidating comic Governor, who treats our already ruthless cast of characters like petulant children and gives them a lesson in humility. With the TV ending, the tension is dropped in that it could be anybody. He might be murdering that one guy from Alexandria whose name I forget. I'm not looking it up, either. Don't even bother correcting me. Negan's first appearance, and one of the most unforgettable moments in the comic, is utterly butchered by some studio suit who decided to give viewers further incentive to come back in six months.
A season finale should be a momentous occasion for any TV show: it's the last big hurrah before bowing out for a few months, the final punctuation to a season to wrap up its core themes and possibly hint at things to come. This finale literally cut out its own ending so you can finish the season half a year from now; what if season one ended with the CDC exploding but conveniently left out Rick's group escaping? That's the biggest tragedy of it all: if this played out like the comic, I'd be absolutely and totally on board. I might even have shelved this obsessively long blog post. Jeffrey Dean Morgan was the best fit for Negan they could have possibly picked, and without that ending--which itself is like the TV equivalent of trashy clickbait--season seven would be as hyped for me as the approaching season premiere of Game of Thrones. But instead AMC decided that this powerhouse character was not appealing enough, that viewers would simply have to come back after half a year just to see the conclusion to an episode they'd already been invested in. That's not gripping, it's insulting.
A major comparison to make is the ending of season five of Game of Thrones. A very major character is murdered at the end of the season, left to die in a puddle of his own blood. A second character allows himself to be killed and while the scene doesn't actually show his death, it's more than implied that both of these characters are dead and won't be back for the next season (one of which had the actor flat-out say he just wanted his character to have a small, glorified death off-screen). If these confirmed dead characters come back then that will be an actual twist to me. I'm not hanging on to my seat to find out if someone stabbed five million times in the heart is actually dead or not, as far as I'm concerned that's about as dead as you can get. It's not nearly the same as merely being dishonest to viewers to keep suspense. And of the over 75 hours of my life I've spent on this show, all I feel at this moment is empty, lied to and kicked in the dirt by some exec who sees their viewers as simple, brainless numbers.
Where Do We Go From Here?
The Walking Dead is a show that, despite its roots as an intimate, humble independent comic book, has grown into a disgusting machine, churning out crap for you to eat like a slave. The show has no respect for your time, your energy, or your dedication. What began as an interesting experiment is now a massive example of the worst aspects of media: bloated with pointless filler, teasing the audience with cliffhangers and no payoff, outright lying just to get buzz for an unneeded popularity bump--seriously, is one of the most-watched shows in television history not good enough?--and expecting absolutely no critical response because they've since fostered a toxic echo chamber of undeserved praise and hype that is finally appearing to burst. The Walking Dead doesn't respect you, and you shouldn't have to put up with this treatment from a show that subsists off its devoted fanbase. You should expect more than Mary Sue characters and a fade-to-black first-person cliffhanger. You deserve better than literal dumpster twists. I've stuck around this long, and many of the old faces give the illusion that the show is doing just fine, but the most important departure of all is coming from season six: mine.
Just read the comic.
