Posted in: Movies, TV | Tagged: amc, entertainment, The Walking Dead, tv

The Walking Dead Sixth Season Finale Covers Familiar Ground — A Review

The Walking Dead continues to play at the emotions of the show's legions of devoted fans with tonight's season finale. As with most of their season and mid-season finales, last night's episode teases deaths, new character reveals and major plot twists. Carol continues her self-imposed exile to try to keep from having to kill more of the living while the rest of the gang tries to get Maggie to Hilltop only to be thwarted at every path by Negan's goon squads.

There's so many tropes in play at this point in TWD, it's hard to really pick where to start, and unfortunately with the completion of its sixth season, the majority of them have all been played out many times before. The characters have been in dire situations time and again, and now the feeling is more of numbness rather than the feeling of any real concern. At most they kill off one major character every half-season or so — and they promise a death and then take it back (Glenn) — so there's really only so much empathy that's left.

Carol has been one of the best written and performed characters for the bulk of the series. The recent episode, "The Same Boat" was one of her best. But now, still haunted by the lives she's taken has forced her to flee her friends to, at least in her mind, avoid having to kill again. She seems to have missed the fact that no sooner did she run away than she slaughtered a truckload of Negan's soldiers. She's always had reasons to kill, be it in self defense or defense of the group. Now, however, the writer's room has decided that it's her turn on the emotional roller coaster.

Meanwhile, time grows shorter for Maggie, with her skin becoming progressively more jaundiced. Rick and the gang run from one road block to another, each time facing more and more of Negan's soldiers or obstacles laid down by them. The visual shorthand that's been devised for Rick to express that he's under stress and without a clear plan of action is to have him tremble — his hair becoming drenched — and to generally look like a deer in headlights. Granted, he's always been expected to be in charge of a situation. By this point one would expect that the writers would give him credit to be able to handle dire events, even ones where he knows that some of his people will likely wind up dead. Instead, Rick is forced to behave as an ineffectual mess whenever he doesn't have the upper hand.

The best part of the evening's episode was the long-awaited reveal of Negan himself. In the form of Watchmen's Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Walking Dead comic fans will be thrilled at the character basically stepping straight off the page; complete with his barbed-wire wrapped baseball bat, Lucille. His long, paced, and wonderfully delivered monologue to the full group (with Michonne, Daryl, Glenn and Rosita being revealed as captives already) is full of all of the menace and threats that one could have hoped for.

One downside of speech: while it might terrorize the viewer and make us feel dread, we're rather numb to the danger to Rick and company faces and it takes a bit of the edge away. We should be terrified for them all, but instead we're just wondering if they will follow the comics outcome or try something else."  The possibility that the group will be gutted en-masse just doesn't even really come into play.

This season has seen our heroes get themselves into and out of levels of peril at progressively sillier scales. To heck with all of the wall defenses, they have shown that when properly motivated they can break out the "cover-yourself-with-zombie-guts-to-get-out-of-peril" card and defeat impossible odds. It's become clear that the writers have taken to killing off characters when they deem the show needs a hook or the ratings spike rather than any particular story demands. The end effect is that the series continues to become more and more uneven. Bits of brilliance — as with Negan's speech — but then a lack of real fear as to the outcome.

The cliffhanger, of course, at the end of the whole 90-minute episode leaves us hanging for the next few months as to who Negan finally selects for his blood price to punish Rick. We faded to black on Negan making good on his threat – and now the debates will fly hot and heavy if they should take the comic's route or if someone else will die. (In reality, it will probably be the comic's outcome unless any of the other members of the cast choose to not return of their own volition or if anyone rocks the contract-renewal boat.)

The series continues to get huge ratings, so it will continue to plod along like a water-logged walker. The series is getting long in the tooth, and for it to continue onward in a healthy fashion, one would hope that the writers take some care to attempt to rebuild both the suspense and the viewer's concern for the protagonists. It shouldn't be safe; it's not that kind of a world. At the same time, they should work to build up a reason for the audience to watch beyond it being a weekly habit.

From safe haven with a flaw to the next save haven with a flaw, from an awesome Carol episode to a character-driven Darryl episode, it is the same story beats from season to season – only changing from farm to a progression of walled communities. It's unfortunate that what was once one of the most cutting–edge supernatural/horror series is playing it this safe. Here's hoping that they evolve their larger story arc to help bring it back into the adventure and tension filled format that is now a distant and fond memory.

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