As much as I wanted to follow season 5 of AMC's insanely popular ongoing series The Walking Dead from the very first episode, I was out of town and without any access to cable television for the two weeks during which the first two episodes aired. As a result, I missed the two episodes in which Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and his crew escaped the clutches of the cannibals from Terminus, who had them in a bit of a bind at the end of Season 4. I did make it back in time, however, to see team Rick dispatch the Terminus cannibals in a decidedly...final fashion.
With the Terminus crew dealt with, the group splits in two and the focus of the story is primarily about finding Beth (Emily Kinney).
It's eight episodes packed with murder, mayhem, cannibalism, and, of course zombies, all of which comes to a head in a mid-season finale that, while still a shocker in some ways, no longer delivers the same impact that the older episodes, especially the ones involving character deaths, used to do.
There's no point in reviewing the first half of the season, which has been over and done with for a couple of weeks now, but I feel I have to weigh in on a trend I'm observing, especially with two character deaths over the course of eight episodes. The thing about both of the characters who kicked the proverbial bucket was that they basically had "will die eventually" written all over them. Two more characters have joined the group, but the cynic in me says it's only a matter of time before they bite the big one as well (or, as is often the case with this show, get bitten).
The simple reality is that characters will come and characters will go; such is the nature of this show, and in a show about a zombie apocalypse death is basically a constant companion for supposedly everyone.
After five seasons and some real humdingers for episodes, however, the show has finally started falling into a rut of sorts, with one of the two character deaths coming across as downright predictable and the other one, coming across as ill-conceived, almost as if it was done purely so that the show's writers could meet their shock and awe quota.
Worse still, it seems to have become fairly clear that the whole "anyone can die" wisdom does not quite apply to everyone.
While there are still five characters alive from the show's very first season, most of them may yet get their ticket punched. To my mind, however, there is one character the showrunners have no intention of killing at all.
Glenn, the Korean American played by Steven Yuen, has already been somewhat brutally killed in the comics, so his character is at risk.
Michonne, the katana-wielding badass played by Danai Gurira who joined the show in season 3, is arguably the most popular character from both the comics and the movies, but at the end of the day, she is both black and a woman, two demographics which generally have not had the best record of longevity in this series. Also, while killing her would have genuine and profound shock value, the death of Glenn in the comics has pretty much established her as fair game.
Carl Grimes (Chandler Rigg) the son of the lead character Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) is a character whose death would arguably be the most tragic of all, given that he and his sister Judith represent the future of that bleak world, but considering how many kids have been offed I can definitely see it happening, whether or not the producers ever decide to pull the trigger on him.
Rick may be the lead character of both the television and comic book series, but at the beginning of season 4 the writers teased the possibility that he had turned into a walker, specifically in that episode when he and Carl were holed up in am abandoned house following the governor's destruction of the prison. It may not happen soon, if it happens at all, but the people behind the show have already hinted at what Rick's demise would be like.
Which brings us to Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus), a TV-exclusive character who, I will venture to say, is easily the most popular.
Daryl has had his share of close calls during his five-season tenure. There was the possibility that he might die in Woodbury episodes, or when walkers overran the funeral home where he and Beth briefly holed up, or at the hands of the Terminus cannibals, to name but a few.
As a result of all these near misses, I have come to believe that the show's bosses have no intention of killing Daryl off, at least not while his popularity is so high. He is a fantastic character, really, and Reedus plays him with incredible charisma. The problem, is thought, that the notion of a character who remains impervious to any lasting harm feels like an antithesis to one of the show's central themes, which is the fragility and fleeting nature of life. It is for this reason that, sooner or later, Daryl has to die.
Sure, fans would go absolutely insane, but Daryl's death would truly slam home the point that anyone in the show is potential zombie food, or cannon fodder. All bets would be off, and each and every episode would be terrifying for fans because no one would ever feel safe again.
THAT'S the kind of thrill this show needs to really bring back the sense of urgency and utter peril of those first season episodes.
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