The Walking Dead, Season 4, Episode 16: A
Yeah, definitely not something that's particularly as gripping as the season finales of the previous three seasons. No, this really felt more like a setup more than anything. Which is something I'm bizarrely fine with, I guess? Like, I don't have to wait half a year or whatever for the next episode and can just load up season five, episode one right after I finish typing this review. But as a season finale I imagine this ticked some people off.
Mostly due to, well, how... build-up-y the second half of season four was. And this final episode honestly didn't really deliver on a lot of fronts. First it has this bizarre series of flashbacks to when Hershel was alive and telling Rick to be Farmer Rick, which doesn't really function much, really, other than to be juxtaposed against 'brutally murder a child rapist' Rick and 'angry rebel ringleader' Rick. Really, the flashbcaks are nice to look at, but probably better-served in a different episode.
Joe's assault on Team Rick was sudden and took up the first half of the episode, but they never really felt like a threat, not like Shane or Merle or the Governor or even the disease was. They were too assholish and generically brutish that I don't buy that Rick, Daryl and Michonne -- easily three of the most badass members of our heroes -- would have much trouble taking them down. And other than the sudden attempted rape of Carl (honestly, where is the badass cold-hearted badass kid from earlier in this season?) by a fat jackass... Joe and the rest of his team are quickly mowed down by Team Rick. Yes, it's more visceral than the shootouts that the human-vs-human actions have tended to be, Rick gets to bite a chunk out of someone's throat, but it's nothing new, nothing particularly gripping or tense, because we know plot armour will kick in. Daryl doesn't even get a 'aww, I thought they could be my buddies' moment, because his allegiance to Rick, Michonne and Carl is solid from the get-go. So yeah, Joe's group are but a distraction.
On the way to Terminus we did get a cool Rick-Daryl bonding moment, and Michonne tells Carl the whole story about how her family died (which was a bit of a disappointment but it's a sobering story that works for the purposes of the story) and Carl... gets this moment where he's randomly scared of Rick for showing brutality? Dude, you've machinegunned hordes of zombies and executed a young surrendering soldier, come on, Carl, either grow some balls or don't, just stick with one characterization.
I guess this episode's all about Rick regaining his confidence after just drifting around for literally the past fifteen episodes? Though it's nowhere as well-told as any of the main characters, mind you. It's just... kinda sorta happens, I guess, a combination of his escape from Joe's Douche Squad in the house a couple of episodes back, and seeing his son being threatened makes him go into 'carve a pedophile up with a knife' territory. Well, at least he's not being mopey, which is a good thing.
And, yeah, Terminus ends up not being what it seems. I'm not quite sure just what they are doing -- they seem to be this weird combination of someone who's using honeyed broadcasts to lure people in and raid their supplies and a freaking cult with candle rings or whatever -- but even the first introduction of the Badass Foursome coming to a head with the Terminus people ends up with the Badass Foursome seeing inconsistencies, and things come to a head when Rick finds things like Glenn's riot gear and... shit, someone's watch, I dunno. But Terminus is far too organized, with snipers and machinegunners, and the four are forced to enter a train carriage. Which, of course, coincidentally also contains Glenn, Maggie and the others from last episode.
Rick promises that these jackasses have messed with the wrong people, and, well, while they don't seem to be super-malevolent, they're the bad guys from our heroes' point of view. Sure, they might just be ultra-paranoid, or maybe it's a situation like the Governor where only the head honcho is really evil, but still, at least next season the threat would be a little more concrete. This season of Walking Dead tries to use a more abstract villain in separation and the illness, and, yeah, the Governor and Joe's Douche Gang did play a role, but the former ended up just reprising his role in season three with different beats, and Joe's Douche Gang are quickly dealt with. I still like season four better than season three overall simply because that the character-centric episodes (Beth/Daryl's episode, Carl/Michonne's episode, Carol/Tyreese's episode, Hershel's episode, the Governor's episode) are just so memorable and well-told, but the lull and the general meandering around and random subplots without a satisfying conclusion really make this season fail to really stand up to its potential.
And honestly, it's something that really needs to be evaluated. How long can you really stretch out a survival story without a definite end-goal? The end-goal is obviously to build a settlement and survive, but as any 'peaceful prison' sequences have shown, that doesn't make for particularly compelling television, so we're always going to have a point of conflict. And maybe the end goal is to get a cure, or establish a huge sanctuary settlement thing, but Walking Dead isn't keen on going that route (unless Eugene's mission proves to be super-important next season)... but there's only so much that the zombies can offer as antagonists -- like, Resident Evil tries to at least be creative by adding video game boss zombies and sentient zombies, and Walking Dead tries to use other humans as villains, but then what separates this from other dystopian-future stories? I guess the characters, as poorly-written as they sometimes can be, are what ends up bringing me back. I dunno. There are at least three more seasons of this at the time of writing, and I'm not sure how they're going to keep the concept novel and fresh, at the very least.
Oh well, in a week or so we'll start season five. We'll see.
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