Walking Dead final season overview: An undead show ready for the grave

In 2009, AMC debuted a brand new slogan: “Story matters here.” Kicked off throughout the season 2 finale of Breaking Bad, simply considered one of the status TV exhibits that had not too long ago made a splash on the channel, it recalled an identical tagline introduced by HBO in 1996: “It’s not TV, it’s HBO.” Both harkened a way of crucial self-importance, dictating that whereas the remainder of TV was a blended bag, these networks had narratives you would depend on. Within a couple of years of the creation of the landmark mantra, HBO can be the house of The Sopranos, Deadwood, and The Wire. And a couple of years after that, AMC would air Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead.

That final show is vital as a result of zombie movies (and the horror style at giant) sometimes aren’t praised for their storytelling. Of course, this angle is fairly inconsiderate — horror is simply as wealthy a vein for good tales and characters as another style, and one want look no additional than George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead or Yeon Sang-ho’s Train to Busan for very efficient zombie movies. But this was a serialized zombie story on TV, a comparatively new idea. Although it was primarily based on Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore’s wildly well-liked comedian ebook collection, there was an opportunity The Walking Dead may put AMC’s new slogan to the check.

And it did… again and again. Because what began as an immediately acclaimed collection that appeared to rewrite the guidelines for what folks have been accustomed to on TV advanced right into a rote instance of a narrative overstaying its welcome. The finale of The Walking Dead has been a very long time coming (even because it aired alongside three spinoff collection, with three extra in the pipeline), and the proven fact that it’s continued its resurrected march lengthy after its contemporaries have wrapped up calls into query its whole thematic spine: How lengthy ought to a narrative about survival proceed to outlive?

From the outset, the hype round The Walking Dead wasn’t simply restricted to its excessive manufacturing values and top-notch particular results make-up. Its showrunner was Frank Darabont, the director behind movies like The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist, lending his mastery of the adaptation to a zombie comedian ebook. And by the finish of season 1, there have been even talks of Stephen King (to whom Darabont owed a serious chunk of his filmography) writing an episode in the second season. Kirkman was additionally closely concerned with the collection, government producing and writing episodes in the first few seasons as an final show of his blessing (although he’d ultimately be concerned in a mega lawsuit in opposition to the community, one thing that at this level is form of a behavior).

Image: AMC

As The Walking Dead wraps up its eleventh season, it’s form of arduous to actually seize what made the show so alluring at first. Obviously, it tapped into a component of wannabe survivalist want success. For many, it’s their most well-liked type of apocalypse: A killer virus is just too uncontrollable. Atomic destruction makes one really feel too helpless. But zombies? You simply stab ’em in the mind. Anyone with the barest stage of intuition and a few bullets may do it, proper?

However, no matter fist-pumping delight that may be taken when watching Rick Grimes remove a horde of zombies is countered by what would grow to be The Walking Dead’s MO: Anyone can die at any time. In the starting, that is heart-wrenching: Andrea being compelled to stab her zombified sister, Morgan being unable to shoot his spouse as she shuffles towards the house they as soon as shared collectively, Rick stabbing his former finest good friend Shane to loss of life as a result of the desperation of this new actuality has introduced his buddy previous the brink of sanity, and so forth. These have been all milked for most drama, with lengthy, lingering, tense standoffs and copious crying. At its finest, it makes for thrilling tv, particularly should you’re new to “prestige” TV, which, judging by The Walking Dead’s skyrocketing rankings, many have been.

If you’d seen The Sopranos or Deadwood or different exhibits of their ilk, you’d know that main supporting characters out of the blue consuming it’s extra function than bug. It makes for gripping stakes and subsequent watercooler dialog. Name in the opening credit be damned: One of the marks of “prestige TV” was its allowance for dangerous narrative choices that main networks would’ve shied away from. The Walking Dead took this to its furthest potential restrict, usually being nudged alongside Game of Thrones (which premiered a 12 months after) for their penchant for taking out characters out of the blue and shockingly.

However, the disparate attitudes between these two exhibits would grow to be clear with time. Game of Thrones would reveal itself to be working with a little bit extra thematic heft than The Walking Dead, a show that saved coming again to the effectively of “Life is cruel and it will probably make you cruel.” It’s a nihilistic strategy, with any victories, ethical or bodily, usually marked by a swift pulling of the rug. The little woman, Sophia, who the solid spends a literal half season trying for, is found to only be a zombie in a barn proper subsequent to the place they’ve been staying. Rick’s spouse offers start to his new daughter, however dies after a brutal C-section and is shot by her son to forestall her from resurrecting. The record goes on, however one factor is made clear: Any excessive factors in the show, regardless of how lengthy the buildup has been, are destined to be temporary. Dissatisfaction is the core.

Photo: Jace Downs/AMC

Photo: Jace Downs/AMC

On one hand, it’s fairly true to life. No matter what visions one sees of their very own conquer the undead, the most assured actuality is a depressing one. However, from a story standpoint, it means taking part in tug of battle with the nature of fiction itself. A typical story arc permits for development and for realization and for change. The world you’re in after it’s achieved is totally different than the one you began in. But by focusing so closely on “Guess what? It still sucks!” moments of brutality in opposition to the solely characters an viewers can discover any relatable kinship with, you enter a bizarre Pavlov’s canine experiment. The bell dings and also you count on to be disillusioned by what you’re left with. And in a couple of seasons, it might come again to hurt the show in a giant method.

The most vital slaying, although, didn’t happen on digicam. The second season would kick off with Darabont being fired from the collection, annoyed with each the price range and the artistic path AMC desired. His plans clearly concerned one thing a little bit extra free vary (his thought for the first episode of the new season concerned principally abandoning the important solid for a bit, as a substitute specializing in a doomed group of troopers waging a futile battle in opposition to a zombie onslaught in Atlanta). What adopted can be a particularly pricey authorized battle between Darabont and AMC, resolved in 2021 to the tune of $200 million.

In a little bit of telling timing, the episode that noticed Darabont’s exit additionally noticed the arrival of Talking Dead, an aftershow devoted to praising and discussing the night time’s episode with solid and crew members and the first step of the TV show’s eventual empire.

Darabont’s departure didn’t appear to shake up any core ethos of The Walking Dead, particularly because it adopted a lot of the main beats of the comics, which additionally had its ft firmly planted in “Oh, holy shit! Wait, what?” bloodlust. But as the collection went on, these beats and the stunning deaths grew to become all the show may actually matter on. It adopted a formulation for the first few years: The surviving solid finds a brand new location to bunker down in and some extra survivors to hang around with. Then, the location turns into poisonous, a bunch of individuals die both by the zombie mouth or deranged human hand, and the solid (or no matter is left of them) is compelled to maneuver on. From the camp to the farm, from the farm to the jail, from the jail to Alexandria — in the fifth season, protagonist Rick tells others, “We are the walking dead,” and as foolish as that sounds for one individual to say to a different, it rang true. They aren’t too dissimilar from the military of corpses they’re making an attempt to face up to. All they’ll do is trudge from place to position and hope to not get unceremoniously murdered.

In the grand scheme of issues, the first half of the show seems to be simply as marked by the similar narrative exhaustion as the final half. But one factor was totally different: an increase in rankings that performed out like an arms race for recognition in opposition to itself. The first season finale grew to become the most watched episode in primary cable historical past for the grownup 18-49 demographic. The season 2 finale gave AMC its highest rankings ever, solely to be handily crushed by the third-season premiere. You get the thought — the first episode of the seventh season noticed the second-highest rankings in the show’s historical past, driving excessive off the final season’s cliffhanger ending.

By the finish of the seventh season, these can be almost reduce in half.

Image: AMC

The loss of life of Glenn, the fan-favorite character and by far the most personable one amidst a sea of more and more grim macho poses, wasn’t essentially a shock when it came about in the season 7 premiere. It had already occurred in the comics in the very same vogue a couple of years earlier, proper all the way down to Glenn pathetically calling out the title of his spouse between baseball bat blows to the cranium. But what ought to’ve been the energized emergence of Negan, a beloved unhealthy man that had been constructed up for a complete season and one performed by the effortlessly charismatic Jeffrey Dean Morgan, was met with broad distaste. The show that had declared open season by itself solid had lastly gone too far.

Had the wool lastly been pulled away from the viewers’s eyes? The distinction between Glenn’s loss of life and the deaths of Hickok and Bonpensiero is the latter two had meant one thing for the different characters, and one thing for the story at giant. It reverberated throughout the show in a method that was felt extra deeply than guts on the floor. Aside from some indignant characters, The Walking Dead would discover no overhaul in the wake of its supreme second of barbarism. By killing off a mainstay since the finish of the first episode, it had come full circle and wound up empty-handed.

The nature of comedian ebook storytelling, even one as finite as Kirkman’s (it ended on concern 193 in 2019), is cyclical. As elements of longer story arcs or long-running collection, returns to the establishment are obligatory each on occasion to permit for new readers to leap in. But what in case your establishment, like The Walking Dead’s, is constructed on the concept that there actually isn’t one? That even a return to normalcy means layers of intense grief and drudgery and little hope that something will get higher?

In the loss of life of Glenn, no matter magic trick the collection had been pulling off was laid naked to the viewers. It had all the time been that method and would all the time be this fashion; there isn’t any actual shock or payoff. The characters you want are doomed by what looks as if a dice-roll strategy to their fates. The Walking Dead season 8 poster promised “ALL OUT WAR” between Rick’s and Negan’s teams, a dramatic endgame to the climax of the collection to this point. But viewers have been effectively accustomed to its endings. Even a titanic battle between the avenging stalwart protagonist and its most heinous villain held little promise that the story’s nature would change.

Photo: Jace Downs/AMC

After Glenn’s loss of life, what ought to’ve been a story victory lap grew to become a time killer between bushwhacks. The greatest distinction between these later parts and its earlier seasons is that extra human factions are launched. This builds the pretense the show has managed to evolve from small teams scrambling for a foothold in a “walker”-infested East Coast to one thing resembling the return of group in a chaotic world. It can be a succesful change if the show hadn’t beforehand relied a lot on sweeping the legs out from below itself.

Meanwhile, a derivative collection, Fear the Walking Dead, chugged alongside. In a couple of years, it might be joined by The Walking Dead: World Beyond and Tales of the Walking Dead, neither of which supplied something all too totally different from the unique collection. They would even commerce off numerous solid members in a Marvel Cinematic Universe-esque try to supply a watchable element for these hesitant to commit extra time to yet one more aimless zombie collection. The tough elements that had made The Walking Dead appear so gritty and nasty had devolved. In season 9, Rick was carried off in a mysterious helicopter to elements unknown, a artistic selection that mystified audiences till they learn that he was to star in yet one more spinoff.

It was the final shortchange, stopping the final few seasons from ever attaining a comeback. If you couldn’t have a correct send-off of Rick, the solely character round since the first episode and the spine of the collection, then what was the level? Why was it nonetheless going if solid members survived on the foundation of who was getting a tie-in show developed? That’s not an exaggeration: Surviving into the final episode are Daryl (getting a derivative,) Michonne (equally disappeared from the show and now becoming a member of Rick in his spinoff,) Negan (getting a derivative,) and Maggie (accompanying Negan, the man who violently clubbed her husband to loss of life, in his spinoff. What an odd couple!). If The Walking Dead is doing nothing however priming its stars for expanded-universe hijinks, then why does its ending matter in any respect? Even if one may nonetheless discover solace in its shock deaths, characters being protected by sheer franchising is, at finest, a betrayal of what was as soon as its most potent method.

Its existence now feels as archaic as the rotting undead that tempo round in it, a reminder of a collection that in its nascent years, whereas removed from hopeful, remained vibrantly ugly. In the finish, the solely factor The Walking Dead couldn’t survive was its personal success.