The Walking Dead Mid-season Finale Might Have Just Saved the Show

Warning: The blog is dark and full of spoiler terrors.

For years, “The Walking Dead” has had more viewers than any non-NFL programming on TV. I’ve watched every episode since the premiere. And it’s the only scripted show besides “Game of Thrones” I watch more or less live. That said, it’s possible that no great series has ever made me want to tap out permanently as much as TWD.

“Lost” drove you nuts because they would put in layer upon layer of mysteries that never got solved, plot devices that had no explanation, and ended up in exactly the one place they said they’d never go. “The Walking Dead” takes its audience for granted too, but does it with a combination of manipulation and watered down storylines that are frustrating to the point they’ve been bleeding audience all season.

Take for instance last year. They hit us with the shock of the beloved Glenn getting ripped apart in a parking lot under a pile of zombies. Then followed that up with a bottle episode in which Morgan spend the whole thing learning inner peace from a cheesemaker who looked like the other guy from Tenacious D. A few weeks later we find out Glenn didn’t die in that zombie gangbang. And they spent the whole season teasing the arrival of Negan, the biggest villain in the comics canon, only to have him show up in the last 25 minutes and turned his inevitable act of mayhem into a goddamned cliffhanger. Fans were furious. And with good reason. I debated coming back for another year, as did a lot of people.

That said, I have to admit they paid off the tease. The great one-two cosmic nutpunch of watching Negan barbed-wire-bat Abraham’s skull into pizza, then unexpectedly do it to Glenn too (in keeping with the comics) was TWD at it’s best. A willingness to kill off characters we’re emotionally invested in, plus giving us a Big Bad we can despise until he gets his.

But then, in keeping with the way the show is run, they immediately threw sand on the ice by:

*Focusing on Enid, the most poorly written and badly acted character they’ve ever produced. She’s like the sullen teen in every “ABC Afterschool Special,” and every time she’s on screen you’re reminded you’re watching a TV show. Her adolescent romance with Carl is excruciating. And the moment when they find a backpack filled with roller skates in the middle of nowhere deus ex machina and go skating up the road is the worst scene in show history.

*Doing an entire episode about Tara, who hadn’t been seen since early last year and most of us had forgotten existed. Not only that, they have her spend the whole thing in a village of all women hidden in the woods like Wonder Woman’s Amazon tribe. It didn’t move the storyline at all, just cost us an hour out of our lives we’ll never get back.

*Splitting up the core group, just to prove that Carol has gone from interesting to mentally checked out, none of the supporting cast can replace Glenn and Abraham, Daryl is in a literal and spiritual jail due to his guilt about getting Glenn killed, Negan is menacing and his Saviors will only keep you alive if you provide them shit. Over and over and over again.

*Letting Negan lapse into caricature. For some reason, Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays his with this tic that is more annoying than it is intimidating. He does this weird thing where he leans back to emphasize every syllable like “I love a gal who buys me dinner and doesn’t! Expect! Me! To put … OUT!” Once you pick up on it, you’ll never be able to unsee it.

So for me and a lot of TWD fans, there was a lot riding on last night’s episode. One more plot thread about someone no one cares about, more side trips that don’t lead anywhere, more spinning the wheels and I was done. And it didn’t start out promisingly. But by the end, the showrunners had the awareness to give us what we want. The band is back together. Daryl is back in the game, busting out of prison and killing a guy in the process because enough is enough. Michonne gave Rick a speech to snap him out of his funk because life providing for Negan is no life and at all and it’s time to fight. They set us up for a second half of the season that will be the best kind of fiction there is: a revenge story. Best of all, ended it with the most heartfelt bro hug in the history of story telling. And saving the show in the process. February can’t come fast enough.