Max - Sultan of Television: The Walking Dead: Stumbling and Shambling

Our plot this season mostly dealt with Rick and his group learning to interact with the Alexandrians over the course of only a scarce amount of time. In theory, the dynamic was an interesting one. Having eight episodes be almost in real time for the amount of ground covered was a bold move, and one that could have paid off radically had the execution been stronger. Likewise, Rick becoming the new leader of Alexandria was a fun topic to explore, bringing to mind the difference in ideologies between Rick and Shane in season two, only this time with Rick being the aggressor and an entire community being the more softhearted one. Once again though, due to poor execution, the idea fell flat.

The biggest problem encountered in this half-season was filler. The first couple of episodes were action packed and, though they lacked a lot of substance, at least felt like they mattered to the plot. Sure, there were a few too many times that an Alexandrian, after seeing their friend slaughtered due to poor aggressiveness declared "Rick is right!" to hammer home the message of the bleak world the writers have pushed, but at the very least what we watched had repercussions to the plot. We saw the underwhelming attack of the Wolves in the second episode, and watched as the frustrating fake-out death of Glenn in the third installment. I wasn't high on the events, but we were moving along. In the fourth episode, and by far the strongest of the season, Morgan got his very own episode, showing how he made the transition from slightly crazy "clear" monger to zen, stick-fighting good-guy. From there though, it was all downhill. Episodes 5, 6, and 7 were basically all filler, with the dialogue feeling re-hashed even when different characters said it. And, in the midseason finale, it was largely more of the same. We got a character death in Deanna, but it didn't leave any significant impact on the show, save for one of the better actors departing. Some zombies attacked and some predictable story beats were covered, but there was not an abundance of substance in what was supposed to be a dynamic hour.

Likewise, I felt as if there was essentially zero character development in this half-season, except for the shining beacon of the Morgan episode. We understand at this point that Rick is unhinged. We get that his ideology conflicts with that of Deanna and the Alexandrians, but instead of just stating it over and over again, show it to us! Develop some of the characters in Alexandria to give us a more well-rounded point of view. We got to understand that Deanna's son, Spencer, was a major asshole, and we know that Jessie's two sons do nothing but screw things up, but none of these characters had real development besides these very primitive adjectives.

Additionally, one of the most foreshadowed plots from the fifth season, the incoming threat of the cryptic Wolves, was one of the biggest busts of the show. All of the previous season, "Wolves Not Far" was imprinted on buildings, carved into bodies, and ominously placed around Alexandria. When we saw Morgan come into conflict with a few of them, the tension was high as to what exactly they stood for, and how exactly they had come to be. Thus, when they finally launched their attack upon Alexandria, hopes were high for what chaos the new group of villains would bring. Instead, a bunch of raving lunatics without so much as a gun invaded Alexandria, killed a bunch of redshirts, and then were, for the most part, taken out by Carol. This is not to say that the episode itself wasn't a tension-filled one, but... really? That's the group who seemed to have taken over all of the surrounding land around Alexandria? How the hell did they even manage to set the trap that Aaron and Daryl fell into last season, when they can't even manage to perform an even mildly successful raid upon Alexandria? Also, what drives the barbaric group? We got a tiny bit of insight into them from the Wolf that Morgan kept captive, but all he really said is that they want to "set people free," which is odd given that they worked as a group. How did a bunch of psychotic lunatics get together to form this group in the first place? It felt as if the writers had planned for a major part of the season being devoted to the Wolf threat, and then forgot when it actually came time to write the episodes.

Thus, in the end, we were given a half-season full of filler episodes, overstated themes, underwhelming villains, and the infamous Glenn fakeout. And, while all of this stripped The Walking Dead of being anywhere near the upper tier of television this time around, I will give credit where credit is due. The Morgan episode, "Here's Not Here," was very well written, and gave a lot of development while answering a lot of questions about the shows newest lead. Special props to Lennie James for portraying the character so well. In addition, Melissa McBride's standout performance of Carol continues to be great, being the shows most badass character while still maintaining the little middle aged woman demographic. And, though her death was pretty underwhelming, Tovah Feldshuh was enjoyable as Deanna, bringing the only relatively three dimensional character from Alexandria.