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

In 2009, AMC debuted a new slogan: “Story matters here.” Kicked off during the season 2 finale of Breaking Bad, just one of the prestige TV shows that had recently made a splash on the channel, it recalled a similar tagline announced by HBO in 1996: “It’s not TV, it’s HBO.” Both harkened a sense of critical self-importance, dictating that while the rest of TV was a mixed bag, these networks had narratives you could rely on. HBO was the first network to offer the iconic mantra within a couple of years. The Sopranos, Deadwood, The Wire. AMC was then broadcast for a further few years. Mad Men, Breaking BadAnd The Walking Dead.

That last show is important because zombie films (and the horror genre at large) typically aren’t praised for their storytelling. Of course, this attitude is pretty thoughtless — horror is just as rich a vein for good stories and characters as any other genre, and one need look no further than George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead or Yeon Sang-ho’s Busan: Train for very effective zombie films. However, this serialized story of a zombie was shown on television. This is an entirely new concept. Although it was based on Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore’s wildly popular comic book series, there was a chance The Walking Dead could put AMC’s new slogan to the test.

And it did… over and over again. It was a series that started off as something people loved and seemed to be able to change the TV rules. But it quickly became an unwelcomed story. Finale of The Walking Dead has been a long time coming (even as it aired alongside three spinoff series, with three more in the pipeline), and the fact that it’s continued its resurrected march long after its contemporaries have wrapped up calls into question its entire thematic backbone: How long should a story about survival continue to survive?

The hype surrounding the new movie has been building from the beginning. The Walking Dead wasn’t just limited to its high production values and top-notch special effects makeup. Frank Darabont (director behind movies like Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The MistHe lends his expertise in the adaptation of a comic book about zombies to the show. At the conclusion of season 1 there were talks about Stephen King, to whom Darabont owed an enormous chunk of his movieography. He was even rumored to be writing an episode of the second series. Kirkman was also heavily involved with the series, executive producing and writing episodes in the first few seasons as an ultimate display of his blessing (though he’d eventually be involved in a mega lawsuit against the network, something that at this point is kind of a habit).

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As The Walking Dead wraps up its 11th season, it’s kind of hard to truly capture what made the show so alluring at first. Evidently, the show appealed to an aspect of survivalist wish fulfillment. For many, it’s their preferred form of apocalypse: A killer virus is too uncontrollable. One feels too helpless when there is atomic destruction. But zombies? You just stab ’em in the brain. It’s possible for anyone with even the smallest amount of intuition and enough bullets to do it.

To counter any joy that Rick Grimes can bring to a zombie horde, there is what you would make. The Walking Dead’s MO: Anyone can die at any time. It’s heartbreaking to watch. This begins with Andrea having to murder her sister. Morgan is unable to fire at Morgan as she walks toward their home. Rick then kills Shane in desperate circumstances. All of these were crafted to create maximum drama with long, intense, and tense standsoffs, as well as copious crying. At its best, it makes for thrilling television, especially if you’re new to “prestige” TV, which, judging by The Walking Dead’s skyrocketing ratings, many were.

If you’d seen The Sopranos Or Deadwood or other shows of their ilk, you’d know that major supporting characters suddenly eating it is more feature than bug. You get engrossing stakes, and then there’s the water cooler conversation. Name in the opening credits be damned: One of the marks of “prestige TV” was its allowance for risky narrative decisions that major networks would’ve shied away from. The Walking DeadThis limit was often exceeded by being nudged alongside. Game of ThronesThey are known for shockingly and suddenly removing characters from their films (which premiered one year later).

The differences between the shows will become more apparent over time. Game of ThronesIt would be a surprise to find that it is working with more of a thematic weight than The Walking Dead, a show that kept coming back to the well of “Life is cruel and it will probably make you cruel.” It’s a nihilistic approach, with any victories, moral or physical, often marked by a swift pulling of the rug. The little girl, Sophia, who the cast spends a literal half season looking for, is discovered to just be a zombie in a barn right next to where they’ve been staying. Rick’s wife gives birth to his new daughter, but dies after a brutal C-section and is shot by her son to prevent her from resurrecting. It’s not hard to see that any highlights in the series, regardless of how many years, will be short lived. It is what drives the heart of dissatisfaction.

Photo by Jace Downs/AMC

Photo by Jace Downs/AMC

On one hand, it’s pretty true to life. It doesn’t matter how many visions you have of your own victory over the undead; the reality that is most certain is miserable. It is, however, a tug-of-war with fiction’s nature. The typical story arc is designed to allow for growth, realization, and change. The world you’re in after it’s done is different than the one you started in. But by focusing so heavily on “Guess what? It still sucks!” moments of brutality against the only characters an audience can find any relatable kinship with, you enter a weird Pavlov’s dog experiment. The bell dings and you expect to be disappointed by what you’re left with. In a few episodes, the bell would ring again and it would be a huge problem for the show.

The most important slaying, though, didn’t occur on camera. Darabont was fired as a result of being unhappy with the show’s budget and creative direction. He had other plans. His first episode would focus on an unlikely group of soldiers fighting a vain war on the zombie invading Atlanta. It would end up being a costly legal dispute between Darabont, AMC and the amount of $200 million.

In a bit of telling timing, the episode that saw Darabont’s exit also saw the arrival of Talking Dead, an aftershow dedicated to praising and discussing the night’s episode with cast and crew members and the first step of the TV show’s eventual empire.

Darabont’s departure didn’t seem to shake up any core ethos of The Walking Dead, especially since it followed many of the major beats of the comics, which also had its feet firmly planted in “Oh, holy shit! Wait, what?” bloodlust. These beats and unexpected deaths were the only thing the show was able to count on as it progressed. In the beginning, there was a pattern: After the survivors find a place to hide out and have a few friends to chat with, they move on to the next year. The location turns toxic and a lot of people get killed either from the zombie mouth or by deranged humans. After that, everyone (or most of them) must move on. From the camp to the farm, from the farm to the prison, from the prison to Alexandria — in the fifth season, protagonist Rick tells others, “We are the walking dead,” and as silly as that sounds for one person to say to another, it rang true. They aren’t too dissimilar from the army of corpses they’re trying to withstand. They can only trundle from one place to another and pray that they don’t get killed.

The first half of the series is just as affected by narrative exhaustion in the overall scheme of things as the second half. However, one thing changed: there was an increase in viewers that felt like an arms race to the top. For the 18-49 age group, the first season finale was the most watched basic cable episode. AMC’s highest-ever ratings were achieved with the season 2 finale, but they were easily beaten by its third-season debut. You get the idea — the first episode of the seventh season saw the second-highest ratings in the show’s history, riding high off the last season’s cliffhanger ending.

These would almost be cut in half by the end of season 7.

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The death of Glenn, the fan-favorite character and by far the most personable one amidst a sea of increasingly grim macho poses, wasn’t necessarily a shock when it took place in the season 7 premiere. In comics, it had happened exactly in the same manner a few year earlier. Glenn even uttered the wife’s name while he was batting at the skull with a baseball bat. But what should’ve been the energized emergence of Negan, a beloved bad guy that had been built up for an entire season and one played by the effortlessly charismatic Jeffrey Dean Morgan, was met with wide distaste. This show, which had announced open season for its cast, had reached the end of its rope.

Had the wool finally been pulled away from the audience’s eyes? The difference between Glenn’s death and the deaths of Hickok and Bonpensiero is the latter two had meant something for the other characters, and something for the story at large. This reverberated throughout the show, affecting more deeply than any guts. Other than some angry characters The Walking DeadIn the wake of that moment of absolute barbarism, it would need no overhaul. It had made a complete circle by killing off the mainstay of its first episode and ended up empty-handed.

The nature of comic book storytelling, even one as finite as Kirkman’s (it ended on issue 193 in 2019), is cyclical. Parts of long-running stories or series that have a longer story arc, return to the status quo is necessary to let new readers in. However, what happens if the status quo is not as you would like? The Walking Dead’s, is built on the idea that there really isn’t one? Even a return of normalcy can bring layers of grief, drudgery, and very little hope for a better future.

Glenn died, and the magic tricks the series was pulling off were revealed to the public. The series has been this way since its inception. It is not surprising that there was no payoff. What seems to be a dice-roll approach towards their fates will doom the characters that you love. The Walking Dead season 8 poster promised “ALL OUT WAR” between Rick’s and Negan’s groups, a dramatic endgame to the climax of the series so far. However, viewers are used to the series’ 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 by Jace Downs/AMC

After Glenn’s death, what should’ve been a narrative victory lap became a time killer between bushwhacks. These later seasons have more human characters than the earlier ones. This builds the pretense the show has managed to evolve from small groups scrambling for a foothold in a “walker”-infested East Coast to something resembling the return of community in a chaotic world. It would be a capable change if the show hadn’t previously relied so much on sweeping the legs out from under itself.

In the meantime, there is a spinoff series. Fear the Walking DeadThen it sped along. It would eventually be joined by The Walking Dead: World BeyondAnd Tales of the Walking DeadBoth of these series offered little in the way of originality. In a Marvel Cinematic Universe-esque effort to make the series more watchable for viewers who aren’t willing to spend too much time on yet another zombie series, they would trade some cast members. These were the rough edges that made it. The Walking DeadIt was so gritty, and even vile that he had become everything you see. Season 9 saw Rick being carried away in a mysterious helicopter from parts unknown. This was a clever choice which puzzled audiences, until they learned that he would be appearing in another spinoff.

This was the greatest shortfall, and prevented the series from making a comeback in its final seasons. If you couldn’t have a proper send-off of Rick, the only character around since the first episode and the backbone of the series, then what was the point? If cast members were unable to make it through the final episode, why was it going on? That’s not an exaggeration: Surviving into the final episode are Daryl (getting a spinoff,) Michonne (similarly disappeared from the show and now joining Rick in his spinoff,) Negan (getting a spinoff,) and Maggie (accompanying Negan, the man who violently clubbed her husband to death, in his spinoff. It’s a strange couple. What a strange couple! The Walking DeadIf it is only priming the stars for expanded universe hijinks then how does its end matter? Even though one can still find comfort in the characters’ unexpected deaths, protecting them by sheer franchising, is at worst a betrayal to what once was its most powerful technique.

This is the same feeling that makes it feel as old-fashioned as all of the other rotting undead living in it. A reminder of a series, which in its early years was far from optimistic, but that was still incredibly gruesome. It was the last thing. The Walking Dead couldn’t survive was its own success.