The Walking Dead: 5 Points On How They Botched The Finale

5. Roadblocks - Literal And Otherwise

If one was to draw a line from event to event in the finale, it might look something like this: Roadblock---Roadblock---Trap---Roadblock---Trap---Cliffhanger. That was the gist of the finale, and it took them 93 minutes to tell it (64 if you subtract the time allotted to commercials, which tells you all you need to know about the real purpose of this episode being so needlessly long). 

Rick’s group ran into roadblock after roadblock, in an attempt to illustrate just how badly they underestimated the strength and breadth of the Saviors. But it didn't work, mainly because up until that point, the Saviors were portrayed as a hapless bunch who were cool with getting killed in their sleep, and couldn't tell that Carol was hiding a semi-automatic gun in her sleeve, and couldn't pull off a fairly simple prisoner exchange, and... you get the point. 

The Saviors weren't exactly the nasty villains the Wolves were depicted to be, and they were nowhere close to the cadre of militarized people working for the Governor. No, up until that series of roadblocks, viewers were left to believe the Saviors were fairly tame in comparison.

Now, the argument is that's what we're supposed to believe because that's what Rick and his group believed. Okay. That's fine. But it seems pretty implausible that a group would allow many multiples of their own to die—be it via rocket launcher or knives to the head while asleep—just so they can set up an absurdly elaborate trap for Rick's group. 

It seems unlikely that one of their own would behave so foolishly as to chase after Carol while bleeding to death instead of just taking the car left behind by Rick and Morgan. And it seems downright moronic to go through so much effort into setting chained-up-walker traps, a log trap, and a couple other roadblocks instead of just grabbing the group straight away. 

You have to suspend some belief—we get it—but you don't have to insult the audience's intelligence by doing so. This didn't work, and it felt like the roadblocks were there more for the commercials than for effect on the overall story.