4. Daryl's Still There
On the opposite end to Andrea on the audience goodwill spectrum is Daryl, who continues to kick all the zombie ass in the world and look redonkulous doing it. Norman Reedus knows he's onto a sweet gig, and rightly so while the writers gave Daryl an awesome arc in going from a racist redneck to virtuous badass and number two, Reedus sold the hell out of it all the way through, meaning that Daryl, a TV creation, is possibly Walking Dead's most popular character. So really, there's not much to this point beyond Daryl is awesome and seeing more of him is always a plus. While he was given a doozy of a storyline in season 3 in attempting to deal with Merle, there's still fuel in the dramatic fires insofar as actually getting into a relationship with Carol is concerned. You could argue that all his plotlines have come to a head so now might be a good time to kill him, but I think the writers would be foolish to let him go, even for the sake of a shocking plot twist. To use a wildly pretentious metaphor, Daryl is effectively the boat upon which we ride through the choppy waters on Walking Dead's plot. When it does get a bit ridiculous ('where the hell's Sophia?'), we can rely on him to polish that turd up a treat, and that's not something the writers will wish to lose. If anyone's going to die next season, my bet's on Hershel or Carol, and that'll give Daryl (and in the former's case, also Glenn) the chance to display how awesome they are all over again. Yet it could all go wrong and he could end up in the 'sanctuary' the trailer hints at. Well, I guess we'll just have to wait and see.