The Walking Dead: 4 Things "Spend" Got Right (And 6 It Didn't)

3. Character Development Right Before Someone Bites It

Another of The Walking Dead's more unfortunate habits is focussing on a hitherto-ignored character at the start of an episode. By now it instantly raises a red flag, because in almost every single instance they've done that so far, that's a warning the character in question is about to be killed off, so it's about time you learned more about them and started caring, isn't it? In this case the victim in question was Noah, who appeared in the cold open chatting to Deanna's husband about being an architect, with the figurative passing of the baton and literal passing of a notebook implying that the young man had a bright shiny future helping to maintain Alexandria's wall. No dice. Not only is it emotional manipulation of the most obvious and easily avoided sort, it's also just sloppy storytelling. The same happened for Tyreese during the mid-season premiere; at least they had the decency to suggest Beth might make it out alive. They could confound expectations by using this sort of thing as a red herring, but nada. Disappointing.