The Walking Dead Season Finale: 10 Ways It Massively Disappointed

10. Rushed Climaxes

For the past several episodes, we've built up the story arc with Joe and his band of "claimers". They roam the countryside adhering to their own set of rules. When Rick first encountered them in the house he had holed up in with Carl and Michonne, there were a few incredibly tense moments such as Rick hiding beneath the bed during a fight between two of the men and Rick's fight with the man in the bathroom before barely escaping to warn Carl and Michonne. Daryl then joined up with the claimers, by necessity more than anything, and we had several episodes establishing Joe's rules for the crew and the code they live by. Joe was attempting to appeal to Daryl's primal instinct, and it appeared it was working. When Joe revealed that they weren't heading for Terminus (the only person who seemed skeptical of the "sanctuary") but instead in pursuit of someone who had wronged them, which of course wound up being Rick, we were led to believe this was building to an epic climax. When the confrontation occurred, we were given a taut standoff that culminated in a grisly scene of Rick biting out Joe's throat like a zombie Jack Dalton. While explosive and violent, it felt incredibly rushed. The Rick vs. Joe conflict could have been the focus of an entire episode, but instead it felt shoehorned in for the sake of resolving it before the end of the season.