Maybe season five has struggled to find a proper villain because there's nobody more cold and brutal than Rick Grimes. Or maybe it's just because the writers blew their wad on The Governor and now genuinely can't come up with a compelling villain. Dawn was supposed to be the primary antagonist since the Terminus brigade scarpered, and she failed in her task spectacularly. Dawn, you had one job. The problem with the head of the hospital is that she was never a particularly strong character, or even a consistent one. We never got a sense of who she was, why she was like that, or anything. Just that she was insistent things stay as they are. Why did she want Noah back, to the point she was willing to kill Beth? Why did she take a shine to Beth after initially hating her so much? That erratic behaviour could've been explained if it was part of her character, but it wasn't. It was just sloppy writing. When Rick pulled the trigger on her, the reaction with viewers was as muted as in the show. It was just a shrug of the shoulders and, cool, now we can get on with other things now she's not bothering us. Such a nothing character for what was otherwise such a strong run of episodes. Look, not every bad guy needs to have an eye patch (though it probably helps). They just have to, y'know, actually be a character. And a threat. And interesting. All things Dawn never quite managed. What did you make of Coda, and of the first half of The Walking Dead Season 5 in general? Let us know in the comments below.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
