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

The Bad

4. No Payoff For That Cliffhanger

So all around that was a sterling, incredibly strong episode of The Walking Dead. But Coda still wasn't perfect. The show has certainly come along leaps and bounds since the early days, but there are still parts that aren't quite up to snuff. The writing especially was a weakness towards the beginning, and that's one of the things that's improved the most over these five seasons, but it's still not great. Last week's episode sought praise for picking up not quite where the previous episode had let off, in a nice bit of televisual shorthand. Consumed ended with Noah and Daryl hot-tailing it out of town in a truck, on their way to rally the troops and go rescue Carol and Beth. Crossed began with that plan in action. You didn't need to see Noah and Daryl explaining the situation to Rick, the group brainstorming the approach. All of that was assumed, and wouldn't have been interesting to watch, so they skipped to the good part. Unfortunately that same approach didn't work as well with the cliffhanger Crossed left viewers on, with one of the hostage cops escaping thanks to Sasha trusting him too much. That felt like the set-up for a much larger spanner in the works, with everybody getting angry at Sasha and the cop's escape causing some real trouble for the group's plans. Instead it was wrapped up before the credits even rolled. Not much of a pay-off.