The midseason finale of The Walking Dead's fifth year is fast approaching, and it looks set to be a doozy. Like, to the point that Norman Reedus literally can't stand it. "I sat on an apple box with my head between my legs and just balled for an hour," said the man who plays Daryl of a scene from next week's episode. "I really wanted not to tear up during - I wanted to be like I wasted every tear in my body before we started shooting - so I just sat there and cried and cried and cried." An hour. He cried for an hour. That can't be good. With that in mind, then, this week's episode Crossed appears to be the calm before that particularly weepy storm. This fifth season has been one of peaks and troughs, in terms of both quality and narrative. The Walking Dead has seen some of its strongest episodes, characters and writing in this seven instalments, and also some of their weakest. It's also messed with expectations and pacing in a cool way, and all of these disparate threads appear to be coming together in Crossed. The Beth situation is about to be dealt with, the Washington search has been called off, and stuff isn't looking so rosy back at the church either. Not tough to see how the climax of all this might get a little emotional. Still, The Walking Dead's not a perfect show (but really, what is?) (Brooklyn Nine-Nine is, but that's a very different beast). There were some more troughs along with the admittedly impressive peaks in this week's episodes, so let's take a look at six things Crossed got right, and four it didn't.
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/
