Needless to say Sunday's mid-season finale of The Walking Dead was pretty devastating. However, if you haven't seen it yet, feel free to continue reading this page, as it was written spoiler free and pre-episode 8. After you click the "next" button, you're in for a whole heap of spoilers! The Walking Dead is incredibly successful, and has only improved on this in it's first eight episodes of this series. With new characters, new deaths and a new environment to worry about, we've traveled along with Rick and the gang through thick and thin, but this may be some of the best we've seen in a while. Through the great start to Season 1, the slightly tedious (only slightly) Season 2, and the rollercoaster ride of ups and downs that was Season 3, we're finally striking gold (or something similar to it) on a fairly regular basis. Now that the mid-season finale has aired, let's count down all the episodes from Season 4 so far, and see which episode came out on top! Be warned, after this introduction and the honourable mention, there are many spoilers ahead!
Honourable Mention: The Oath (Webisodes)
Before we get to the main entries, let's speak a little about the Webisodes (i.e. Episodes released exclusively online, rather than on AMC). Originally, Frank Darabont (who helped get the show off the ground, and was responsible for Dale being played by Jeffrey DeMunn, since he gets a part in every Frank Darabont production automatically, apparently) wanted the show to have random standalone episodes akin to the "Across The Sea" and "Ab Aeterno" episodes of LOST. This has been elaborated on in Matthew Ryder's list of 1
0 Exciting Improvements We All Want To See Happen On The Walking Dead, so I shan't explain further. The story in the webisode concerns a couple who escape from their recently overrun camp and flee to a hospital, wherein they meet Gale Macones, a doctor who can't help Paul's recent injuries and throws him into a room overrun with walkers (or "Decays", as these folks call them, because God forbid someone should call it a "zombie" in this world). Knowing that Paul (the guy) is dead, Karina (the girl) is asked if she wishes to stop living in this world, especially alone, by the Doctor. The story intelligently approaches the controversy behind theories of euthanasia, albeit in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. There is good news and bad news when it comes to the connections this story shares with it's TV counterpart. The good? Well, it's set in the same hospital that Rick woke up in! Not to spoil anything, but some character does something that helps Rick along his way during the pilot, in a sense. The bad news? It raises the question: Why didn't the Doctor find a comatose Rick and put him out of his supposed misery? That's what she would have done! And presumably she checked the hospital for "Decays" (because for some reason this universe will never use the word "zombie"). She did the same thing to Paul when she thought he was dead, so the show should really never have happened, if she stayed true to her logic. And obviously, something unmentionable happened to Gale before Rick woke up, so it just leaves more questions. Still, that is only nitpicking, and overall it is a damn good twenty-five minute entry into what has become a yearly tradition of releasing Webisodes a week or two before the series airs to tide us over. Check it out! Click "next" to begin the countdown!