5 Things We Learned From ‘Walking Dead”s Season 5 Finale
Since last October, The Walking Dead‘s Rick Grimes and his battered band of human survivors have escaped a cannibal camp, made it out of a hospital run by dictatorial cops, learned that their hope of a zombie cure was based on a lie, and have tentatively begun to settle into a seemingly idyllic new community called the “Alexandria Safe Zone.” Last night’s season finale wrapped up a 16-episode batch that was the series’ most popular run to date, both with the audience — which has routinely numbered over 14 million viewers per episode — and with critics, many of whom weren’t fans (Walking Dead-heads?) before.
So what actually happened on the show over the last half of Season Five? And what are fans going to be talking about for the next few months, before Season Six debuts this fall? Here are our five takeaways from last night’s nerve-jangling, nail-biting, brains-chomping adieu.
1. Things are about to get a lot worse for our heroes.
In the second half of the season, Rick led his people to the fortified, upscale suburb of Alexandria, Virginia, where he took a job as the community’s constable. Almost as soon as they arrived, the gang started noticing beaucoup strangeness in the area, including zombies with the letter “W” carved into their foreheads, and lights in the distance that could indicate a rival band of survivors. In last night’s finale, “Conquer,” a handful of human raiders who may be from that other group — real vicious types, sporting those same telltale “W” marks — made their presence known and lured Aaron and Daryl into an abandoned cannery, where they unleashed literal truckloads of the undead.
All signs point to a serious confrontation next year between these self-styled gang of “Wolves” and the dangerously tame residents of the Safe Zone. Alexandria’s best hope looks to be Rick, who at the end of “Conquer” abandoned his secret coup plans and stood before the tribunal that was debating whether or not to kick him out, where he announced his intention to turn them all into the cold-blooded warriors. Which they’re all going to need to be: Judging from what little we’ve seen of these barbarians that will literally be at their gates soon, these new enemies look like they could put the Terminus cannibals and the Woodbury thugs to shame.
2. The survivors are stronger together than alone.
One the show’s best stretches happened in the second half of the fourth season, when Rick and his friends were separated and suffering. But while those episodes were terrific in their own right, they were much bleaker than usual — both for the characters and for those who tuned in every week hoping to see their favorite humans carve out a little peaceful space for themselves. Season Five seems to have been designed to satisfy fans of the show’s core: Rick, Daryl, Michonne, Carol, Glenn, Maggie, and Carl. Aside from a few short missions, the main group of survivors has stayed together from week to week, and it’s made a difference in what they’ve been able to accomplish. They began the season by fighting their way out of a compound run by people who use humans as their primary food supply, and in the half-season finale, Rick and co. very nearly rescued Maggie’s sister Beth from an Atlanta hospital where she’d been forced into slave labor.