Well, that was quite the gut punch, wasn't it? I swear, The Walking Dead always has a way of stringing together a couple of mundane episodes and then following it up with a right hook right into the stomach.
Spoiler alert if you haven't already watched the midseason finale of The Walking Dead, but here are a few assorted thoughts.
Hershel
Poor, Mr. Hershel. Considering his increase in screen time the past few episodes, it seems like he was earmarked to be axed in the midseason finale. And if it wasn't him, it almost certainly was going to be somebody in his family.
As Chris Hardwick said on Talking Dead, Hershel really has been the moral compass of the group since Dale's passing in Season 2. Now without Hershell, this could be somewhat of a rudderless ship when it comes to determining what's wrong and what's right.
As a character, Hershel has kind of grown on me since Season 2. At first, he seemed like a very strong-willed man, but as he watched the ones he love turn into walkers, Hershell came to grips with reality and yet still maintained a sense of clarity that not many people in the zombie apocalypse possessed.
Hershell also had a way of not coming off too preachy or sanctimonious when giving advice (which Dale was often guilty of towards Andrea), and also his medical expertise will be sorely missed by the group.
The Governor
Out of all the deaths in the midseason finale, this is definitely one I did not see coming. The Governor was the go-to villain on the show in Seasons 3 and 4, so it seems odd to picture Rick and the group not fighting an enemy.
Unlike Hershel, The Governor had a very odd arc this season. He was all but absent in the first five episodes of Season 4, and then there were two back-to-back Governor centric episodes.
Just when you thought he was turning the corner, he slipped back into his old ways. And then the next episode, he was gone.
There was really no indication or hint that The Governor may be a casualty in the midseason finale, which is why it was so surprising.
In the first five episodes of Season 4, the "villain" so to speak was the airborne virus and and characters were focused on that. Then The Governor came back and there was suddenly somebody to hate again.
I really believe that a show like The Walking Dead is only as good as its best villain; and although the walkers may seem like the real enemy, the true villains in the show are the people themselves.
The Walking Dead was arguably at its best when the villains were at their pinnacle; Shane in Season 2 and The Governor in Season 3.
So at this point, I'm having a real tough time picturing the show without a villain like The Governor for the protagonists to feed off of. Although I'm sure the writers will come up with some new tasty bad guy for everybody to hate.
What About Bob?
There's still something very unsettling about Bob. I'm starting to think that he may in fact be the mole inside the prison that was feeding rats to the walkers. He's also extremely suspicious and it feels like he's not telling everybody everything.
In the comics, new characters develop to become the new "bad guy", but I think the seeds have been planted here for Bob to do something very diabolical to his new group. We've only scratched the surface with this character, and there has to be many more demons in Bob's past than he's letting on.
But one of the remaining unanswered questions of the first half of Season 4 was who was the culprit that fed those rats to the walkers. It could very well be a red herring (not unlike what Lost did many times), but it could be something ... right?
Don't Wake the Sleeping Mud Zombie
This may just be a bit of nitpicking, but how did Meghan pulling up a sign out of the mud suddenly re-animate a sleeping walker? That was a bit of a stretch to suddenly thrust her into danger without any sort of set up.
Although the walker was dormant in the mud, wouldn't it still be moving somewhat? It looked like it was sleeping and then suddenly woke up after Meghan unearthed that sign. Weird.
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