Walking dead spoilers finale

Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for the series finale of The Walking Dead.

In its final episode, “Rest In Peace,”the long-running story that is The Walking Deadattempted to meaningfully bring to a close how it had been transforming its universe. No, I’m not referring to how the walkers themselves were beginning to evolve. Rather, it was about how it had been trying to create some sort of narrative fulfillment and deeper thematic meaning that had been largely absent from the show as of late. When it began more than a decade ago, it was interested in exploring what is lost when the world as we know it collapses. The tragedy came in not just how countless lives were lost, but in how those who survived began to descend into depravity. While it has become a bit of a joke to say it, “the walking dead” of the title referred to the humans just as much as it did the zombies.

In particular, the way we first witnessed Rick (Andrew Lincoln) become broken and brutal was grimly cynical yet still frequently compelling. For all the ways he would try to make the world a better one where people would look out for each other and find community, there were repeated moments where he would fall prey to his own worst impulses. It was a rather pessimistic portrait of what could happen to people pushed to desperation that the show had recently tried to complicate this final season by offering a glimpse of a better future. As such, analyzing how this all comes together in this closing chapter requires looking not just at the plot, but in the way the ideas underneath it are conveyed. Outside of the return of a few familiar faces and the handful of character deaths, what did this series finale all end up aspiring to actually mean? Breaking this down will require heavy spoilers so, in the event you haven’t seen the finale just yet and still want to, bookmark this then come back later.

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How Did 'The Walking Dead' End?

In a literal sense, the closing conflict that had been building was between all the characters we had come to know and the corrupt Pamela (Laila Robins) who had ruled the Commonwealth with an iron fist. However, the way this plays out in terms of the plot proves to be less interesting than what it represents for the world writ large. The plan that Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) had to shoot Pamela from afar was what The Walking Dead would have done without thinking in prior seasons. Instead, Daryl (Norman Reedus) manages to cut through all the chaos with a speech that is more than a little rushed though still illuminating. He tells Pamela directly that “you built this place to be like the old world, that was the fucking problem” before going to open the gates for the people still trapped outside. Everyone is saved and Pamela gets arrested despite her attempts to let the walkers take her. In fact, it is Maggie who shoots a walker to protect her rather than kill her. The rest of the group then manages to blow up the remaining walkers and save the community.

Young Judith survived her gunshot wound from the previous episode, but Rosita was bitten during a walker fight. She finds her daughter, and gets to have a "perfect" dinner with friends before she dies. At the very end of the episode, Rick and Michonne show up. Each of them are alone, searching for their families and writing letters, pining over their missing loved ones. This felt more like a set-up for their spin-off show than it did anything tying up any story from The Walking Dead.

The Friends We Made Along The Way

Though they incur some heavy losses, everything is portrayed as being largely hopeful as we flash forward a year. The Commonwealth is now being led by Ezekiel (Khary Payton) and the Hilltop is flourishing. Daryl even remarks to Carol (Melissa McBride) that the world outside is far quieter and the zombies are much less of a threat. Of course, the three subsequent spinoffs will likely change this. Still, at least for now, the characters seem to have found a lasting peace. It is almost as if, after so much conflict and bloodshed that would eventually become unsustainable, the group found there was another way of living. The show had been toying with the idea of its characters grappling with the violence that had dominated their lives and this ending is how it tried to bring that home. There is even a brief yet blunt speech given by Ezekiel that explicitly promises the future will be a better one under his leadership. Even the colors are more vibrant and more fairytale-like than the show has ever been with lush green landscapes popping off the screen. It is all part of how the story really cranks up the sentimentality as opposed to the suffering, down to when Judith tells Daryl that he deserves a happy ending too before he rides off on his bike into the unknown. As he leaves the old world behind, a few walkers are still there, though he keeps on going without paying them any mind.

After sinking further and further into darkness over the course of eleven seasons, this ending was all part of how The Walking Dead sought to close with its best foot forward in what is still abundantly clunky fashion. Oddly, the series that kept bouncing around my head was one that could not be more different in genre though still went through a similar, yet ultimately superior, redemption arc on the same network. In its final season, Better Call Saulactually built to a more honest reckoning with legacy that contained plenty of hope though was still haunted by melancholy. Obviously, that is a more nuanced character study and this is far more centered around spectacle. Still, each of their final seasons attempted to be more bold in reinventing themselves by the time they got to their respective ends. One was more robust and rich in how it did so while the other ultimately rang hollow, especially since all its future spinoffs seem set to undo much of what it ended on. For what it's worth, the way The Walking Dead tried to end wasn’t a terrible one in theory and very well could have worked had it been able to more thoroughly focus on it. With that being said, credit can’t just be given for the attempt. It is all about how the ending itself executes on what it had been setting up for and, in this regard, any explanation comes to the conclusion that it was far too late to leave much of any impact.