‘The Walking Dead’ Series Finale Was Bad Because It Wasn’t A Series Finale

After 11 seasons and 12 years, The Walking Dead series finale ended with a montage that included the phrase “the end is just the beginning.”

This is all part of AMC’s master plan to launch The Walking Dead Universe, a concept which already exists between four shows so far, the main one, Fear the Walking Dead, entering its eighth season, the two-off Walking Dead: World Beyond and the anthology, Tales of the Walking Dead.

But its upcoming slate of spin-offs, whose presence dominated the supposed series finale, is what made the ending of the main show feel so hollow, given that it felt like we knew practically everything that could or could not happen.

The final conflict was…pretty tame, in the grand scheme of The Walking Dead. Pamela is arrested, a bunch of walkers are blown up in a CGI explosion, and there’s a happy ending for everyone except Luke, Luke’s girlfriend whose name I don’t remember, and Rosita, whose slow death from a bite is probably the only truly emotionally impactful moment of the finale.

But even that felt cheap, like Rosita had to be sacrificed because some major, but not too major character probably had to die in the finale, and characters like Carol, Daryl, Negan and Maggie were all off the board completely. So they played spin the bottle between Rosita, Eugene, Aaron and Gabriel, and Rosita lost. In fairness, she drastically outlived her comics lifespan, where she was supposed to end on a Whisperer pike. Ezekiel avoided that same fate and ended up being governor of the Commonwealth, which I thought was a pretty solid ending for him.

The Rick and Michonne finale stinger, which yay, featured new footage, very much felt like the antithesis of a series finale given that we know that the series’ two most important characters are returning for more.

The awkwardly reshot scenes with Daryl and Carol now that she’s not joining his spinoff just had him trailing off on a motorcycle, so we have no idea how exactly he’s going to end up in France for his spin-off. I assume he will not bike there.

A conversation between Maggie and Negan about how she can’t forgive him was supposed to be impactful and emotional but that was undercut by the knowledge that the two of them are going to be joined at the hip for a new spin-off in Manhattan where I think they have to rescue their kids or something. This wasn’t set-up, but we know it’s coming, which made this interaction strange.

The Walking Dead is literally just not ending, it’s multiplying, using almost all its main characters as vessels. It’s shedding a bunch of minor characters, but even those might still show up in cameos or in the anthology series or who knows, get their own spin-offs later. I fully expect a “Judith Grimes” series someday here, for instance.

Every time I bring up The Walking Dead now, I get the same “wait, I thought that ended five years ago,” response. But after 11 years, AMC is absolutely determined to wring another decade out of it, and the advanced knowledge of that plan really put a damper on the creative potential and execution of the finale. So no, there’s nothing to celebrate or mourn here, now it’s just a wait until The Walking Dead season 12-1, 12-2 and 12-3 as the series fractures.

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