Last night’s episode of The Walking Dead left things off in a very uncertain place, but I’m thinking that’s a good thing for the series, especially when taking into account the above preview, which gives us a few teasy glimpses of what’s to come when the AMC zombie drama returns from the winter hiatus in February. Spoilers (obviously) if you haven’t seen last night’s mid-season finale “Too Far Gone”!
“Too Far Gone” left off with Rick and Carl separated from the rest of the group. A mass exodus of the prison has taken place, once again uprooting Rick’s ever-changing group of survivors as they head off to seek out a new safe haven. Again, I can’t say I’m disappointed that they’re moving on from the prison. As good as it is for the characters to have some place to call home for a little while, the dreary backdrop only grew drearier this season when a deadly flu arrived and began taking lives. They beat the flu. It’s time to leave. Of course, the exodus isn’t a voluntary situation. The prison looked like it was in pretty bad shape at the end of last night’s episode, after the Governor convinced his new group to attack the prison with a tank. They still lost and they destroyed the prison in the process. Great job, Governor.
An exit from the prison means a return to the wild where things appear to be as nightmarish as ever, as walkers grow even more plentiful and survivors grow even more desperate.
Looking at the above preview, it’s not easy to put together much about the state of the group when the series resumes next February, but we do get to see some of the lead characters dealing with whatever drama and danger is ahead. That includes Carl raising his gun. And is that him yelling “Wake up!”? It’s hard to tell. We also see someone hanging from a noose, and Tyrese slashing someone — a living person or a walker? Again, it’s hard to tell.
Will Rick and Carl find their way back to the group? Or are we going to see them separated from their people for the rest of the season? And that sort of applies to the rest of the characters we see in the preview as well. How much of the group made it onto the bus? And what happens if the bus runs out of gas or breaks down? Will this whole group stay together or are people going to start to break off and go their own way? Given that there are still a lot of characters we don’t even know yet, it’s possible some of the random Woodbury extras could separate from the characters we’re better familiar with. We’ll have to wait and see.
Here’s a look inside last night’s mid-season finale:
The Walking Dead returns for the second half of Season 4 in February. Read our breakdown of last night’s episode here.
