The Walking Dead: What Could This Year's Cliffhanger Be?

In a recent interview, The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman teased a cliffhanger that would make the wait between Season Four's finale next week and Season Five's premiere in October unbearable. What could that be? It seems unlikely the survivors will still be on the road; more likely is that they'll have reached Terminus already (or at least whoever is still alive and moving in that direction will have) by the time anything remotely cliffhanger-y happens. Whatever it is, it seems this is a bit of a twist on the promise that there would be a happy (or happier) ending to the season than we'd seen in the past.  Can both be true?

Rick's life in the balance This one seems the most likely to us. Why? Well, we were told during Kirkman's recent Reddit AMA that the "final fate" of Rick Grimes would be revealed in Wednesday's issue of The Walking Dead, about a month before the end of the long-running "All-Out War" storyline which fans have long theorized could see the end of the series' lead character. This kind of synchronicity isn't something the comic and the show get too often; after all, most of the characters the comic started with are long dead, and the show remains far enough behind that it will be at least another two years before they're close to caught up. And in a world where "no one is safe," leaving Rick on the edge of death would be a great cliffhanger in the sense that people might actually believe it could happen -- even if the producers have no intention whatsoever to actually do it. Obviously, the survivors encounter things every day that can make them dead...but the most obvious choice is probably the group of marauders Daryl has recently joined.  When they stumbled into the house where Rick, Carl and Michonne were staying, Rick had to kill a member of their group to get away (and it probably didn't make him any friends that the man reanimated and attacked the rest of them). meanwhile, one of the men, while fighting with his friends over the bed Rick was hiding under, saw Rick just before he faded into unconsciousness. This means that if Daryl's group stumbles across Rick's, there will likely be problems.

Daryl's life in the balance That said, it's equally possible that it could be Daryl who's put in grave danger by the Marauders. Based on what we've seen in previews for this week's episode, it seems as though he's not assimilating well to the group. They're also not very nice guys, and they've already got an archer in the form of Len, who is the one who choked out his buddy over a bed and then has been hassling Daryl. We thought that Len would be made redundant by Daryl joining the group, and could be the Marauders' first fatality if anything went down. What if he, sensing that same dynamic, were to take proactive action against Daryl? This one could make for a very uncomfortable Comic Con panel this summer, with lots of "If Daryl dies, we riot" t-shirts.

Meet the Hunters While we've already seen and heard some of the names of Daryl's group, and they don't match up with The Hunters from the comics (neither, in fact, does their behavior, which is less clever and more like a bull in a china shop), that doesn't mean we won't see (or at least be teased with) The Hunters. Andrew J. West, an actor who was said to play a major role in this season, hasn't yet appeared in the show. That gives the studio two episodes to give his Gareth character a big role. That seems to us to be begging either to secretly be, or to have a major impact on, someone familiar to fans from the comics. For a while now, people have suspected that Terminus could be a trap, with fans who have read the comic noting that it's the kind of thing that The Hunters wouldn't be above doing. If that's the case, we could very well have a few moments of thinking all is well, and see the group united, before discovering that something is very amiss with their current sanctuary. That said, The Hunters weren't all that powerful in the comics and relied primarily on stealth. If  the TV version is trying to corral people all in one place, it may be a very different version of their story.

Daryl's loyalties change This one wouldn't be too hard to imagine, particularly because it would provide a great cliffhanger but no real major change to the status quo: I can picture a scenario where Daryl gets caught between groups and chooses the marauders -- for purely strategic reasons.  I can see the season ending with him about to "shoot" Rick, very much like the episode that ended with he and Merle about to fight... ...and very much like that "fight" in Woodbury's arena, it would be some kind of elaborate fake to get out of a seemingly-impossible situation.

Beth's fate Once everyone comes together at Terminus, it will be clear (unless something changes this week or next) that Beth and Daryl are the big missing pieces; the Woodbury residents who died on the bus and the kids who were traveling with Carol and Tyreese will be easily explained away by one of the other characters, leaving only Daryl and Beth to really be "missing in action." Will that mean the rest of the group will go looking, leaving Terminus behind, or will they continue to operate on the faith that their friends will find them there? In any event, since we (the audience) know that Beth is not with Daryl anymore, the next question becomes "whatever happened to her after she got in that car?" And the answer? Well, if it's suitably awful, it could be a great final reveal of the season.