The Walking Dead: Five Threats We Might See In the Finale
While last year's season finale for AMC's The Walking Dead featured a story that was pretty [...]
While last year's season finale for AMC's The Walking Dead featured a story that was pretty unambiguous going in -- Rick and his group were facing down The Governor's forces at the Prison while Andrea was stranded back in Woodbury, held prisoner by hostiles -- this year is far less so. First of all, while we all turned out to be wrong at the time, comic book readers were pretty sure we had an inkling how the battle at the prison was going to go down, since there was a comic book corollary that followed very much the same basic arc that the second half of last year had done. There's no such parallel for Terminus, for Gareth (whoever he is) or for Joe and his merry band of Claimers. Basically, the biggest question marks of the night -- we won't even say threats, since one or more of those may not turn out to be objectively bad -- are very up in the air this season.
Cannibals There are two distinct groups of cannibals in current The Walking Dead lore. We're expecting to see one, the other or maybe a merging of the two. Around this time in the comics, the characters were heading into the "Fear the Hunters" storyline, in which a cunning group of cannibals secretly tracked and stalked a number of the characters. They attacked Glenn and ultimately managed to kidnap and partially eat Dale (he lasted longer in the comics, for you TV viewers). The Hunters (more on them here) were the first major enemies to come after The Governor, and their appearance tied together a lot of things that were going on at the time; a vicious turn Rick took when a group of highway bandits tried to assault Carl (more on that below, or here) tied together with the merciless way the survivors dispatched The Hunters to show a more proactive and violent side to our heroes…something that was playing off of the then-fresh death of Lori and Judith Grimes (among others) during The Governor's siege on the prison. The other possible group is a family of cannibals operating out of the St. John Dairy Farm. It's been noted that Mary from Terminus looks a bit like the family's matriarch, Brenda. The St. John cannibal family are characters original to the video games, who appeared in Telltale Games' The Walking Dead: Season One episode "Starved For Help," and seem much likelier candidates to be the denizens of Terminus than do The Hunters in that they make a facade of friendliness and pick off survivors quietly by pretending to be giving them medical help and other benign or even kind acts to peel them away from the group.
The Home Invaders In the novels based on the rise and fall of The Governor, there was a group referred to only as the "Home Invaders." Tommy is the leader of a group of home invaders who attempted to take the Peach Orchard house away from the Blake (The Governor) family and Nick Parsons in The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor. It's virtually impossible that these characters will be used or important, but they're mentioned for two reasons: first, Robert Kirkman referred to Joe's group as "home invaders" after their first appearance in the episode titled "Claimed" and second, elements of Rise of The Governor and its follow-up novels, particularly The Governor's adoption of a false name and an emphasis on more of his family backstory, have been incorporated into this season of The Walking Dead.
The Marauders This one is almost a sure thing if ads we've seen are to be believed. In The Walking Dead #57, The Marauders are a group of unnamed men encountered by Rick, Abraham and Carl on the highway. Following the fall of the prison, the trio were separated from the rest of their group and came across The Marauders during a longer-than-normal supply run in which they were heading for Rick's hometown of Cynthiana. [Note: Rick, Abraham and Carl were heading into his hometown in the story mentioned above in order to raid the police armory for supplies and check in on Morgan. A variation on that story played out in the Season Three episode "Clear," and ever since, fans have been hoping we'd see more of Lennie James as Morgan. Well, in the comics, he rejoined the cast the next issue.] The Marauders jumped Abraham late at night while the others were sleeping and he was keeping watch, gaining the upper hand and ultimately holding the group hostage until one of them attempted to rape Carl. Rick, having just experienced the loss of Lori and Judith in one fell swoop at the fall of the prison (the comics play out a little differently from the TV series, kids…), snapped and dispatched the men brutally and with gruesome enthusiasm.
The Herd At San Diego Comic Con International last year, Robert Kirkman and Scott Gimple told us that the walkers were going to be a bigger threat than ever in Season Four; up until now, that's been true primarily in the first half of the season (with the flu) and immediately after the fall of the prison. Even on the road, our survivors have more or less acclimated to zombies at this point. But in The Walking Dead #59 (a story that fell between when Rick took on the Marauders and when Ben and Billy -- which is who Lizzie and Mika were in the comics -- died). Heading home from that fateful supply run, Carl, Abraham and Carl are swarmed by a herd of walkers that trashes the car they're driving and ultimately forces them to run for their lives on foot (along with new arrival Morgan). The biggest argument against this story playing out just that way is that it seems unlikely they'll have Morgan in town this week. That said, a well-timed herd could be an invaluable weapon against the above human foes...
