What We Want To See In The Second Half of The Walking Dead

In four weeks, the dead will walk again as AMC resumes the fifth season of The Walking Dead.And [...]

By Russ Burlingame

Walking Dead Season 5 Cast

In four weeks, the dead will walk again as AMC resumes the fifth season of The Walking Dead.

And if the trailers have told us anything, it's...wait, no. They've told us almost nothing. They've been much more effective in that regard than the Comic Con trailer at the start of the season was, which blew a ton of reveals and the showrunners shrugged and suggested with a half-smile that maybe they faked some of the footage, since they knew there was no other way to fill 2+ minutes.

So what are we hoping to see, from a show where we can't really predict much of what we expect to see? Read on...

Survivors entering safe zone for first time

Alexandria Safe-Zone

This is the one thing that seems like a sure bet. At this point in the comics, they'd already been made aware of it and were en route.

It also seems to be in evidence -- or at least a safe zone does -- in the teaser trailer released a few weeks ago, although we analyzed that and thought that it was probably more likely that it was another city.

Another setting

Whether it's the road, another camp...somewhere else.

When the group got to Alexandria in the comics, it was a dramatic tonal shift...and there were some growing pains. It was a really slow period, and that's coming from somebody who didn't mind the farm or prison settings.

So...yeah. Let's maybe not have them get right to Alexandria and immediately settle into their new housing. I'm sure there's a way to make it exciting, but it's probably much harder than just having part of the group hang back.

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Trust No One

Fans of the comics know -- or think they know -- who can be trusted and not going forward. That said, the characters aren't genre-savvy and don't know who they can and can't trust.

And they just got done trusting the Terminus folks, and see how that turned out. Daryl just got done traveling around with a group of people who didn't tell him up front they were hunting Rick. And the presumed timeline of all of this is quite short: it's only been about two weeks since the outbreak at the prison, according to the TV show timeline at the Walking Dead Wiki.

In other words, no matter how good Alexandria (or whatever comes next) sounds, it'd be stupid to depict the group as going all in.

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Fallout

The one thing that might be good about getting to Alexandria or a similar safe space is that it would give our survivors time to sort their lives out. Eugene is now a proven liar, Beth is dead and the whole group has been left somewhat hopeless and directionless. To fail to address that in service of just lots more shootin' stuff would be a disservice to everything the first half of the season set up.

In memory of Beth...

...a musical number!

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