(Source ScienceFiction.com)

SPOILERS AHEAD

Ok, so last weekend I did a live-write up of the Walking Dead Season 3 finale, and the one thing I noticed by the end of the episode was that it didn’t feel like a season finale, it actually felt like the end of a movie that was hinting that they wanted there to be a sequel.

I’ll explain. At the end of the finale episode, The Governor has been defeated and has retreated (location unknown), Rick and the group save their home (the prison), and they take what’s left of the Woodbury group to the prison, but at this point it’s just old people, and children, because the Governor took all the able bodied people to come fight with him… and then he killed them all.
The reason it felt like the end of a movie (that hints at a sequel) and not a season finale is because:
1) there was no cliffhanger ending (like normal TWD episodes)
2) in fact just about everything felt like it was resolved… The Governor ran away, the prison is safe, and they saved a bunch of old people…
3) Carl got insanely dark, finally. He’s been building up to it, but finally he snapped, so they’re trying to set something up for next season I guess?

(Source ComicBookNews.com)

Anyway, here’s my 10 things that should have happened in The Walking Dead Season 3 finale, but didn’t, and the episode suffered because of it. 

1. An actual fight between the two groups…
If you’ve seen the episode, you know that there was just about 2 minutes where people were shooting at humans and not walkers, and The Governor took up 1.5 of those minutes to shoot his own people… Glen and Maggie shot to scare the Governor’s group out of the prison, and it worked… but they didn’t put up much of a fight. An all-out brawl between the two groups would have been the coolest thing to happen all season, besides the return of Merle. The fight would be so cool…
Imagine Caesar and Daryl fighting, because they had a moment, a couple episodes ago, when they kinda competed to kill walkers better than the other person…

And Hershel and Milton fighting…

(Images found on WalkingDeadWiki.com)
Because they sort of bonded earlier, and it would be interesting to see the 1 legged old timer fight the nerdy guy that takes notes of things instead of fighting the undead…
And probably some other combinations that would be worth watching…

I thought it would also be funny to see humans fighting each other while dodging walkers and using the walkers to attack their opponents. Could have worked.

2. Rick vs. The Governor
We got a glimpse of it a couple episodes back when they met for the first time, but the Governor never pulled his gun on Rick, and they both left he meeting alive. The finale should have had deaths more important than Andrea and Milton… just saying. They were the two lamest characters on the show, and they were expendable. Milton would have never survived on his own, outside of Woodbury and Andrea complained about way too many little things, like Dale saving her life (yea, I know, it doesn’t make sense)…
During the huge fight (the one that only happens in my version…) Rick and the Governor should have seen each other from opposite sides of the war-zone, and come to fight in the middle, while soldiers on both sides watched in a circle around the two.

(Source WalkingDeadWiki.com)
And when it looks like Rick is going to die, out of nowhere Rick kills the Governor, kind of like how Rick brought a knife to the gun fight with Shane (in the 2nd last episode of season 2) but still came out alive… That sort of situation should have went down! Not this cowardly running away situation. Rick is the hero, the Governor is the villain, and how do heroes prove they are the hero? By killing the villain when he’s gone too far. Step up Rick! Why did Rick have no problem killing a prisoner that he sort of got betrayed by, but his worst enemy that has attacked him several times… He has a moral obligation to keep him alive.
I guess “Sh*t happens” is appropriate here

3. Someone getting absolutely destroyed by zombies. Odis-style

There were little actual zombie kill scenes in the finale and even less of zombies just massacring people (in fact, the Governor killed most of the people), even the scene where Milton infects/bites Andrea, got cut.. that’s disappointing… but, I’ve got the pictures for you below!!

And a shot of Milton with the walker-makeup on:

(Source EWeekly.com)

4. An explanation of why Rick’s been seeing Lori ever since she died…

B-Plot or sub-plot refers to Rick seeing dead people (not walkers, ghosts).

(Source WalkingDeadMemes.com)

Is she still alive? Is he going crazy? Is she haunting him? What’s the real meaning of why Rick has seen Lori in just about every other episode since she died? It just doesn’t make any sense. He’s seeing her even though she’s not there. There was even a moment when he thought he saw Shane (Jon Berthnal) but it turned out to not be him…

(Source Collider.com)

5. Glen and Maggie’s Wedding

(Source Collider.com)

That would have been the perfect ending to the season, right after they were victorious in the battle against the Governor, the love story that is growing and growing every episode should have become official with a Walker-Wedding!!

6. Carl dying

(Source WalkingDeadWiki.com)
I know, he’s just a little kid, and it’s a bit morbid to say that sort of thing… but he’s becoming too dark and disturbed, he’s almost a small Governor (in fact, they made notice of that on the Talking Dead after the finale). There’s a reason Daryl is the favourite character: he’s awesome. Plus, he’s no longer a red-neck racist… that’s a good thing. But nobody is backing Carl and chanting his name when they want a walker killed, they’re cheering for Daryl or Rick. Carl’s become so dark that he just might not make it through the next season, and he’ll come off looking like an almost villain by that point. Not a good road to go down.

7. A huge death toll of characters we actually cared about…

(Source WalkingDeadFanNews.com)
There was a rumour that 27 people were going to die on The Walking Dead season 3 finale, and then when it actually came to it, 25 randoms died, and Milton & Andrea died… But here’s why that was the most disappointing “27 deaths” (it’s probably obvious what I’m about to say)…
Nobody cared about the 25 extras they brought in for the day!! And not a lot of people cared about Milton or Andrea’s deaths… No offense to either character, but Milton was just not “Walking Dead material” like Rick or Daryl are; he just didn’t belong. The fact that he survived this long is astounding. Without Woodbury, he would have died.
And Andrea has been on the top of my “please let them open the wrong door or walk around a corner too fast, and get attacked” list for close to 2 years… Lori was up there too… But Shane and T-Dog, not so much, but they died first and I don’t know why… I found that Andrea had been the most annoying character of the series, and she gained that title after Dale saved her life (S1 E6), and all she did was use that against him for the next 2 seasons… And she reclaimed the title when they were at Hershel’s farm, and everyone was warning her not to shoot at a potential walker, but she decided that she was one of the guys… and almost killed the best character: Daryl.
She’s one of those characters that stayed on way too long. Kinda like Carol’s husband, Ed. He should have lasted 2 episodes instead of 4.

8. The return of Morgan

(Source ComicBookNews.com)
Was I the only one paying attention to that episode about a month ago, when they finally connected the first season to the current?? They set it up so perfectly for Morgan to return for the finale but it just never happened… See, if I had my way, I would have had some huge fight at the prison occur, and then just when it looks like Rick is about to get beat by the Governor, have Morgan shoot the Governor (and here’s the best part), with the gun Rick gave him in season one. That would have been priceless.

9. The prison vs. Woodbury
One side wins, one side loses. Nothing more. Either the prison fell, and The Governor took over it, kept everyone in it hostage or Rick took over Woodbury while the Governor plans his attack, but Rick thinks he’s dead and protects the city, and flourishes in the amount of food and free space there is. There really are only a couple of good viable options of what to do with the finale, and letting both of them live, without even fighting each other is not acceptable!!

And Finally:
10. An actual finale
How come every episode of Walking Dead so far was more suspenseful than that finale? The last 5 or 6 episodes of this season the Governor has been planning the attack on the prison and vise-versa, but when it finally happens, the Governor and his people just run away, and then he slaughters them with a machine gun…
Then, Rick takes all of the old and probably sick people into the prison… Why? They’re not valuable assets to the group. They have limited food and ammo as is, how is bringing an old age home to the prison a real option? Plus, when the old and sick people die, they will turn, and they will have a bunch of walkers stuck in their prison walls… Genius.
And why don’t they just move into Woodbury? At least that place was semi-safe… The only threat being The Governor, but if Rick had killed him earlier, that wouldn’t be an issue. Also, did they kill Merle Dixon of 1 episode before the finale just so the Governor would stay alive? If they had changed it so Merle survived, Rick would have chosen to spare the Governor’s life, and Merle would have come in and “taken care of it” (like he said last episode).

I wanted to see some epic fight, or at least some crazy walker kills, just something. To be 100% honest: it was pretty boring. Not a lot happened. The promo for it was intense, and than when I was watching it, not a lot really happened. In the promo for the finale, Rick says: “It’s either them or us” (or something like that), and then they decide that it’ll be the other people that die, and not themselves (smart move), and they start preparing.

What did you guys think of the finale? Which character did you want to die in the finale? And if you could change anything about the finale, what would it be?

Let me know below!

4/6/2013 – 3:33 am

by James