The Walking Dead returns this Sunday. Here’s the questions that this season needs to answer. Hopefully, many of these questions will be answered in the season premiere.
1. Is Daryl Gay? — It’s definitely the buzziest question during The Walking Dead’s off-season, and would definitely be a game changer (although, I clearly mispoke when I originally suggested that Daryl would be the most bad-ass gay dude in television history because I idiotically forgot about Omar Little). I don’t know if we’re going to find out that Daryl is definitely gay this season, but I’m not sure why Robert Kirkman would’ve been teasing it, otherwise. Of course, he could just be prison gay. Either way, as interesting as that is now, it’ll probably end up being a non-question once the season begins.
2. What the hell happened to Beth? — Last season, after a bonding experience with Daryl, Beth mysteriously disappeared in a car. Was she kidnapped? Did she go voluntarily? Where did she go? Where is she now? Is she even alive? Or was she a victim of the Terminus gang? WHAT’S GOING ON WITH BETH?
3. Are the people in Terminus cannibals? If you’ve read the comic-books, you already know the answer to this question, because Kirkman says that it follows very closely what happened following the exit from the prison. Otherwise, you’ll have your answers very soon, according to Kirkman in EW:
By minute two or three of our season premiere, I think the vast majority of our questions have been answered and five or six more have been presented. People wanting to know who the people of Terminus are, what they eat, whether or not our group gets out of the train car, where certain characters are that weren’t in the train car — you’re going to have a pretty tight five minutes of adventure to watch there that is going to reveal quite a bit.
4. What kind of villain will Gareth be? A smart one, according to Kirkman. Like The Governor, only he’s more intelligent and pragmatic. He’s expected to be formidable than The Governor, too, although he won’t necessarily be this season’s sole villain. “There’s a lot of ground covered in our first 8 episodes,” Kirkman says, “so I would say without a doubt that Gareth is far from the only threat, quite possibly far from the biggest threat, and there’s quite a bit on the horizon.”
5. Will the gang go to D.C.? Assuming Eugene makes it out of Terminus alive, will he and the rest of the survivors begin making their way to D.C. as planned? Does Eugene actually have the answers to the cure the virus, or is Eugene full of sh*t and/or mentally ill? And will the trip to D.C. even be good for the survivors? According to Kirkman, it’s a mixed bag:
“It’s a new vested interest in life that all these characters are going to have because there’s actually a goal now beyond surviving, something that they think they can achieve, something that they can all work toward. It could very much bring them all together. It certainly has the potential to tear them apart. It’s kind of a mixed bag.”
6. Which major character will die first? — Beth? Lil Ass Kicker? Or could it be Glenn? Or will they kill CORRAL? My money is on Bob Stookey (Lawrence Gilliard, Jr.) because with Seth Gilliam joining the cast, can The Walking Dead contain another alum from The Wire?
7. How decomposed will the zombies be? — The zombies decompose every season of The Walking Dead, as you can see here. How much longer before they’re nothing but bones with tatters of skin wrapped around them?
8. How long before we get the tearful reunion? — Rick and the rest of the survivors still don’t know that Carol and Tyreese are alive. It would be an awkward reunion between Carol and Rick, since Rick banished Carol, except for the fact that Carol has Judith, and Rick doesn’t even realize that Judith survived. That’s going to be a nice moment in a grim series.