(SPOILERS)
Last night’s episode of The Walking Dead saw the return of Glenn, which is great news for the series and for Glenn fans (even if the return itself was annoyingly predictable), but the real doozy of an episode is expected to arrive in next week’s midseason finale. Last night’s episode, “Head’s Up,” set up a lot of dominoes that are expected to fall in what looks to be an exciting, bloody blow-out of an episode.
Here’s the questions we have going into next Sunday night’s midseason finale:
1. Will Ron shoot Carl?
The sniveling Ron, of course, has been up to no good since Enid’s eye began wandering toward Carl. He has been the Eddie Haskell of Alexandria, the school-shooter in the making, kissing up to Rick to learn how to shoot a gun, only so he can use those skills to kill Carl. Carl hasn’t actually helped his case by being an annoying know-it-all, and when last night’s episode ended, Ron was about to shoot Carl before the tower fell in on the safe zone. The question is: Will Ron use the chaos of the zombie horde to take a shot at Carl, or will he lose the opportunity in the melee? Or will Ron get killed by a zombie while watching Carl and Enid make out? (Because that’s what should happen.)
2. Will Daryl, Sasha, and Abraham make it back?
We still don’t know who called for “Help!” on the walkie talkie in last week’s episode (I think it is Eugene), but we can guess why now: The Alexandrians are desperate for help with the zombies invading the village. My guess is that Daryl, Abraham and Sasha arrive just in time to save a few people from certain death. They do have a truck full of gas and a rocket launcher at their disposal; seems like a perfect time to use them.
3. Will Morgan kill the Wolf? Or will he convert him? Will Carol kill Morgan?
The odds are stacked against Morgan in the midseason finale. He’s got an ethos working against him; he has a Wolf who can’t be redeemed; and he’s got Carol, who probably wants to kill Morgan for housing the Wolf and further endangering Alexandria. “The only thing that keeps you from becoming a monster is killing,” Carol told Sam in this episode.
The zombie horde may make all these questions moot, but my guess is that Morgan is going to want to release the Wolf with the zombies approaching, and that the Wolf will use the first opportunity to prove Morgan’s belief system wrong by killing — or trying to kill — Morgan, Carol or Denise. A better, more satisfying possibility is that Morgan kills the Wolf to save Carol, redeeming himself before Morgan gets killed himself, perhaps by the zombie herd. The Walking Dead does love to give redemption to characters before they die, and this entire half season has been working toward the death of Morgan.
4. Will Glenn be reunited with Maggie?
How dark does The Walking Dead want to be in the midseason finale? We can surmise that many will die because of zombie herd, but will The Walking Dead go so far as to kill off Glenn before he meets Maggie? Or will they go even darker and kill off Maggie — the last of the Greene family — before the reunion? That would be heartbreaking.
It seems more likely that they are holding back the Maggie and Glenn reunion to give us something to be hopeful about after the carnage the zombies rain down next week. With multiple people dead, a Glenn and Maggie reunion will offset some of the sadness.
Meanwhile, hopefully Glenn can get that letter from Betsy’s dead husband back to her.
5. Will the Alexandrians pull together to save Alexandria?
Tara’s moment with Rick (“we’re all in this together”); Deanna’s moment with Tara and Rick, thanking him for saving her son; and Rosita’s moment with Eugene in teaching him how to use the machete all suggest that a big rallying moment is in the making. After being at odds with each other all season long, it’s time for everyone in Alexandria to come together to fight off the zombies and save their village. Someone from Alexandria may even save Rick’s life to prove the value of Alexandrians, and it might even be that one-shoed idiot Spencer.
6. Will Father Gabriel ever redeem himself?
That poor guy has been a lost soul all season long, popping up like a sad puppy dog every few episodes to remind us that he’s still around. Carl seems willing to forgive, but Rick is still cold toward Gabriel. Will Gabriel get his redemption moment in the midseason finale, or will he continue to show himself to be a cowardly backstabber? There’s no way that his periodic appearances this season won’t pay off in some manner in the finale.
Give it up for Seth Gilliam, though: He’s perfected that wounded expression this season.
7. Has Maggie’s hair grown about six inches in the few days since Pete died?
Maggie’s hair got really long, really fast. Must be all the pregnancy hormones.
It’s also probably not the greatest idea to bring up Lori with Rick, Maggie. That was super awkward. At least she didn’t say that Judith shows a resemblance to Shane.
8. Will we meet any other new characters?
With the zombies invading Alexandria — and losses sure to pile up — it also seems like a decent opportunity to bring in new characters from another group to help out as Alexandria is ravaged. Could we meet people from Dwight’s community? Or even the Saviors, the group led by Negan who protects people in exchange for their loyalty? It’s probably too much to add into what already looks to be a very full midseason finale, but it’s certainly possible to bring in a new element as a tease for the next half of the season. After all, the Alexandrians may not be the only people who see Glenn’s balloons.
9. Will Judith die?
This is the darkest timeline possibility, but with the wall coming down and thousands of zombies streaming into Alexandria, who is a better protector of Judith? Carol? Or the woman Carol just put in charge of Judith, Jessie? That scene happened for a reason: To put Judith in danger. Maybe Jessie’s son Sam will kill a zombie or three to save Judith? Or maybe Sam watches Judith die? With Maggie’s baby on the way, maybe this show can’t sustain two infants. And maybe Maggie’s reference to Lori was some wickedly sly foreshadowing.
10. Will we ever trust a death again? Or has The Walking Dead used its one freebie and knows never to do that to us again?
There’s one thing we can count on in the midseason finale: They’re not going to troll us again with another character’s almost-death. When someone dies next week, they die. There will not be a cliffhanger with someone’s life hanging in the balance. The Walking Dead has used its one get-out-of-death freebie, and if the show wants to maintain their trust with us, they won’t pull that again anytime soon. Scott Gimple is probably saying, “Sorry about that whole almost-killing Glenn thing. Let me kill off three or four of your favorite characters to make up for it!”
Tune in next week. It’s going to be a bloodbath.
