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AMC's The Walking Dead may have hit a few snags during the first half of its Season 6 run, though with the show's annual midseason finale - the last new episode until February - comes the opportunity for a "reset." Usually through mass bloodshed. Yes, the series hasn't met a problem yet that it couldn't fix with a copious amounts of corpses and a change of setting.
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But should that happen here? Do we need half the cast to die? Do we want to see Alexandria fall into ruin? Sunday's upcoming fall finale, "Start to Finish," wasn't released early to the press so when it comes to that ferocious herd of walkers set to invade town, your guess is as good as ours. But here's what we'd like to see happen. Here are a few points and items we'd like to see get addressed before the show hibernates for winter.
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Whether or not Rick is ready to accept the Alexandrians or the Alexandrians are ready to accept Rick - both sides need to shut the f*** up about it. Not much has changed from the beginning of the season when, you know, some liked Rick and some didn't. When some townsfolk were capable and some were fools. And many have fallen in the interim thanks to walkers and Wolves. It's time for the citizens to stop blaming Rick for every single danger and it's time for Rick to stop thinking they're little more than stumbling, bumbling chum. Either come together or fall apart.
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By the way, you'll see that most of these "What We Want" items fall along the line of "s*** or get off the pot."
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While we don't mind Morgan's no-kill code, and certainly understand how it helped rescue him from the brink of madness, we want it to work out. For everyone. We want Morgan to not inadvertently do something dumb. Meaning, most of all, we don't want the fact that Morgan won't kill people to accidentally get someone else killed. Someone important, who we might care about. Like Carol. They already played that card and Rick escaped the attack unscathed. So Morgan needs to play things smart. And hopefully, him sparing the life of that head Wolf (are there even any more Wolves to contend with?) doesn't return to make us cry.
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Also, if Morgan needs to somehow unlearn mercy and kill out of necessity, that'd be fine too. As long his ideology doesn't, once again, endanger people. And as long as there's a decent payoff with that Wolf guy.
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Granted, Morgan may just sacrifice himself in some wild act of heroism so that the show doesn't have to move forward with a character who won't kill. The show's done this before (Dale, Tyreese, etc).
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So, based on the way "Always Accountable" ended, we maybe can assume that Daryl, Abraham, and Sasha won't be making it back to Alexandria to help with the walkers. Maybe. We heard someone ask for help over the radio during the fade out moment and that may suggest them heading off into a different side story. If they did make it back though, that rocket launcher would come certainly come in handy.
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Anyhow, while it'd be nice to have everyone get back together and obliterate some zombies, these three seem to be our ticket out of town and a way to possibly learn more about the new evil group that we saw - the ones with guns and trucks. So let's hope that we leave this fall finale knowing a little bit more about all that stuff. We've got some new characters coming in soon - including a new villain - so we need to start setting all that up a bit better.
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It used to be that Carl was most everyone's least favorite. Even though, for a tween/teen on a post-apocalyptic horror show, he wasn't all that bad. Well, now Enid and Ron have most definitely shown us just what huge mopey, myopic pains teens can really be at the end of the world. Just sullen, spiteful, disrespectful pills. So if these two - you know - ever felt the need to just go the "no one understands us" double suicide route, that'd be fine.
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Or - to be fair - they could just get their s*** together, join the game, and help out. Contribute. Take out a walker or two. "Who's fit to survive this far into a zompocalypse?" has been a recurring question for a few seasons now and we're of the mind that, while maybe human lives are worth saving, not much time should be spent trying to convince someone else that the world's a good place and they shouldn't eat a bullet. The decision to move on/carry on is a personal one and not one that should be taking up so much time in Season 6. So teenagers can be angsty and miserable on their own time, thank you very much. Hell, the world was over and Carl's mom still made him do freakin' math homework. You don't hear him whining about that.
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As an offshoot, somewhat, of Enid and Ron - Gabriel either needs to do something hugely redemptive, or GTFO. He has literally spent this half season annoying the utter hell out of everyone around him just with his merely presence. All he needs to do is breathe and someone will roll their eyes. People's tolerance for Gabriel's existence clocks in easily under twenty seconds. I'm not saying he's likable, but he could certainly be made likable. He could actually do something of substance. So let's hope that happens in the midseason finale. Let's give Gabriel his hero moment so he doesn't have to keep being the town outcast. Need we remind you that Daryl doesn't voluntarily bathe and he still has more friends than this guy.
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How about - and this might be crazy - Rick and the Alexandrians kill a crap-ton of walkers and save their town? How about that? I think this show needs Alexandria to remain standing. The last time Rick and his group were out on the road, the show made a huge point about how none of them would/could ever return to that. They just couldn't afford to. It'd be the death of them. So we can't location hop anymore. Hell, if Rick and the rest were as capable years ago as they are now, maybe they wouldn't have had to leave the farm. Places can be defended and swept clear now. So let's fight for our lives and then...rebuild.
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Now, after that whole spiel about the town remaining strong and (mostly) intact, we'd like there to be a lot of death please thank you. It's The Walking Dead. It's the midseason finale. People gonna die. And let's make some of these deaths count. No, that wasn't a jab at Glenn's dumb fake-out death so much as it was a polite knock on the episode "JSS" - which featured a ton of death, but by all unknowns. It was a strong episode, but all of a sudden Alexandria had about twenty more people in it who we'd never seen before. And they were the ones to get butchered by Wolves. Now we need to have the deaths count. Make us hurt, you big bastard show!
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We really hope the show spends the opening five minutes explaining how we were fooled into thinking Tabitha died back in "Here's Not Here." How some other goat landed on top of her and it was that goat that the walkers were eating. And then Tabitha quickly scampered under the house and hid there. Until she was rescued by Enid's turtle.
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Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association (TCA). Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/Showrenity.
I don't know how I feel about the winter finale. I just knew somebody major was going to die, but when they didn't...I don't know, the episode felt lackluster. Sure Deanna died but to me she wasn't an important character. I really thought Carol was going to take Morgan out, because she was serious. But nooooo, because Morgan is so all into his new "code" of human life, it backfired, as predicted, and now the wolf guy has escaped with one of their own. Gee, thanks Morgan. 
You've succeeded again in endangering another person in the group.
they were smiling, we were cryin' 
