it seems like they're becoming a victim of their own success. this season was kinda like a buffet with a little something for everyone but no one really got anything "good" or "great" out of it.
we spend 1/2 a season touting terminus. carol rambos her way though it and in a few short episodes, bob has a pretty serious limp and we have a priest having mental issues of being moral and rick kept his promise on what knife he'd use to kill the dude with. to a huge degree this would be classified as "unresolved anticipation" in which they keep pointing to the next evolution of the story then for the most part do nothing with it and throw it away on a gypsy run into the wilderness.
enter tight haired chic trying to run a hospital with a gun, an attitude, and a lot of lies. I never saw so many "police" until the last episode when war was coming so it's pretty amazing to me a dozen armed people don't mind getting punched by a woman with testosterone issues who always looks like she just farted in the other room.
there was simply no real direction or building to a direction this season. we had in all:
1) cannibals who can't live on the outside
2) a priest who is freaking out and we're trying hard to care why
3) 10+ people who bought a fake DC story from a dude with a mullet
4) getting around in Atlanta is much easier than it used to be and falling over chain link fences are very effective in parking lot protection
5) carol killing off terminus and getting wasted by getting hit by a car
6) beth struggling to find relevance in the story as well as her current situation
7) a sister who didn't care about her until she had the opportunity to win the "over the top reactions to a death of a person you've not mentioned in 2+ months" award but to be fair, she'd probably have lost a lung if she tried to be any more dramatic in the sorrow of beths death.
then let's get right down to it. we spend a LOT of time with beth and daryl on their own growing the relationship. some people even wondering if daryl is playing hide the hot dog with her. we had what, 1/2 a season into developing beths character and this is the best they could do? in here we either loved or hated the emotional investment in learning the history, their wants and needs and how they got to where they are today.
I mean this is a zombie show about the people and survival after the fall of mankind. we're *supposed* to get into their own drama. instead we build and plot and put her in situations to grow the character only to have her die in about as meaningless death that anyone would fear as a waste of their entire existence. beth knew a bad cop when she saw one. she also survived in the streets and woods for all these months+ this has all been going on. even the cop said beth was strong and we knew that cause she could take a hairpin and get through 1/2 a dozen zombies with that and a headstomp or two.
yet she can't put a pair of scissors in someones neck while standing face to face.
so we get 1/2 way through a season, lost beth to someone's last minute decision to kill someone off and call it a story, and no real reason to anticipate the 2nd half of the season for the most part.
I understand and appreciate the time and effort it takes and our own investment we make to believe in what we're told for the story. there are times I think the show has come a long long way in character development. then they go off and make Maggie a mourner at an over-reactors convention, kill beth for shock value, kill her killer cause that's how we roll (when we're not rolling into you THEN shooting you) and offer to take a lot of over protected people out into the wild in Atlanta.
where for some reason fires still burn in the city streets.
I'm hopeful the rest of the season will build to something and not just be a quick story for the sake of moving things along to nowhere.
