It’s becoming more challenging to be a fan of “The Walking Dead” these days. We’ve invested almost four complete seasons into the series, but it has to be one of the most inconsistent shows out there right now, regardless of how good it can be at its best. We understand that character development is vital in
getting to know these people in order to care for them. But ever since the group of survivors split up after the mid-season finale of Season 4, not only has the show become little more than a post-apocalyptic soap opera, but the overarching plot (if there even is one at this point) has slowed to a crawl.
First thing’s first: This is not an article about where the comic book plot goes and, hence, where we think the show and its characters will be taken. We don’t care about that. The series has shown that it can deviate a great deal from the source material and that’s fine by us. We just want the show back on point, and sadly, that’s going to take blood. Most of the remaining living characters have now been around long enough for us to know who works, and as for the rest, only a few show even the slightest signs of potential. Therefore, we’ve decided to go through the characters one-by-one and give our thoughts on which should live or die in order to give the show a fighting chance to live up to the potential it had at the onset. Surely, many fans and even haters will disagree with our choices, but a list like this wouldn’t be much fun if they didn’t. So please feel free to give us your insights, as well. Let’s begin.
Rick Grimes
This show doesn’t exist without Rick Grimes. It’s really that simple. Sure, creator Robert Kirkman wants you to believe that anything is possible, and that the show can go on forever with or without Rick, but we call B.S. He is the show. At its core, this is about him waking up in this new world and taking charge. He’s certainly had his low points along the way, and boy can it be frustrating to watch, but eventually Rick will always come around and be the leader this group needs. If they were seriously to even consider something as stupid as killing Rick off and expect people to stick around for very long after, then this show is even worse off than we thought.
Verdict: Live (Duh)
Daryl Dixon
We really hate saying this, but after the dreadful excuse for an episode that was Season 4’s “Still,” and last week’s “Alone” which wasn’t much better, everyone’s favorite loner seems infinitely less badass than he ever did before. It’s the curse of the lone wolf. Over-exploration can easily kill what it was about a character that made them so compelling in the first place, and that is only going to happen more when it comes to Daryl. Plus, we can thank Beth for totally jinxing him by saying she knows he’ll be the last of the group to survive. Now he pretty much has to not only go down, but most likely do so saving her unworthy ass. While it would certainly be a shame to see him go, it’s better sooner than later if he’s to retain what’s left of his outsider appeal. Plus, if they get rid of him, we’ll feel a lot better about giving up on the show entirely next time it decides to jerk us around.
Verdict: Die
Glenn Rhee
We’re certainly coming around to Glenn more and more. Ever since Season 3’s “When the Dead Come Knocking,” where he managed to not only take down a zombie with his hands behind his back, but a chair to boot, he’s had our full support. Hell, sidelining him with a deadly sickness was still a move we could get behind, even if he was down for a bit longer than he should have been (aka every “The Walking Dead” storyline). Unfortunately, if there is one overarching message that the series seems to want to get across more than anything, it’s that there is no happy ending, and we should abandon all hope of such a thing. Glenn getting knocked off would illustrate that quite effectively, so even though we aren’t saying we love the idea, it makes solid story sense, and we could back it on those merits alone.
Verdict: Die
Maggie Greene
Now, killing off Maggie instead of Glenn would equally drive the “we’re all screwed” point home, but there are a number of reasons it just wouldn’t work and would probably piss people off way more. For starters, as much as Glenn has become a stronger, more well-rounded character and zombie-killer, Maggie is still better than he will ever be. Plus, just based on the characters so far, we feel like Maggie would do better coping with such a loss, even if she is dead set on finding him. Besides, they brought up the pregnancy scare for a reason. Glenn can die and a part of him will always live on if they conceive a child, but that baby isn’t seeing the light of day without a living, breathing Maggie to bring it into the world. This one seems about as obvious as keeping Rick.
Verdict: Live
Carl Grimes
This one is a bit more complicated than it seems on the surface. Carl has always been a poor decision-maker to say the least, but the longer the series has gone on, the more we’ve realized that it’s not just that. After all, he is just a kid, and while he should be showing improvements, we could at least understand his shortcomings if the actor who plays him, Chandler Riggs, was simply better at acting. We can’t feel for this kid because the person portraying him can’t invoke those feelings. In all honesty, the Carl character could easily be one of the most engaging of the group in the right hands, but we don’t see that happening without some sort of huge time jump between seasons. Nevertheless, there’s nothing worse than a mopey, wussified Rick, and we’ve seen enough of that in the past two seasons. If Carl were to go down, we would never get the Rick we love back, so this decision puts that above all else.
Verdict: Live (but please replace Chandler Riggs)
Michonne
Remember, this show ran almost two complete seasons before Michonne showed up, and we liked it just fine then. Of course, we like it a lot better with her in the picture, and can only imagine how much better it would have been with her there all along. They are starting to explore Michonne’s background more, much like they have with Daryl, but with her it seems to work better and is anything but underwhelming. Since we’ve now got the basic gist of how she got to where she is now, we simply recommend that they slow it down a bit as far as specific details. That’s easily avoidable if they amp up the action, allowing her less time to chat it up with Carl. But again, that dynamic still works much better than Daryl/Beth, and we’re actually excited to see where it goes.
Verdict: Live
Carol Peletier
We imagine the masses are pretty split when it comes to their feelings on Carol, as we’ve never quite been able to peg her down ourselves. On the one hand, we’ve seen her grow tremendously from a timid, battered housewife type, to a ‘take charge and do what has to be done’ type. The problem there is that she doesn’t seem to realize when things HAVE to be done, and that makes her come off kind of stupid. Now that she sees that she doesn’t have to take crap from anybody if she doesn’t want to, she doesn’t. Ever. That is going to get much more annoying, too, and ultimately, seals her fate as far as we are concerned. We’d rather see Daryl end up with someone else, anyways.
Verdict: Die
Beth Greene
Like we said, love her or hate her, Beth really screwed Daryl when she told him he’d be the winner of the zombie Royal Rumble, so to speak. Jeezus, she couldn’t have at least knocked on wood? Come on! So far, Beth has given us little to root for, but now that Daryl has her back, we figure she’s going to last at least as long as he will, regardless of how we feel about her. Besides, she’s a character that, unlike others, we could see turning it around with the right storyline and some good writing. After all, we didn’t expect her to even make it off the farm, let alone another two seasons. Plus, she’s Maggie’s sister, and that should say at least something about her potential as a survivor. Until they do something with her that would make the death meaningful in some way, we really don’t see the point in cutting her loose. Eww, now we are starting to sound like her.
Verdict: Live (for now)
Tyreese
To be honest, Tyreese is kind of like Beth. Not physically, but regarding his story, what has he really been given to do so far? He lost someone he cared about, basically stopped caring until all hell broke loose, and now he’s on the run with some kids he barely knows while the woman we assume killed his girlfriend tags along. Hey, wait a minute, those are actually some pretty good storylines. So why isn’t he more interesting? In fact, why are we even debating this any further at all?
Verdict: Die
Sasha
You would think that a character who started off as little more than an uninteresting character’s sidekick would be just as, if not more, uninteresting, but Sasha has at least given us no reason not to like her. She seems to pull her weight, managed to survive the prison attack, and is well on her way to becoming one of the better characters on the show. But now that they’ve gotten her breakdown out of the way (seriously, though, shouldn’t everyone be beyond the point of breakdowns by now?), we look forward to where they can take her character. In fact, we are banking on it with our pick here. Don’t let us down, Sasha.
Verdict: Live
Bob Stookey
The thing about Bob that makes him different than everyone else on this list is that we didn’t like his character (like, at all) before they sort of retooled him in “Alone.” He’s gone from the shitty guy in the group with a drinking problem that not even an apocalypse will sway him from, to a genuinely great guy who just wants to stay together with this group because he’s already been on his own twice. The problem for us is that this sudden change of character greatly resembled what they did with The Governor right before “Too Far Gone,” which makes us think they are again just trying to make us like a person before pulling the rug out from under us and killing him off. But we really hope they don’t, because his character exploration made us come around to him, and realize he could be an asset if he keeps it together.
Verdict: Live
Tara Chambler
We can predict where the story goes if Tara and Glenn find the rest of the group, and we are already dreading it:
Maggie: What’s she doing here?! She was one of the Governor’s people!
Glenn: She saved my life.
Beth: I won’t feel comfortable with her around.
Carol: We should kill her.
Carl: I’ll do it.
Rick: NO!
Daryl: We’ll figure out another way.
And it goes on like that until someone decides to just take matters into their own hands and do the deed themselves after way too much time is spent on the issue. Let’s just cut to the chase and save ourselves the frustration on this one.
Verdict: Die
Sgt. Abraham Ford, Dr. Eugene Porter and Rosita Espinosa
These three are by far the most interesting development of the latter half of Season 4, and they have barely been touched upon. Killing them would be a colossal waste of time. Besides, we’re pretty sure that at least one half of the overall story involves getting these three to Washington, D.C., so we can’t wait to see the challenges that has in store, not to mention how things could and inevitably will go wrong when they get there. They had just better not kill Eugene before he can spill the beans on the cause of all this, or it will be the biggest cop out in TV history.
Verdict: Live, Live, Live
Lizzie & Mika Samuels
These two are both going down. Absolutely no one could possibly be rooting for them, regardless of how wrong that sounds considering that they are young girls. Seriously, though, Mika is about as clueless as they come, and Lizzie is a complete psychopath. While we admit that her story will at least keep our interest, that interest will be fleeting. So however it’s all going to wrap up with her (most likely murdering Mika), it needs to happen hopefully by season’s end, because nobody is going to care much longer than that.
Verdict: Die
Judith Grimes
Come on, we’re not monsters here. Sure, Judith is a baby that can literally do nothing but poop and cry, but that only keeps things more interesting. Besides, she still needs to be reunited with Rick and Carl, otherwise keeping her alive in the first place served no purpose. And seeing as how the group coming back together will most likely be a Season 5 occurrence at the rate things are going, we’re in no hurry to axe an infant for no purpose but shock value. Rock on, Lil’ Asskicker.
Verdict: Live
