m_lasker

Spending too much time on Carrie's development and her condition as its focus was not the best idea for the writers to use as the point of the finale. The whole time i was waiting for something huge to happen and eventually i figured out that nothing was ever going to happen and if anything we would be left with a cliffhanger. Turns out I, and many other people, were right. Season 4 as a whole was fantastic, so our standards were much higher than usual when it comes to a finale, so we were all let down by the pace and focus of it. I feel like the execs at Showtime gave the writers and producers a set episode count of 12 and they only had enough material for 11, and thus the finale was born. However, this finale did give the audience all the pieces we need to speculate on what season 5 will contain and how it will unfold. If anything this episode is making me anticipate season 5 more so it can fulfill the new standards that season 4 set for the show. I am very unsatisfied, but at the same time I am overall satisfied with season 4 because as a whole it was miles better than everyone anticipated it to be despite the challenge the writers had of creating a completely new plot following season 3.

I don't want to be unreasonable and give the episode a 1/10 like some people are doing, but damn this was a very boring episode. The fact that we spent 45 minutes watching Beth and Daryl talk to each other and nothing else happened is an insult to me. Also, I feel like I was the only one who caught this, but in the scene where the two characters are playing their little drinking game, that scene is a direct rip off of Lost's season 1 episode 16 "Outlaws" where Kate and Sawyer play the exact same game and the male character is forced to reveal things about himself through the female saying things she "never" did. That in itself is plagiarism. You can argue whatever you want, but that great scene from Lost was stolen and rewritten for Beth and Daryl, 100%. When I saw that, that pretty much proved to me that the writers weren't trying for this episode and can be labeled as a filler episode. Whenever people say that you can skip an episode and you wouldn't miss anything, they normally are exaggerating, but in this case you definitely could skip this and not miss a thing.

I think it is safe to say that this was the biggest let down I have had all year. I even had a party at my house to celebrate the end of the season. The only thing that was remotely interesting was Woodbury's army riding up into the prison and Bowman letting that Gatling gun go off, which was just pure cinematography.

However, Carl being such a hard ass came out of nowhere, and he suddenly feels like he wants to start murdering people. That's completely out of character for Carl. Yes, I understand he has had to do a lot of really messed up things like kill his mother for instance, but this going a little too far and unreasonable.

The ending was predictable with Andrea, thats all Im going to say about that.

The Governor killing all but Martinez and Bowman was interesting, but when that happened at the 35 minute mark, I was so disheartened.

Now the one thing that really bugs me and makes me actually really mad is the fact that in "Clear" Rick decides not to pick up one hitchhiker, but in the end of "Welcome to the Tombs" Rick decides to bring the whole population of Woodbury into the prison. It's no wonder that Glenn Mazzara got fired, AMC probably saw that and said "What the hell is that?"

I knew from as soon as we were subtly introduced to Todd that he would be trouble. Boy was I right, and I am absolutely amazed at what proved he's a problem. As for the train heist, it bugged me that Walt cares more about the amount of methyl-amine than he does Jesse's and Todd's life, but I guess that's what the writers are trying to get across to us. Loved how when Skylar asked Walt why he had exposed arms, he honestly responded with arrogance "Robbing a train" (Like it's simply NOTHING to him). When Todd shoots the boy at the end, I literally screamed and looked over at my brother to see that his jaw was on the floor. Cudos to you Vince Gilligan and your team of writers. This show has definitely set itself up for an outstanding ending. Absolute brilliant episode, cannot wait for next week to see what happens to Todd! If I could give above a 10, I most certainly would.