The Walking Dead Review: Start to Finish (Season 6 Episode 8)

Judging by the mid-season finale, “Start to Finish,” The Walking Dead might be losing its edge.

Leading into the break, fans of the show were holding their breath and preparing themselves for the worst — because that’s what we’ve come to expect from The Walking Dead. We expect to see a gritty show that isn’t afraid to kill off our favorite characters, to have the worst happen, to go there. We all went in to this episode expecting to have our hearts ripped out of our chests.

Instead, we were left wanting. Which is weird, considering all of the characters we love are okay, and yet… all of the characters we love are okay. And, for once, that is a problem.

Here’s the thing about television: we need to be worried. We need to have a reason to stay invested in the show, to keep coming back. Maybe they’re planning something big and devastating to end this season, but as of now, we’re being lulled into complacency, and it’s really ruining the ride.

It happened first with Glenn’s fake-out death (which I will not get in to again because I’ve talked that entire plotline into the ground, really), and now with this mid-season finale. A horde of walkers stormed in to Alexandria! We all expected blood, death, and tears!

What do we get instead?

People talk a lot, Carl lays down the law (admittedly, like a boss), and Deanna gets bitten — which would matter… if we gave a damn about Deanna. But we don’t, so who really cares if she lives or dies? Is there anyone? Raise your hands if you care about Deanna’s well-being.

And then there’s the kidnapping of Denise the Doctor. Again, we care very, very little about the safety of this minor character. Sure, she’s sweet, but Glenn’s okay, Rick’s alive, Carl shut Ron down hard, and, as far as we know, Daryl is safe (also, he isn’t in this episode). Carol’s fate is a little up in the air but the show seems to have lost its guts somewhere along the line, so, I’m sure she’s fine, too.

Earlier in the season, there was a filler episode (titled “Now”) that focused extensively on the Alexandrians. By the fact that I call it a filler, you can guess that it is neither entertaining, nor integral to the story. However, the entire reason for that focus seems to be to attempt to get us to feel something for these random characters and, at the end of the day, at the end of this lackluster episode, we still don’t care.

Special mention goes to Sam for providing the only “cliffhanger” that matters, when he calls out to his mother in the middle of the group’s stealth mission, possibly alerting a few hundred zombies to their location. Whoops. We’ll see how that plays out when the show returns for the second half of the season six.

So far, everything is working out quite nicely for our heroes this season. And it kind of sucks.

What did you guys think? Did you love “Start to Finish” or hate it? Let me know in the comments below!

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The Walking Dead returns Sunday, February 14th at 9/8c on AMC.