Previously: Review: S11x23 Family
✯ Finale ✯
- S 11 x 24 REST IN PEACE -
Directed by Greg Nicotero
Written by Angela Kang, Corey Reed and Jim Barnes
You know how the finales of so many long-running series fall a bit flat/don't tell you enough/have bad stuff happening to people you want to be happy? The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, The Shield... off the top of my head. Well, this wasn't one of them. This was fabulous, everything I would have hoped for and more.
...apart from Rosita dying, of course. Strong, gracious, brave and beautiful even in death; something I always loved about her was that she never made it 'all about her', not even when she was about to die. So, so sad ~ all she has done, for all those years, to go out with a bite. Too sad to get my head round.
As someone tweeted earlier, who'd have thought that out of these three, it would be Eugene who stayed the course!
I know the multitude of viewers who wanted Daryl and Carol to be together are disappointed, but I felt they acknowledged that they are more than best friends... that their story is not over yet. I've never quite 'seen' them romantically, but there is something there that is far deeper than just friendship. When Daryl said, 'I love you', you got the feeling that he'd never said it to anyone before.
Rick and Michonne being mentioned so much in the few episodes prior to this one kept my hopes up that there would be SOMETHING, and what we saw surpassed all expectations: the beginning of a new story! There was me thinking we might just get a peep of Rick's face somewhere.
It was about 8-9 years ago that Jadis/Anne took Rick off in that helicopter, and it would appear that he only escaped relatively recently, ie, just before Michonne found his boots, bag and that phone in the boat. So we know he was something approaching a prisoner at the Civil Republic, wherever it is. Whatever was happening, he obviously fought hard to get out. Bare feet and all that. Note also that the fork thing that he was using as a weapon looks like a tool they used in TWD World Beyond.
I've read that the city he was looking at is Philadelphia ... possibly. Or Omaha, or Portland. Either way, let us hope it is not too far from the enormous herd that Michonne looks set to ride into.
Anyway, thank you thank you Angela Kang and everyone else for that wonderful ending - I'm so hoping that next year we'll see the reunion ~ Rick, Michonne, Judith, the son Rick has never seen, and ... Daryl? We all want that, don't we? And when he was apprehended, he was smiling... what was that all about?
Other stuff I liked:
- Walker-Lance turning up at the gate, complete with Carol's arrow in his neck. I thought he would appear somewhere, as he'd been left to turn!
- Eugene and Max and baby Rosie :)
- Ezekiel becoming King once more...!
- The Commonwealth soldier scarecrows :)
- Negan and Maggie: how she said it all to him, at last, and what she said about Glenn. And how Daryl gave him the 'we're okay' nod, as he saw him out of the window. It's like he really has been semi-accepted now, but only semi-, and that's all it will ever be. But that's kind of okay. Haven't got a clue how him and Maggie are going to end up in Manhattan together, though!!
- Daryl barring the hospital door so that the Walkers couldn't get to Judith ~ just like Shane did with Rick all those years before.
- The way that so many of those we loved were seen at the end, in Rick's thoughts.
It's not over yet :)
~ RIP Rosita ~
