What do we want from The Walking Dead now?

For a while it seemed that way The walking dead was desperate to use its popularity as a platform to create an entire universe of zombified television. First there was the spinoff/prequel Fear the walking deathfollowed by The Walking Dead: The World Beyond and then the anthology series Tales of the Walking Dead. Each of them blended in with the original show, but for the most part they were focused on telling their own stories. Fast forward to 2024, and the previous two series have now ended stories I received an order for another season last year with no further news.

That leaves us with the question: What do we want from it? The walking dead Now? Because it seems like whatever plans AMC had for a sprawling empire have been reduced to focusing on the main characters of the main series. Dead city looks at Negan and Maggie, Daryl Dixon deals with the titular badass, and The ones who live reunites Rick and Michonne, the franchise’s power couple who previously departed The walking dead, so it ends aimlessly and disappointingly. Is the future of The walking dead… The walking dead Divided into three shows?

If it’s a ploy to win back a dwindling audience, it makes sense. At his height, The walking dead was a ratings behemoth. Its counterparts in the “prestige TV” boom of the 2010s may have slowed down in terms of sustained critical appreciation, but the peak was the fifth season premiere achieved 17.29 million viewers. To put this into perspective: the final of breaking Bad had 10.28 million.

A return to the “glory days” with a handful of the characters most associated with them seems like a good idea, perhaps to lure back viewers who disliked the series due to its exhausting length or unpopular creative decisions have gone away. The debut of The ones who live gained 3 million viewers, a far cry from the enormous numbers it once achieved a decade ago, even considering that overall television viewership has declined. However, it is a significant improvement over last season’s relatively poor viewership. And AMC is happy with the performance of the show on its streaming service AMC Plus.

To revive its narrative power, this is a more questionable direction. Dead cityIn particular, he suffers from the feeling of having “been there, done that” – didn’t Maggie somehow already forgive Negan in the original for hitting her beloved Glenn with a baseball bat? Do we really need another series where they play an apocalyptic odd couple and have to go through the same emotional arc all over again?

Daryl Dixon lives from Norman Reedus’ boundless sympathy and an engaging atmosphere. And with our best friend Carol co-headlining the upcoming second season of his spin-off, we’ll probably get something that’s at least somewhat watchable. However, with Franchise overseer Scott Gimple apparently planned to reunite the gang one dayWill it ever feel like Daryl ‘n’ Carol is just spinning their (motorcycle) wheels until we can get the Avengers? Walking dead Side projects? And that’s not all of them Walking dead Spinoff leads just come together… The walking dead?

And if you think about that The walking dead Ended with a look into the future: What other significance does reunification have other than a nostalgic group hug? The zombies have become an afterthought as the world focuses on rebuilding, and they largely serve as a meaty obstacle course in 2024 The walking deadThe makeup and practical effects are excellent throughout, but putting the cast back together just to see them side by side and battling undead hordes feels a little empty. The walking dead In its early years it managed to shock us because it aimed to show that no one is safe from the zombies. But a reunion tour of everyone who was clearly safe misunderstands the “glory years” that the creators are aiming to return to.

Fortunately, The ones who live taps into some much-needed emotional territory and makes it feel like the event it wants to be (even if the zombie horror aspect has long since rotted away). Rick Grimes, now an established soldier in the paramilitary group CRM, must come to terms with his guilt and survival instincts when Michonne, his sword-wielding partner and mother of his youngest child, returns to his life to imprison him and bring him home. It’s something Grimes is grappling with because leaving could put him and the people he loves in the firing line of the CRM, which is putting serious dirt on him and the community he left behind.

“What We,” the fourth episode of the new series, might be one of the best in the show’s history that doesn’t focus on undead bloodshed. A good portion of it is devoted to Rick and Michonne arguing and ultimately contemplating the world-weariness such an experience would bring about. In particular, Rick finds it difficult to return to his family due to the events with his late son Carl The ones who live gives him a chance to properly mourn those who don’t. He doesn’t want anyone to go through that kind of pain again, and he doesn’t think he could. They would all be much safer if he bore the burden of their tragedy alone. It’s misguided patriarchal martyrdom, but it makes sense to Rick.

Of course, Michonne is able to convince him that he is Rick Grimes, that he shouldn’t give up, that there is more out there for the couple, etc. But Rick Grimes is reduced to an anxious, melancholy shell of a man and gives him a final redemption , might The ones who live Feels like a fitting narrative sequel The walking dead and the closest thing the series has to a proper epilogue. It could very easily have been a hollow attempt to lure the unconvinced crowd with “Hey, it’s that sheriff guy you liked!” Instead, it competently deals with Rick as a character who has been through so much trauma, rather than Rick as a recurring action hero.

On a broader level, The ones who live can also serve as a fitting conclusion to the show’s escalating threats. The “We are the walking dead” mindset, in which the physical threat of the zombie (amid the pop culture saturation of zombie media at the time) was no match for the terrifying specter of those around you, gave birth to villains like the unstable Governor. the brutal Negan and a variety of other antagonists ranging from wannabe cults to cannibals. The CRM, an army armed with massive firepower ready to use force to conform the world to its specific definition of laws, is the logical “final opponent.” The walking dead. By standing up to them, Rick and Michonne not only face off against a rival group, but also decide the order of the future.

Where this leaves the end goal The walking dead remains to be seen. It could all be pointing to a big reunion, considering the original show ended with Michonne and Daryl both running off to find Rick. But the first seasons of both Dead city And Daryl Dixon end with the shows spiraling further into their own specific storylines, so it will be a while before the gang gets back together.

See you then, The walking dead The franchise is essentially in the DLC era. What you want out The walking dead depends on how attached you are to certain characters, and luckily there are now DLC side quests for some of them. It remains to be seen whether these threads will ever be connected again (since each actor now appears in their own show, AMC would also have to deal with a lot of contract issues if it then wanted to move them back into the same series). see you then, The walking dead lives solely on the audience’s interest in the characters’ solo exploits, which were developed together. With 11 seasons of the main series, AMC has often asked you to wait for the plot to be resolved and character arcs to be fulfilled. And now, with bigger things to come and a host of spin-offs floating around, you’re encouraged to wait a while longer. For what? We’ll just have to see.

The Walking Dead: Those Who Live is now streaming on AMC Plus.