'The Walking Dead' mid-season finale recreates a huge scene from the comics
Many fans were left wanting more after Sunday night's mid-season finale of "The Walking Dead."
None of the core cast members were killed off and we were left with many more questions than answers:
Are Daryl, Sasha, and Abraham going to be kidnapped by the Saviors or forced to bring them to Alexandria?
Are Glenn and Maggie ever going to be reunited?
What is the W man going to do with Denise?
And where has Heath been for the past few episodes?
And just when the episode looked like it was about to make a bold move and recreate a few iconic moments from the comic series, the show just ended.
For a mid-season finale, there was a lot left to be desired.
However, the episode did set up a lot of big things to come by recreating a big scene from issue #83 of the comic series.
Near the very end of the episode, Rick, Carl, Michonne, and Jessie's family are trapped as zombies continue to flood into her home.
Rick decides to quickly kill a few walkers, gut them, and then tells everyone to cover bedsheets in zombie guts. Everyone is going to march through the herd by blending in with them.
If the concept sounds familiar that's because this is exactly what Rick did back in season one to walk through the zombie horde in Atlanta, Georgia with Glenn.
While that trick may have worked for Glenn and Rick back in season one that probably won't be the case this time around.
It isn't in the comics.
The scene leads to some of the biggest surprises of the series, which would have made it a perfect cliffhanger.
In the comics, Jessie's son ends up causing a raucous and drawing the attention of the walkers. Unlike the show, she only has one young son, Ron, and he wets his pants before telling his mom he wants to go back. Ron quickly gets noticed by zombies and suffers a pretty quick death.
Jessie refuses to leave her son and gets taken down by the herd as well.
The only problem is that she was holding onto Carl's hand and won't let go. She starts dragging him into the horde as well. Rick's faced with the decision to let his son die or take matters into his own hands. That's when he decides to cut Jessie's hand off with his hatchet.
Just when you think they're in the clear, Carl gets shot from a rogue bullet, which somehow spares his life but takes out his right eye.
Yeah, it's a lot.
And while all of that may not happen come February, the show has certainly set it up so that we may see some of these events play out.
Sam already started calling out to his mom at the end of the episode.
And we already saw that Rick has his hatchet. He used it to hack away at a doorknob in Sunday night's episode.
As for Carl, that's seeming less like a guarantee now. In the comics he's accidentally shot by Alexandria's leader. We won't see that happen since Deanna just bit the bullet. Although Ron had a big grudge against Carl, that seems to be somewhat smoothed over at the moment. Plus, Carl confiscated Ron's gun in the mid-season finale.
It would be a huge divergence from the comics to forgo Carl's injury, especially since, down the line, it's Carl's injury which helps shape his relationship with future villain Negan.
"The Walking Dead" will return to AMC February 14, 2016.