The Walking Dead Season 4, What’s Coming Next?

SPOILERS! YOU’VE BEEN WARNED!

It’s sucky and sad that we have to wait until Sunday, February 9, 2014 for the next new episode of The Walking Dead.

However, the mid-season break does give us an opportunity to look back at what has happened and opine about what may happen moving forward.

There certainly are a lot of questions rolling around in my head.

But before we get to that, let’s take a look at some of the crazy shit that we’ve seen already in The Walking Dead Season 4.

☞ A significant percentage of the prison population was wiped out by that mysterious illness that rolled through. It was a plot point that allowed for a smaller number of people to need to flee when the real danger came.

☞ Carol is on the road by herself. She has a car and supplies and weapons. With the separation of the group after the prison incident there’s a chance that Carol meets back up with some of them. There’s also a chance that she doesn’t and stars in a spin-off series on AMC.

☞ That little girl Molly has turned totally bad-ass-apocalypse-survivor. She’s the girl Carl at this point with all the not following the plan and carrying a gun and coldly shooting at walkers and saving lives. She doesn’t have a childhood left. It’s gone. And she doesn’t seem particularly concerned with anything other than being a useful member of the group.

☞ Tyreese has gone through a breakdown that may or may not be over. I have a feeling that the shoot-out has snapped him back into a “do what you’ve got to do to survive” mode. Look for his personality to fit his big body in the new episodes.

☞ We’ve had to say good-bye to Hershel and The Governor. Hershel’s death was by far the most emotional in quite a while. Andrea and Lori both did things resulted in mixed feelings from the fans. T-Dog was loved, but it still wasn’t the same. Dale was a good man and when he died, that was sad. But Hershel, he was the salt of the earth. The father and grandfather. The spiritual and moral compass. His death hit like a ton of bricks.

☞ As for The Gov… well, a lot of people wanted to see that coming. The way it went down worked for me. So many people held grudges against the man that the combo-kill was a worthy ending to his life. Rick gave him all he had, Michonne gave him the katana with the kind of emotion that makes your blood boil and Lilly finished him off with the rage that a grieving mother and pissed off girlfriend can’t deny.

☞ Rick and Carl have been split from the group and believe that they have lost baby Judith to either walkers or enemies. It’s a big difference from the farming life that they were living at the start of the season and sets up an interesting 2nd half of season 4 for the Grimes men.

The next half of this season is going to set up season 5 and beyond. There’s a chance that we lose more group members in the process. There’s a chance that those losses come in the form of deaths and separation from the pack.

☞ I do want to know what happened to Beth. She may not be the most central character on the show but there’s no way that Maggie can go on without her. If they aren’t together now, every move that Maggie makes will be made with 1 motivation, find and save her sister.

☞ How will Rick deal with losing Judith? He and Carl are on their own now in a situation that looks awfully familiar to Morgan and Duane… other than the fact that Carl can handle himself. If Rick doesn’t have his head on straight it will fall on Carl to protect and provide for the pair until they meet up with friends again.

☞ Will Daryl take on even more of a leadership role now? I understand that the council was working as well as possible. But with Hershel’s death, the mess that everyone’s in and the scrambling nature of the group, I think that’s fallen by the wayside.

☞ What’s Michonne’s mood going to be like? She desperately wanted her revenge on The Governor and she got it. She was becoming a stronger member of the group and now things have blown up. Will she be able to focus herself on the people that need her? I think so.

☞ Is Judith really dead? I don’t think so. I think there’s a twist there. As cold as Molly is, I don’t think that she would have abandoned the baby in the middle of the prison courtyard. My gut feeling is that Beth has her. She’s been her babysitter this whole time and takes that responsibility pretty seriously.

We’ve got 62 days to wait to see what happens next… and that’s a long time to wait for people that love this show. I trust that it’s going to be worth it.