Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) – The Walking Dead _ Season 4, Episode 15 – Photo Credit: Gene Page/AMC
Tonight is the season finale of “The Walking Dead,” with speculation and spoilers running rampant across the internet today about who will die this episode and the real nature of the alleged sanctuary of Terminus. The biggest question that seems to be circulating across all sites is whether Rick (Andrew Lincoln) or Daryl (Norman Reedus) will be among the casualties, and sites such as MTV.com seem to think both are possible losses according to their latest article Sunday.
Do you think we might be seeing the death of Rick or Daryl tonight? Who do you think will die?
First of all, unless Reedus wants out of the series, no showrunner in their right mind is gonna kill off Daryl. It would certainly be the most shocking route to go, but that’s kind of also another reason why it can’t happen — there’s no way to top that down the road if Daryl dies. And, of course, that whole factor that fans will completely riot.
As far as Rick, who has traditionally been the main character of the show, it would seem he’s safe for that reason alone, and he would be on any other series. But not on “The Walking Dead.”
Showrunner Robert Kirkman has already revealed that Rick will face a crisis like he has never known before and we will see a completely different side of him in this finale.
“This is Rick Grimes being pushed to his absolute limit. And if you think you’ve seen that before, you haven’t. And the Rick Grimes that comes out of this is really going to shock people,” Kirkman said last week.
As a man who has lost his wife and thinks he has lost his daughter, Judith, there’s not much left for him to lose but his son Carl. Could Carl be a casualty? Could he be reunited with Judith and lose her? Having a baby in the cast has always seemed like a situation living on borrowed time as the reality of having a crying infant in this world is just a fiasco waiting to happen.
As far as Rick possibly dying, some fans have noted that tonight Lincoln makes his first (and possibly last?) live appearance on the series’ talk show “Talking Dead,” which traditionally has not been a good thing for main characters — while some have come on the show without dying, they always come on after they die.
Other cast members at high risk include Beth, who disappeared a couple of episodes ago, and some rumors say the survivors will discover she already met her fate at Terminus — and the cannibalism thing comes up again here. You can fill in the blanks.
And perhaps the most likely death will be in the form of one of the lovers — Maggie or Glenn. “The Walking Dead” writers have traditionally loved to rip away any comfort we can find in the series, and their reunion last week alone is enough to make the powers that be salivate at killing one off. But the possible clincher here is Maggie’s insistence to Glenn he burn her photo, as “he’ll never need it again.”
Uh-oh. Obviously she didn’t learn from her TV dad’s big speech about how you “risk your life everyday now and all you can do now is decide what you risk it for” as a huge foreshadowing of his bloody exit. That burned photo is a huge foreshadowing tactic.
But if we go there, then, as MTV.com pointed out, we also have to look at Beth saying that Daryl would be the “last man standing” and him taking a nap in a coffin.
Don’t do it writers. We’ll riot if you do.
The bloodbath known as “The Walking Dead” season finale is tonight on AMC.