The Walking Dead – Season 4 review (spoilers within) – Review by Mary Donnelly

So, that’s it, sixteen episodes on and with more action than all previous seasons combined, season 4 of the Walking Dead has come to an end. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with this show, it promises so much and then can basically spend most of a series on a farm staring into the distance and being angsty (yes, I’m looking at you season 2), but this season both promised and delivered. In my series premiere review I mentioned the sickly pig and the promise of contagion in the prison and so it happened that a particularly virulent flu strain set off a chain of events that resulted in a few bloody deaths, plenty of zombie reanimations and a key character being exiled from the prison community. We also got a fine trio of episodes that dealt with the Governor’s arc, a bit of a departure for the series but one I thought worked well, mainly due to the brilliant, as always, David Morrissey. It also led up nicely to the midseason prison invasion and the horrible death of a beloved character. If that wasn’t enough, the second half of the series split the group and showed us just how tough things are on the road. With the exception of one fairly flat episode and frankly any scenes involving the Glenn and Maggie romance (does anyone care?), the second half of the season really upped its game. It didn’t shy away from violence, whether human on zombie or human on human and delivered some really shocking moments. Melissa McBride as Carol has always been one of the strongest actors and characters on the show and she really stood out this season with the writers giving her an excellent storyline, I look forward to seeing where they go with her next season. The season finale was brilliantly tense and, with a horrific threat to Carl, we finally got to see a newly badass Rick step up to the mark and do what has to be done, maybe there’s hope for him yet. Lastly, the final episode promised what some of us have long been anticipating, cannibals, long pig on the BBQ, sure it was inevitable. Bring on season 5!