The Walking Dead has reached a place in American culture where no scripted cable television series has ever gone before. It’s more than just a cultural phenomenon, it’s the most popular show on all of television for younger viewers. The popularity of the show has been revolutionary in the television industry. America’s love for zombies has seen The Walking Dead become not just one of the most popular shows on television, but the only television series that can consistently match the drawing power of the NFL on a weekly basis.
The Season 4 finale was watched by 15.7 million viewers, the most watched season finale in the show’s run. Season 4 as a whole was watched by an average of 13.3 million viewers. Just how popular is The Walking Dead? Its “postgame show” Talking Dead, was the #2 show in all of cable last week, only behind The Walking Dead. More people watched a show about people talking about a show about zombies than any other show on cable television.
But in spite of its cultural success, The Walking Dead has yet to reach the critical heights of shows like AMC brethren Breaking Bad or Mad Men. Television critics tend toward acknowledging The Walking Dead‘s massive audience instead of justifying it. Just two months ago, some were even suggesting the show would be better off by killing off its lead character! There’s a train of thought amongst many viewers that Season 1 was the show’s critical peak, and that holds true when the data is compiled.
When The Walking Dead hit its Season 4 midseason break, the show had just finished its weakest run of episodes to date. The main antagonist at the beginning of the season was the common cold, which doesn’t exactly scream pulsating excitement. As the sickness moved slowly through the prison, so did the plot. New characters entered and exited the spotlight without much explanation. Rick became a farmer, teaching Carl about the value of fresh produce. The Governor came back for a second run in a story arc that finished a storyline which should have already ended. The eight episodes of Season 4A were just kind of there.
Frank Ockenfels 3/AMC
With the prison abandoned and the group split up for Season 4B, The Walking Dead was thankfully given a blank slate. The final eight episodes took the show in a unique direction, breaking up the cast into smaller groups as they all wandered toward Terminus for the season finale. It was a risky piece of business, but one that was necessary to give The Walking Dead a fresh jolt of energy from a quality standpoint.
The central reason for the critical success of shows like Breaking Bad and Mad Men are the strength of its characters and development of them. Walter White, Jesse Pinkman, Saul Goodman, Gus Fring, Hank Schrader, Mike Ehrmantraut, even Huell — these were all characters where you cared about their every move, every decision, and every storyline progression. When you’re a show that focuses on fighting off the zombie apocalypse, character development might not be high on the list of priorities, but it’s important nonetheless. We met Beth’s boyfriend Zach in Episode 1 of Season 4 and he died within the hour. That didn’t exactly create the opportunity to develop a bond with the character. Even the most dedicated Dead fans may have trouble telling you anything about Caleb Subramanian.
Season 4B finally gave The Walking Dead the opportunity for some much needed character development, so we can actually care about these people. There’s only so many ways you can kill a zombie — the staying power of The Walking Dead depends on the relationship that’s built between the audience and the characters.
It’s daring to suggest, but Season 4B of The Walking Dead featured more character development than we’ve seen in the entire show since the group left Hershel’s farm.
Beth went from Judith’s caretaker to the new moral compass for The Walking Dead, a role that needed to be filled after her father Hershel’s grisly death. As the focus of her own storyline with Daryl, we finally got to see Beth’s hope for the future as the reason for her survival. When she was kidnapped in “Alone,” it drew an emotional reaction from Daryl and from us at home. Would anyone have even noticed had she been written out of the show a half season earlier? We saw Daryl emerge as a protector, first for Beth and then for Rick, Michonne, and Carl. Daryl could have easily went the way of his brother Merle and joined Joe’s merry band of marauders, but he became Rick’s brother by season’s end.
Michonne began to show a human side that went beyond her warrior princess persona. We saw her act as a mother figure to Carl, everyone’s least favorite teenager. We finally learned that her chained-up walkers were her boyfriend and friend as punishment for letting her son die. Not only did we learn the origin of why Michonne had been such a steely figure, but we saw her open up in a new way.
The season’s most dramatic episode, “The Grove,” saw all of its characters reach new heights. Lizzie transformed from a wayward adolescent to one of the most haunting figures of the series. We saw the extremes that Carol was willing to go to in her survivalist mentality by shooting and killing a child. Tyreese offering Carol his forgiveness was an equally powerful scene. But those incredible moments wouldn’t have had the same impact had we not been on a detailed journey with them in Season 4B.
By giving each smaller group of characters their turn in the spotlight, The Walking Dead gave us a reason to be invested in their fates. Bob, Sasha, Glenn, and Maggie saw their characters grow. Rick finally emerged from his personal doldrums to become a leader once again by taking a bite out of crime… and Joe’s neck.
As the group reunited in train car “A” and Rick uttered his iconic (yet edited for television) line that ends the season, we were cheering him on for the first time in a long time. In fact, we were cheering for everyone on screen. Because The Walking Dead invested so much in building the individual characters throughout Season 4B, it gave viewers a reason to invest emotionally in the show once again. And more importantly, it gave us several reasons to look ahead with anticipation for what awaits in Season 5.
