Things we learned from TWD's season 5 finale

SPOILER ALERT! The following post recaps Sunday night’s season 5 finale ofThe Walking Dead. If you don’t want to find out what happened, do not read the rest of this post. Here’s a photo of Darryl looking super cool on a motorcycle:

(Gene Page/AMC)

The Season 5 finale of The Walking Dead on AMC featured the continued ascendence of two separate villains that will certainly factor into Season 6: Gabriel, the blubbering and cowardly priest who turned on Team Rick for reasons unclear but possibly related to his devastating guilt, and the strange cult-like group calling themselves “Wolves.” Plus, there was a whole lot more of Team Rick all kind of confused and trying to figure out how the people of Alexandria have somehow survived this long without any apparent survival skills.

Here are five things we learned from the finale:

1. Morgan is back and he’s dope with a stick

(Gene Page/AMC)

We’ve had Morgan sightings since he split from Rick in Season 1, but now he seems to be back in earnest and ready to be best friends with crazypants Rick Grimes. It turns out Morgan’s still a really nice dude, which we know from his rather polite conversation with a cult member eager to carve a “W” into his forehead and turn him into a zombie (though not necessarily in that order), and from the way he saves Darryl and Aaron from a trap set by the same cult.

More importantly, Morgan is now totally awesome at killing zombies and beating people up with a big stick. Straight-up Donatello stuff. Feels like if you had been out on the road alone as long as Morgan, you might find a more efficient weapon at some point in your travels. But he apparently instead spent all that time honing his stick skills.

2. Team Wario is creepy as hell

So this “Wolves” group, apparently responsible for all the zombies running around with W’s on their foreheads, has also set up some pretty nifty traps for the living. Given the apparent success of their disco-fueled zombie surprises (band name, dibs), it’s a little weird that they’re still out scouting for new people to zombify on a one-by-one basis. But they are, because they’re clearly going for max creepiness.

I’m calling them “Team Wario” because they’ve got W’s on their forehead and because I don’t want to assert that the remnant Washington Nationals are responsible for obvious evil in the world of The Walking Dead. But let’s at least consider it as a possibility: Remember that the world in which Team Rick survives split from our reality several years ago, meaning it’s entirely likely Adam LaRoche was still on the Nats when society crumbled. And Adam LaRoche has always seemed pretty prepared for a zombie apocalypse.

3. There’s a new Walking Dead series!

This one might not be surprising to people who keep up with television news, but AMC rolled out a trailer for its new companion series, Fear the Walking Dead, during Sunday night’s episode. From the looks of it, it’ll take place in Los Angeles, so presumably it’ll be a very long time before the cast of that show meets up with the East Coast group we’ve come to know. Maybe it never happens.

Either way, it’s awesome. Here we thought we were going to have to wait until Autumn to see more zombies get aced. And it might be pretty funny to see how the L.A. mentality translates to zombie killing. I’m imagining a group of scenester California bros hanging out in some bar when the door opens up and looking over like, “OMG is that Channing Tatum!?” But then seeing it’s just a zombie and going back to their drinks, and then getting devoured by the zombie.

4. The Alexandrians are all still useless

Clearly the best scene of this episode comes after Carol visits abusive alcoholic Pete and threatens him with a knife and a casserole, then she leaves and he’s all, “This isn’t my house! This isn’t my house!”

We know it’s not your house, bro, and to be honest we’re all growing increasingly skeptical that such a simple-minded and reckless dude could become a respected surgeon anywhere but the useless confines of Alexandria, which is practicallyIdiocracy. The guy in charge of watching the gate totally gives up watching the gate, and entrusts its closing to a relative stranger that he just saw walking alone in the woods with no gun. You had one job, buddy.

Honestly, it’s borderline impossible to believe the Alexandrians have survived this long without better instincts. This zombie show is unrealistic sometimes.

5. Rick is staying in Alexandria

(Gene Page/AMC)

Everyone on both sides is sort of on the fence about how the whole Team Rick in Alexandria thing is going to shake out until Drunk Dr. Pete shows up and decides to get back at Rick by murdering Deanna’s husband. That makes Deanna realize that Rick’s probably OK, all things considered, so she tells Rick to kill Pete and he does.

Wait, whoops! Now you’re out your architect and your surgeon. But luckily you’ve got Officer Rick Grimes around now, and he’s got valuable skills like growing a beard, coming slowly unglued, brooding in hushed tones, and killing a heck of a lot of zombies. At least one of those should help the community.

~ftw.usatoday.com