No-one died, Cul? The body count looked to be near thirty!
I was sorry to see Milton linger, rather than go quickly, and despite wanting Andrea gone for most of the series, I'm glad that she got to leave on her own terms (though I'm very surprised she didn't take a toe off with those pliers) - this Andrea is a far cry from the Andrea who wanted to stay with the explosive Dr. Jenner back in Atlanta. I'm not going to miss her.
After all this time, it turns out that the Woodbury militia are all bark and no bite. Whilst their assault on the prison was impressive, when it came to the crunch they proved how amateur they were, in direct contrast to the incredible discipline Rick's group has shown over the series.
I'm disappointed that neither Glen nor Maggie bit it in the fight. They didn't even get nicked by a bullet!
What the hell, Carl? His logic isn't crazy, given the world he lives in, but damn. I get that he has to toughen up, but he seems too eager, and Rick isn't helping at all. Still, we should have seen it coming the moment he shot Morgan a few episodes back. Rick needs to reclaim his hat, because it is doing awful things to that kid's brain.
On the subject of toughening up, Beth has managed it without going to the lengths Carl has gone to - she wanted to escape everything at the farm, but now she's poking a crowbar through skulls like a pro.
Dammit, Gov... not entirely surprising, but completely unexpected. He's really left reality behind now, and it will be interesting to see what happens when he returns.
Glad to see that Tyreese has finally joined Rick's group, but I did not expect it to happen this way. Whilst I understand what Rick is doing, bringing the people from Woodbury to the prison (I guess his conversation with Morgan triggered something), I don't think it's a good decision at all. They may have the space in the prison, and better security than Woodbury when the damage is repaired (after all, the prison is built to allow few people to guard many), but the problems of such a large group are going to be many - how can the group provide for so many, and how is the decision process going to change?
Next series, we'll probably see Tyreese and Sasha (was that her name?), as well as Karen (again, name? The one who managed to survive the Governor), step up to positions within the core group.
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So, how did I do with my predictions?
Badly.
I got Milton kind of right, Andrea mostly right (one of my predictions was that she'd suffer a fatal wound and make it back to the group before she dies), and everything else completely wrong.
Although I did say, in an earlier episode thread, that the Governor might end up running away to lick his wounds, then return in a later series... before I changed my mind to him being killed off.
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EDIT: I didn't give my views on the episode itself!
I actually rather liked it. As much fun as the explosive openers and finales are, it's nice to have a finale that isn't there to entertain through shock and awe. This finale provided an end to the Woodbury story, yet didn't remove the Big Bad or the location - we'll be able to hit the ground running at the start of the next series, rather than see the group running over ground as they scramble to set up the series within the shortest time possible.
A thought on having the bigger group, and with Scott Gimple taking over: might we possibly start seeing more episodes that focus on only a couple of characters? We might start to learn the backgrounds and history of some of the core characters, explaining how they've come to be who they are in the current world, as well as get to know some of the new minor additions.
If we get even just ten episodes like
Clear, then the next series will be an incredible story-telling experience.
