Review: The Walking Dead, "Rest in Peace" | Season 11, Episode 24
AMC's monumental series dies as it lived: awkwardly
A few of us stuck with this thing until the end, right? But I’m guessing most of you didn’t. (It’s pretty simple arithmetic.) If you’re one of the many, many, many people who stopped watching along the way, I hope this series finale review serves as a useful check-in on something that used to be the 900-lb pop-culture gorilla in the room, before becoming more of a 9-lb one. (For a deeper dive into the way it squandered audience goodwill, check out my essay that ran on Friday.)
But we come here not to bury The Walking Dead — after all, the damn thing just won’t die, not with the upcoming Rick/Michonne miniseries, the upcoming Maggie/Negan miniseries, more Fear The Walking Dead, etc./et. al/ad infinitum — but to offer it lukewarm praise in its final hour. Because I genuinely didn’t expect it to conclude in such happy, hopeful, end-of-Lord-Of-The-Rings fashion. (With almost as many endings, to boot.) This is a show that, to its detractors, often looked like misery porn, especi…