Today I will be doing a spoiler-free review of season 4 of The Walking Dead. This first half of this season is just a follow-up of season 3, with the second half feeling like its own and different season. This is still a heavy action-based season with almost every episode having some sort of big fighting scene. The story is still really great though, especially in the second half after it gets a more fresh start. The main characters in this season are still Rick, Daryl, Glenn, Hershel, and now Michonne starts to take a much bigger role. Carl (Ricks’s son) also gets more screen time this season and this is where he becomes a more important character. Once again, all of the characters are absolutely stellar and all shine in their own way. I still don’t think anyone was able to top Rick though as the best character of the season. The way Andrew Lincoln portrays him as a friendly cop in the beginning who didn’t want to hurt anyone to slowly losing it more and more is just phenomenal. There are some great episodes this season again that include episodes 2, 4, 9, 14, and 16. All very good episodes in their own way with 14 and 16 being the best out of that bunch. Storytelling in episode 14 was amazing with incredible action in episode 16. However, the best episode this season was definitely episode 8 titled “Too Far Gone”. The action and emotion in this episode is almost like none other and everything just hits to the largest scale.
The antagonist this season is still The Governor. Just an absolutely menacing villain who was seriously pure evil. A lot of shows and movies try to make the villain seem not as bad as he is with somewhat reasonable motives. However, The Governor is just a pure evil man who will do anything in his power to take Rick and his group out. The one thing I will say about this season is that there are some slower episodes and pacing issues. Even in some of the good episodes, there are just slow moments and it could be tough to get through. However, for the most part, they do everything very well and the pacing doesn’t shine as a massive issue. The acting was very good this season and probably the second-best season in terms of acting so far. I don’t think it’s better than season 2 but it’s the second best to this point. I would put this slightly over season 3 even though season 3 might’ve been a little more consistent. Season 4 just has more episodes that are on that top tier compared to season 3 which had a lot of good but only one really great.
I always rate shows I watch and I rate them based on 10 things in the show. Those things are action, acting, cinematography, pacing, score, characters, ending, plot, protagonist, and antagonist. I rate all of those pieces 1-10 and then after that, I add up the scores of all 10 of them and get a total score out of 100. I gave this season a 94/100 which is just slightly over season 3 like I said. The acting, plot, characters, and antagonist were just all perfect this season. The only thing that brought it down a bit was pacing which I gave a 7/10. Again not a glaring issue at all but it is the worst thing about this season. Overall, this season was phenomenal with two of the best action episodes in the show and one of the best story episodes in the show.
