Today I will be doing a spoiler-free review of season 6 of The Walking Dead. I think this is a very solid season that has a lot of high moments. It’s a tough follow-up from season 5, but it does a good job of building off the ending and building up the next massive villain. This season does have one of the better episodes in the show’s history in episode 9 titled “No Way Out.” You are reintroduced to a character that has only been seen twice up to this point in Morgan. He played a massive role in season 1, even though he was only in the first episode. He joins the main character group that is still led by Rick, Daryl, Carol, Glenn, and Maggie. There are some new characters that are introduced as well. This happens when they find a different group of people that have a safe haven of their own on the Hilltop. Some new characters that are introduced with this are Jesus and Gregory, who is the mayor of this town. Some of the other good episodes in this season are episodes 4, 12, 15, and more importantly episode 16. This was the season finale and this episode is just fantastic. Without giving too much away, the group finally ran into the big villain they were looking for the whole season. This leaves A LOT up in the air in what is maybe the greatest season finale of all time. If you don’t know about the cliffhanger, it’s probably the biggest in TV history.
The villain of this season is different from most seasons. It’s a shadow figure that goes by the name of Negan. When they meet the Hilltop they learn about Negan and his group named the Saviors. Most of this season is just the group looking for Negan and trying to work their way through the Saviors group to get to him. Negan isn’t officially introduced until the season finale. I also believe this is the best build-up to a character appearing I’ve ever seen. They did a great job at making him sound insanely intimidating, then the finale does a great job at showing why Hilltop is terrified of him. Jeffrey Dean Morgan does a fantastic job as Negan, even if it’s only for the season finale. The walkers are still obviously a major threat as well and are always lurking around somewhere. I also can’t praise Andrew Lincoln enough for how he plays Rick Grimes. He’s always great but I love the way he’s written this season. After season 5, he’s insanely cocky and feels basically invincible. This is what puts the group into a few jams that they do get out of, until the jam at the end.
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, and this is still a phenomenal season. I just don’t feel like everything is quite perfect. Pacing was still a minor issue, I felt like the plot was good but got off track at times, and the rest is just small nitpicky stuff. This is probably the last truly great season this show produced.
