Truth be told, I went into last night’s mid-season finale of The Walking Dead fully expecting to be shocked and awed. While many obvious hints had been dropped as to the plot of the episode and even who was going to die, I decided to ignore them, assumed they were all misdirects, and began to prepare myself for the bombshell of the century. I never would have guessed that all of those “obvious hints” would be right on target, and we would be left with one of the most predictable, lackluster episodes of the entire series.

The ironic part is that if the writers had made only a handful of minor adjustments, it could have turned everything around in my opinion and transformed “Coda” from a flat, mediocre episode into one on par with what we’ve come to expect for the series over the years.  Here’s my top 5 recommendations:

1. Make Carol’s injuries appear real and believable

I told one of my best friends before the episode aired that if Carol (Melissa McBride) “magically” just woke up and began moving around and talking like nothing had happened, I would scream. And, I literally did. Folks, Carol was in a serious accident, and that car hit her hard. While one may argue it is possible that she could be talking in 1 day’s time, I can’t imagine anyone in an accident of that magnitude being able to move about let alone walk (even with help!) in just 24 hours.

It would have made a lot more sense if Carol remained unconscious, with Rick’s group staying behind at the hospital until she recovered and was able to travel. But, of course, if they did it that way, they wouldn’t have gotten that super-emotional scene of Beth (Emily Kinney) being carried out by Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan) collapsing at the sight of her dead sister (which was also stupid — see my comments below about that).

2. Make the freaking characters consistent

I swear some of the characters were all over the map in this episode and so much so that by the end of the hour I nearly had a migraine trying to make sense of some of the things they were doing. The most obvious example was Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln). First, he goes completely off the rails and kills Officer Bob after he knocks out Sasha, which I was actually fine with since I resolved myself quite a while back that Rick is crazier than a bed bug.  But, then Beth is shot and killed right before his eyes, and he just stands there. Blood is even spattered across his face, and again, he just stood there. Keep in mind that we had a similar scene in the mid-season finale last year when the Governor slit Hershel’s throat, but in that case, did Rick just bow out and do nothing? No! He went completely postal, raised holy hell and pushed forward guns-a-blazing! Now, I’m not saying that Rick flying off the handle at the hospital would have been the right thing to do — quite the contrary — but it would have been consistent with everything else we have seen.

Then, there’s Maggie. Oh. My. God! Maggie had barely mentioned Beth since the prison fell and even left the group entirely to go off on the mission to D.C. But when she sees Beth’s body, she collapses and freaks out like a crazy woman consumed with grief? Granted, there is the finality that a person feels when you actually see the dead body of a loved one because it extinguishes all hope, but that scene being over the top is an understatement.

3. Cut out the Father Gabriel crap

Exactly what purpose did all of the Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) scenes serve? Yeah, you’re probably just as confused as I am. We already knew that Gabriel had no survival skills whatsoever, and so, we didn’t need him spending half the episode out in the woods, culminating with his leading a mini-horde back to the church.

Plus, the arc took up too much damn time. By the time everything was set up and Abraham showed up at the church to save the day, we had just barely 9 minutes left in the episode for the showdown at the hospital, which was supposed to be the focus of the episode. Did you notice that?  If you didn’t, rewatch the episode, and you’ll see. I only remember because I kept looking at my watch and wondering how in the hell were they going to wrap up the hospital arc in only 9 minutes.

4. Actually do something with the Dr. Edwards character

When we were first introduced to Dr. Steven Edwards (Erik Jensen) in “Slabtown,” I actually got excited. I absolutely loved the time they took on the character development, and I particularly liked the St. Peter reference. If you think back to Sunday School, you’ll know that even though St. Peter does deny Christ, he eventually repents and redeems himself, becoming one of the most prominent preachers in the Bible. Because of that, I was hoping (and expecting) that something similar would happen with the Dr. Edwards character, with his finding redemption by doing the right thing.

Well, none of that happened. In fact, nothing else happened with that character — period. The entire arc for the character completely fell flat, and Dr. Edwards barely had a few more lines before the hospital arc wrapped up in last night’s episode. Why take all that time to develop a character and then do absolutely nothing else with him?

I think there was a very good opportunity here of bringing Dr. Edwards on board as a member of Rick’s team (because, hey, the group DOES need a doctor) but for some reason, it all fell by the wayside. What a waste.

5. Pick another title for the episode

This is the most obvious and definitely would have been the easiest thing to do. If they really, really wanted to announce to the world that Beth was going to die in the episode, they could not have dropped a bigger hint than name the episode “Coda.” Granted, “Coda” can simply mean the end to anything, but the most common use of the word is to denote the final section of a piece of a music. Well, Beth is the only character on the show with an affinity for music, and it doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots and conclude that this was going to be Beth’s swan song.

But, not all is lost, I do still have hope for the series, and I do believe things will get better going into 5B. It appears that Rick and the group will be following Noah (Tyler James Williams) to his home, and if you’ve listened to Noah’s description of this fortified city, it sounds very much like the comic-book Alexandria Safe Zone. If you are familiar at all with the ASZ from the comics, you’ll know that this arc is rich with interesting, well-written storylines and characters. So, if Scott Gimple and Robert Kirkman are true to what they said in that this season would follow the comics more than ever, then I suspect that 5B may make up for this sorry snafu of a mid-season finale.

The Walking Dead returns for the 2nd half of the season on Sunday, February 8th, at 9/8c on AMC.

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