Tonight brings the half-season boiling point of The Walking Dead and to the storytelling bottleneck we’re all too accustomed to at this point. The show has reduced itself to these bookends in order to garner buzz and it’s hard not to succumb to it. But, if you think about “Coda” for a moment, it’s comprised of the absolute best of the show and saddled with the absolute worst.

I’m somewhat of a casual The Walking Dead fan at this point. I don’t love the show, but I do love zombies. A lot of the show has fallen flat because far too often the scripts struggle with what to do with the characters. The middle episodes of a season feel meandering and devoid of a point, and to the story’s credit, there doesn’t need to be a point other than survival.

That doesn’t mean it can’t be compelling. Take for example the opening moments of tonight’s episode. It’s beautifully shot. Anonymous footsteps pound down an alley. Rick is in pursuit. He smashes Bob 2.0 with the cop car and executes him on the spot. It’s powerful stuff assisted by Bear McCreary’s awesome score. (It almost seems as if new showrunner Scott Gimple just realized that they had a composer for five years, as the show’s score is really coming into its own.)

This is the type of directed violence and retribution that makes sense in the context of the show. Now, take for example Beth’s death. The whole thing is orchestrated to make you care deeply about what’s happening. But, it all feels contrived. She’s far and away with her own group. She’s free, and she feels the need to march back and stab an armed woman with a pair of puny scissors. A woman who showed her compassion and oddly protected her, yet, Beth sought retribution. The shots of everyone’s face as Beth takes a bullet to the head show you that you should care.

But it’s really just orchestrated to keep people talking. It wasn’t the type of death that came from poor planning or was even motivated by character, or really even the story at all. It was senseless and random. All things that we’ve been shown in this world time and time again, but to make the point here in the finale shows a hand of deliberate manipulation and I for one am sick of it. It doesn’t feel compelling, or even upsetting, it just feels forced.

Now the middle of the episode did a lot of backtracking. Father Gabriel got his ass back to the church after being spooked by Bob’s maggoty leg. Maggie found out her sister was still alive through reuniting with Michonne. Tyreese and Sasha shared a moment of forced connection, since Tyreese kept something to himself for no reason at all. I couldn’t help but groan at the whole exchange on the rooftop, it felt inauthentic and not at all like siblings. But, I digress.

It was nice to see Maggie finally react to having a missing sister. A fact I never found too upsetting in the context of the show. Usually gone is gone in this world, better not to think of where people are and Maggie seems strong enough to know that. I would have perhaps enjoyed Tyreese’s confession a little more had it been about how he seemed to have gained 50 pounds since season four, but he wasn’t quite ready to bare his soul about that just yet.

Instead of a rollicking story that built to a natural conclusion, or a thematic conclusion for that matter, The Walking Dead sacrificed it’s momentum in the final moment for plain old shock value.

I’ll still keep watching in the New Year, but I can’t seem to find a compelling reason to continue.

Well… actually. Let’s talk about that scene with Morgan. It just so happened to be my favorite in the entire episode. I love what kind of man he’s become. He seems jovial, and a little more put together than we last saw him. Although contrary to that I couldn’t help but think he was about to kill himself in the church. The reveal of Abraham’s map was a nice little touch to end things on. Looking forward to when these old friends meet again.

 What did you guys think of “Coda”? What do you look forward to in the second half of Season Five? Did you find Beth’s death shocking?