How The Walking Dead continues to keep viewers guessing

This is a day late (I know) but real life got in the way of reel life this week.

Still, I would be remiss if I didn’t touch on this week’s season four finale of The Walking Dead.

This has been a wildly uneven season – there’s no getting around that. The season started off slow and then imploded everything in the middle of the season – thus scattering our heroes to the four corners of Georgia as they struggled to regroup.

The second half of the season was made up of a handful of character episodes – and the soul jarring The Grove – wrapped around a whole lot of emptiness.

So, when our heroes started coming together in the last two episodes – I expected something different than what I got.

I had no doubt that Rick, Michonne, Daryl and Carl would fight off Joe’s rabid band of rapists and “claimers” and then find their way to Terminus. I thought that, the final scenes of the episode, would involve Rick and Carl being reunited with Judith.

Boy, was I ever wrong.

As it stands, we have no idea where Tyrese, Carol and Judith are. They could be in Terminus – just locked

in a different train car – or they could still be traveling to Terminus. We just don’t know.

I didn’t think we would find out what happened to Beth – and I was definitely right on that front. Supposedly – and I don’t know if I believe this or not – Gareth and the Terminus residents are not going to be the big villains of the fifth season. If that is truly the case, I would guess that whomever has Beth is going to be the big villain – but that’s purely conjecture.

Basically, what we got was Rick going down and dirty to beat Joe (and rightfully so – because he never would have been able to live with himself if something had happened to Carl). Then we also had a nice reunion between Daryl and Rick (anyone else wish they would just give in to their man love?) before everyone moved towards Terminus.

With only a few minutes left in the episode, I thought (for sure) that Rick would get his happy reunion and we would be left to find out the Terminus people were evil next season.

Um, nope.

In short order, Rick recognizes Herschel’s watch (which was confiscated from Glenn) and Maggie’s poncho

on different denizens of Terminus. He threatens the Terminus leadership and then, unfortunately, his group is herded through a series of rooms that show some terrifying sights.

In one room, you have candles lit with people’s names beside them. These are obviously dead people. In an outdoor courtyard, you see human bodies that were skinned. Given the “unique” way the Terminus folks were talking about the food, you pretty much have to realize that they’re cannibalizing people.

Since season four was all about personal growth, watching Rick shift to badass again was a perfect way to end the season – and I do think that the Terminus folks messed with the wrong people (Daryl, Michonne and Rick are going to beat the crap out of them).

As it stands, I thought the ending to the season was both action-packed and emotionally fulfilling. I really couldn't have asked for anything more.

Now it’s going to be a really long wait until October.

What do you think? Did you like the season finale of The Walking Dead?