Carl leaving The Walking Dead destroyed the entire meaning of the show, hear me out:
The main character in that show was Rick and the main motivation of the show wasn't just "to survive" it was basically in a world that fucked up, Rick trying to keep his son alive and bringing him up in a decent way.
Rick's quest to do that was the backbone of the entire story. Carl is its moral centre.
So the philosophical meta question is: does life still have meaning, is there a point to the human race continuing to struggle after the end of civilization, can we survive? And the plot embodies that with the question can Rick keep Carl safe? Can Carl grow up?
Carl dies. The answer is no. End of series as far as I'm concerned.
While I get your point and agree that it would have made it more interesting, Carl wasn’t likable, which is needed for a moral core character. And the second season was a huge let down, so it was slow road downhill before Carl left.
Oh, yeah I agree with both your points. Basically for anyone who liked the comics in some ways it just strayed further and further from the light.
Rick is supposed to be the one whose moral integrity is central whereas Carl more represents the one whose moral integrity he is trying to protect. But I think the show needed Rick's morality to be way less ambiguous than it was in the original.
Erlich leaving in Silicon Valley was devastating to the character dynamics of the show. I know TJ Miller is an asshole, but I really wish they could have kept working together until the show was finished. He was like a second main character and in many ways was the perfect foil to Richard in the show’s structure. I know they tried to fill the gap with Gavin, Russ, and Jin Yang but it really didn’t work as well. Nobody else could have done “you just brought piss to a shit fight!” quite like Erlich.
I’d love to see the version of the last seasons from a parallel universe where TJ had stayed in until the end. I’m fairly sure it would have been better.
Other answer: he didn’t exactly leave, but I truly believe that Uncle Iroh would have been far better utilized in the 3rd season of Avatar if Mako hadn’t died. It’s weird for me to say because Avatar feels like such a perfect work, but I really do believe there’s a better version that could have existed had Mako still been around.
Which time? Because I was ticked with the whole “Glen is dead… no wait, there was someone on top of him, and the walkers ignored him and let him get away!” Just to have Negan kill him a season later, and in such a stupid way. That was a horrible cliffhanger, and done in an amateur way. The last few seasons were inexcusably bad.
Dumpster fakeout aside - He literally died exactly like that in the comics. The Walking Dead is the only show I know that gets shit on for actually, in this case, following the source material.
No no, it wasn’t how he died, it was the cheesy way they did the cliff hanger at the end of the season. Like it wasn’t going to leak out before the next season could start. And the cartoony blood graphic dripping down the front of the camera. It was all so amateur. It was the end of TWD for me. I hate watched it for a little while longer, but I finally completely bailed on it after Rick “died” (don’t get me started on that).
Season 5 of the series is a mess strictly because JMS was initially told there wouldn't be a 5th season. So he condensed much of his ideas for Season 4 and 5 into one season. Then the greenlight was given for season 5, and a lot of the material that ended up condensed or removed was rewritten into a full season.
That's why it seems the the series finale is The Deconstruction of Falling Stars S4E22.
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