"You may not think this place is worth saving, but it’s worth it to me.”
So, this is the end. Where do I even begin? I never wanted this show to end…but also I wanted desperately to know how it ends, who survives, who is memorialized, and what the world looks like after. I’ve wanted to know the end for 12 years now, but I patiently waited year after year as this show gave me thrill after thrill and tear after tear. I’ll take whatever it gives even if it closely resembles the comic ending, a major part of which was spoiled for me soon after it happened when I glanced at a comment below an episode recap.
They start tonight. The final episodes of The Walking Dead. Twelve years, eleven seasons. How has it been so long when it seems like it just began? And though the time flew by sometimes, so much has happened, so much more than in any ordinary series. This extraordinary series gave us all the blood, sweat and tears any of us could have asked for and a deluge more. So much has happened in this one show alone to fill a multitude of others; such pain and heartache, and example after example of extraordinary acting. Saying that I will miss TWD is an understatement.
“No matter how bleak things look, this is not the end.”
Well, it is the end and it isn’t. I’m glad I’ll have more chances to write with all these spin-offs in the works for after The Walking Dead original series comes to a close, which is somehow very soon. I haven’t written anything about TWD in so long, or anything about anything really. I’ve been taking care of my chronically ill Mom, who has MS, and now Dad’s gone through a double bypass and will be healing for at least 10 weeks. My business was nearly destroyed by the pandemic and I’ve been trying to save it for the last two years. I’ve also been getting back into being creative via various art and design techniques and attempting to transition that from a fledgling hobby into a business, so I haven’t had time for much else.
I never even had the time before season 9 to put up that “Goodbye Andrew Lincoln” post that I furiously wrote all day and night long when it leaked that he was leaving the series that he had helped make so great with his raw, passionate performances. I crafted this raft of emotional prose, wailing like a banshee over my iPad’s Notes page, hoping his ending would be perfect, knowing the writers wouldn’t let us down when it came to Rick, that maybe he would survive and come back in the end to find his family. This was all way before I had any idea they were planning on doing just that, just not necessarily in the main show itself but rather movies that are now instead a new spin-off.
We survived everything for what? To keep fighting and killing each other?"
Suddenly the end of The Walking Dead is looming. When I saw the full trailer (below) three weeks ago, I got really excited for something again and I had to write about it. As usual, I didn’t get a chance to post it and now I’m way behind. Still, I didn’t want to waste all I had written. I love these trailers and how they make me feel. I’ll never forget how “Last Day on Earth” was terrifying and the ending made sick to my stomach, a feeling that persisted. A few months later, the Season 7 trailer dropped at Comic-Con and renewed the dread of anticipating who wouldn’t survive until “The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be” finally aired and deepened my relationship with this series forever.
Well, Ian, that’s to up the awe and fear factor, of course. We wouldn't want it any other way.
Just sitting here in the parking lot of Mt. Sinai in Hartford, waiting for Mom’s appointment to be done. Only my Dad could go in with her, though she needs a lot of help. So, I’m trying to work on my iPad over a crappy hotspot connection from my phone, when the trailer for Jurassic World: Dominion pops up in a Twitter notification from Chris Pratt. How could I not click on it?
Until the series ends, I'll always be behind adding to this playlist. I had to stop for quite a while, so there's a big gap. Still, there are 170 songs to enjoy.
This is the essence of The Blacklist. Probably my favorite is Disturbed's cover of "Sound of Silence." The scene it played over was one of the most devastating ever in the series.
