PRECAP: The Walking Dead, Season 5.5

We are eight– repeat, eight— days away from the premiere of Season 5.5 of THE WALKING DEAD.  That is not very many days!  I thought that since I haven’t actually posted here since “Coda” aired in like 1932 or something that I might put up a prediction post in advance of the big episode.

But first, can we talk about this picture a little bit?  Because it’s kind of awesome.
Reasons I like this picture:

• It took me forever to realize who everyone was, on account of they’re clean.  Order in which I recognized them: Emily Kinney (Beth, in the middle), Melissa McBride (Carol), Danai Gurira (Michonne), Lauren Cohan (Maggie), Sonequa Martin (Sasha) and Alanna Masterson (Tara). I actually spent more than a couple of seconds thinking that Alanna Masterson was Christian Serratos, who plays Rosita, and whose name is actually Christian.  That’s not a typo.
• Melissa McBride looks like she’s in the picture against her will.   I find myself really wondering what she’s doing with her right arm.
• Similarly, Alanna Masterson’s dress makes me wonder if she’s as awkward in real life as Tara is on the show.  She looks like she’s at a different event than the rest of them.
• Emily Kinney has had crazy eyes in every picture of her out of costume that I’ve ever seen.  Weirdly, Beth didn’t have crazy eyes.  I feel like that’s something that should be hard to suppress.
• Also, Emily Kinney at first glimpse looks like she’s wearing a teddy and not a formal dress.  I blinked so many times at this picture, guys.

But anyway.  There were gonna be predictions.  Now, I want to make something clear: I have watched no early promos for the back half of this season.  Nothing, or at least nothing since “Coda” aired.  That said, as you’re all aware if you’ve been reading, I read the comic books, so I sort of have advance knowledge of what’s coming through that, but we also know that the TV show changes stuff from the comics whenever they feel like it.

The point: these aren’t spoilers.  But some of these things are gonna happen.  Just maybe not in the next eight episodes or however many we have left.  Or they might happen, but not the way I’m expecting them to.  We’ll see.

So.  On to the predictions:

• The Dead List: Noah.  With Beth dead, he’s got no real connection to anyone in the group, and with two other black males in the cast and Morgan out there somewhere, Noah’s not got long to live.  Also worried about: Carol, who has been dead in the comics for a long time.

Okay, that was one prediction.  I need another picture now.
Speaking of crazy eyes.  Anyway:

• I think we can expect the group to finally head for Alexandria.  I don’t expect them to actually get there this season, but they’ll be moving that way.
• Something’s going to happen to Carl.  They won’t kill him, but various Bad Things have happened to him in the comics and I predict at least one of them will befall him before the season’s over.
• Someone will lose a hand.  I predict Daryl.  Again for the non-comics readers, Rick lost a hand to the Governor quite some time ago.  Robert Kirkman has said before that he actually really regrets making that decision, and it didn’t happen in the TV show, but I bet they use it for somebody soon anyway.
• Maggie is pregnant.  I actually hope this isn’t true, but both Maggie and Glenn have been acting funny. I don’t know that the show could possibly benefit from carting two babies around, though, and they’re not gonna do anything to Judith, so of my various predictions this is the most likely to be wrong.  Unless they knock her up and then kill her.
• Someone is going to attempt suicide.  
• Tara is going to get on my nerves.

• These two are gonna do it.  There have been rumors flying lately that Daryl is gay, rumors that Robert Kirkman directly shot down in an interview.  While I kinda hope he was lying (he also said, I believe in the same interview, that we’d be seeing other gay characters soon) if he wasn’t, I can’t see them holding off on getting Daryl and Carol together for too much longer.

One thing that I genuinely don’t know: the show burned through Terminus quickly, and also took care of the “Hunters” arc in the same three episodes.  There are major Big Bads coming, don’t get me wrong, but they all require more setup than this season has left.  I am making no prediction as to who or what the major antagonist of the second half of this season is gonna be.  I frankly don’t have a clue, even with the comics backing me up.  I suspect, much like the hospital arc and the influenza epidemic of S4, that they’ll be coming up with something on their own– and I’m all good with that.

Is it next Sunday yet?