The Walking Dead sure does love its cliffhangers. A character death is always a surefire way to keep fans on edge, but why limit yourself to only one death when you can up the suspense and maybe kill off a bunch of people — or maybe not. And that’s what the ending of the show’s Season 8 Episode 3, "Monsters," did, when it pulled out a big honking machine gun to shoot down a bunch of Kingdommers, including King Ezekiel. So, is Ezekiel dead on The Walking Dead? Maybe, maybe not.
After questions of morality, a fight between Morgan and Jesus, and the reappearance of Gregory, the episode ended with what appeared to be victory. As King Ezekiel’s troops wandered through a compound, eliminating zombies and the dead before they could turn, they missed something very important — namely, the aforementioned big honking machine gun. From a vantage point on a floor above, the Saviors opened fire onto the members of the Kingdom standing below, apparently aiming right for King Ezekiel. Three of his followers jumped on him to shield him from the bullets, as blood flew — but you couldn't tell from whom. Then, bam, ending.
The promo trailer for next week's Season 8 Episode 4, “Some Guy,” gives us an interesting clue of what’s to come. The description of the trailer reads, "A new weapon in the Savior arsenal proves to be a giant hurdle as fighting continues between Rick's forces and those of the Saviors." It would make sense that it was the machine gun you see at the end of the episode (particularly seeing as that's the only weapon the trailer shows), except for the fact that The Walking Dead has definitely seen machine guns before.
But did Ezekiel survive? Maybe — we can hear what sounds like his voiceover as the promo shows us other shots of action, of Rick in a speeding car, of Daryl on a speeding motorbike, of Carol sneaking through a building. But nothing that says for sure. Frustrating.
The cliffhanger follows on the heels of last week's ending, which was on a smaller scale with only one person at risk, but also had fans freaking out.
At the end of Season 8's Episode 2, "The Damned," fans got a taste of the reappearance of an unexpected character, a Season 1 survivor named Morales. Now on the side of the Saviors, he found Rick breaking into what turned out to be a baby girl's bedroom, and took him hostage before the episode cut to credits, leaving Rick facing down Morales' gun. Fans freaked out about Morales' reappearance, questioning what had happened to him over the course of the intervening seven seasons, what he was going to do, and what role he might play in the rest of the season. And then, in the first 15 minutes of "Monsters," bam, he was shot by Daryl.
Really? We were all hyped up about his return, only for him to get to monologue at Rick for two minutes about nothing and then die? Seems like a waste of your cliffhanger, if you ask me.
While it's unlikely that the show will wimp out on its cliffhanger twice in a row, it also seems pretty likely that the massacre at the end of the episode will be another red herring of some kind, meant to trick us into thinking King Ezekiel is injured or dead. (Personally, I don't buy it for a second, not after he was tackled to the ground by at least three people. I'm calling it: not dead.)
Dead for realsies or no, we can be sure that the next episode will fill us in on Ezekiel's ultimate fate and whatever that mysterious weapon is. At least Ezekiel fans can rest assured that when you've got a tiger on your side, at least you have the secret weapon of knowing you're definitely on the cooler team.
