The Walking Dead Season 4 Finale Predictions: Who Will Survive and What Will Be Left of Them?

The group of survivors once held together by prison walls are all now filtering into Terminus, but what lurks in this inviting town and who won’t make it out of season 4 alive?

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

The Walking Dead will come to an end on Sunday night with the season four finale, and the creators and producers behind the hit AMC show are promising some serious bloodshed before the final minutes tick away. While characters dying is nothing new on a show like The Walking Dead, all things considered the only ‘legacy’ character lost this year was Hershel thanks to The Governor’s wicked blade during the mid-season finale in December.

A few other minor characters have met their end throughout the season, but with only one episode left to go this season, it’s likely that at least one more major piece of The Walking Dead will be saying goodbye during the season finale. Now there are a ton of theories about what really lurks behind the walls of Terminus, the mystery town touting itself as the place where those that arrive survive, but there’s definitely something more ominous happening here.

As everyone noticed from the last episode, the gates to Terminus were not locked and they might as well have put out an apple pie on the front door step asking people to come inside. While the TV version of The Walking Dead has definitely varied from the comic book in many ways, the next step for our survivors could follow a somewhat similar path as the story originally written by creator Robert Kirkman. The most popular idea is that Terminus is a ton filled with cannibals, so starved from the lack of good food left in the zombie apocalypse that they’ve turned to eating other people as a way to survive. Call me crazy, but that giant barbecue all fired up with a cook sitting front and center as a welcoming committee certainly looked an awful lot like something was being fried up for dinner but I didn’t see any cows or pigs around.

If the cannibal theory is correct and when you match that with what Kirkman said a few days ago that this finale would be ‘savage’ and end with the kind of cliffhanger that would make every Walking Dead fan clamor for the start of season five, it all starts to make sense. So let’s run down the list of our current survivors and see who has the best chance to make it out of the finale alive or who might just be the person already cooking on the barbie.

Rick Grimes

Robert Kirkman has said in past interviews that he doesn’t intend on Rick Grimes to survive the entirety of The Walking Dead comic book, but through more than 120 issues he’s still alive and has served as the title’s main protagonist since it first hit the shelves in 2003. Of course, Kirkman has done his best to throw fans of The Walking Dead comic book off during the course of the TV show killing several characters at different points than what they did in his original work. For instance, Dale, who died during season two of the television show, didn’t meet his grisly end until much later in the comic book series. So it’s not out of the realm of possibility that the producers behind the show would kill off Rick Grimes in one of the most shocking lead actor changes in TV history, but I don’t buy it. I feel like this is the ultimate red herring to make us believe Rick is a goner before the show shifts in a completely different direction. Could Rick eventually die? Absolutely. I just don’t think the end of season four is when it’s going to happen.

Daryl Dixon

Could this be the ultimate act of betrayal on behalf of The Walking Dead? While Kirkman’s every word about Rick Grimes possibly dying has been dissected like a freshman year science project, one very big piece of information he let loose recently was saying that popularity won’t drive decisions for characters on The Walking Dead, so no one is safe — not even the most popular character on the show! Is it possible that The Walking Dead is pulling the old bait and switch to make us think Rick’s going to die, but in reality it’s the other alpha male on the team? Well I tend to disagree with Mr. Kirkman even if he is the creator and executive producer of the show. Popularity will keep Daryl Dixon alive at least until his fan fare dies down a little bit. The show could certainly try to tarnish his reputation a bit and that would make it a whole lot easier for Daryl to say goodbye, but for now I think he’s as safe as can be going into season five.

Tyreese

We haven’t even seen Tyreese and Carol get to Terminus yet, but it’s safe to assume they will show up soon enough. Tyreese didn’t make it this long in the comic books so technically he’s living on borrowed time, but he’s also barely had any character development until this season. My guess is Tyreese is safe since he will be protecting baby Judith and if she made it out of the prison alive, I don’t see a way she doesn’t reach the end of season four.

Carol

Carol is an interesting study going into the season four finale. She just had to kill Lizzie after she went all ‘Of Mice and Men’ and this is after she already killed two more people in the prison. She’s finally getting what it takes to survive in this new world, and something tells me Carol is going to be a vital part to the rest of this series. Maybe even in a leadership role if Rick does shuffle off this mortal coil at some point. Then again after everything she’s done in the last few weeks, Carol might just give herself up as a sacrifice to save those closest to her. A morality payback if you will.

Beth Greene

Here’s the person I believe is most likely to say goodbye during the season four finale, and maybe she’s already said her final farewell. The last we saw of Beth was her getting kidnapped by a mysterious car a few episodes back as Daryl chased after her with little success. Now, if this group of people living in Terminus really are cannibals, it stands to reason that all of these inviting signs are put up to invite people to make it to their town, but what if nobody comes for a few days? Who would have the resources to send out a scouting party, take one person hostage, and bring them back to have for dinner? As horrific as this sounds, I’m betting that Beth has already been killed and she’s what’s being served up on the barbecue. I know it sounds horrible, but if this finale is as shocking as The Walking Dead producers have made it out to be, this would certainly be the grim ending to lead us to season five.

Bob, Sasha, Maggie, Glenn, Tara, Abraham, Eugene and Rosita

If anyone in this group goes, I believe it would be Bob and/or Sasha. Bob has been haunted since the beginning of this plague that he would eventually be left alone, but now that he has a stable group and even a woman in his life, it would seem to make sense that he’s not long for this world. Same thing for Sasha. Maybe just moments away from being reunited with her brother, it would be pretty befitting that she is one of the first to go in Terminus. Tara is also a secondary character, who blindly stuck by Glenn in his time of need, and I don’t see her sticking around forever either. I’d bet my house that Glenn, Maggie, Abraham and Eugene will all make it out of this finale alive. Rosita is the one wildcard because we’ve seen very little of her so far, and maybe her death is what pushes Abraham to go all-in with Rick and the survivors.

Carl and Michonne

The new besties would appear to be safe for now. I believe Rick’s group along with Carl and Michonne made it to Terminus before anyone else but I’m sure we’ll find that out in the opening moments of the finale. I think as this series progresses, Carl will start to become more and more of the central character (hopefully with a lot less emo than he had this season) and Michonne is just too big of a part of the mythology of The Walking Dead to go anywhere. In the comic books, Michonne is essentially the Daryl character — walking, talking bad ass that everyone loves — but I still don’t believe she’ll be going anywhere this episode or for a couple seasons to come at the very least.

That covers everybody from our core group of characters, although we still need to see what happens when Daryl’s team of ‘claimers’ happens upon Terminus. Something tells me they aren’t lowering any weapons, and as dangerous as they’ve seemed so far, Joe and his boys might just be the ones best equipped to deal with a savage bunch of cannibals. Don’t be surprised, however, if a few of Joe’s troops are turned into Star Trek red shirts just for the sake of body count.

While I’ve been somewhat skeptical of the second half of The Walking Dead’s fourth season, I have a hard time discounting the words of Kirkman and everybody else involved that this finale won’t be shocking and leave a few jaws on the floor. If it’s not cannibals, there’s something else hiding inside Terminus and there’s no way it’s good. I just can’t see a happy ending happening on Sunday night, and if anything I think there will be more than a few jaws on the floor and eyes gaped open when 10pm ET hits on the clock.

Don’t forget to come back on Sunday night directly after The Walking Dead to read our recap and see what exactly went down when everyone arrives at Terminus.