The Walking Dead season 9 episode 16 review: Snow apocalypse – and four other talking points from the finale

The Walking Dead’s latest season finale – the AMC show’s ninth – was a far tamer affair than last week’s death-filled outing.

It wasn’t hard: viewers were left reeling following showrunner Angela Kang’s decision to kill off three main characters.

The big surprise as episode 16 rolls around, though, is that there’s little time for mourning.

Below, are the five biggest talking points from The Walking Dead season nine, episode 16.

The snow-pocalypse

As teased in the closing moments of last week’s outing, winter has arrived – and It turns out it’s landed in such a fierce way that it’s closed The Kingdom down for business. The community relocates to Hilltop in the midst of a life-threatening blizzard, seeing the characters swap their regular costumes for winter coats and scarves. You can sense how excited Kang is in getting to explore this landscape for the first time – look no further than a set-piece that sees ice walkers break through the snow to grab our characters by the ankles.

Crossing the border

The weather twist serves more than to just see what happens when our characters are plonked in the middle of a snowstorm – it forces them to cross the deadly border wall revealed in last week’s episode to get to their destination. Our only glimpse of Alpha (Samantha Morton) and Beta (Ryan Hurst) in the finale comes near the end when it’s revealed that they failed to cross undetected with the duo now preparing for “what comes next”. All-Out War part two seems to be just around the corner; best mark your calendars.

Queen Carol no more

One of the episode’s most devastating developments comes courtesy of married couple Ezekiel (Khary Payton) and Carol (Melissa McBride). Both are mourning the loss of their adopted son Henry (Matt Lintz), whose head ended up on one of those spikes, an event that sees Carol slowly revert back to her “reclusive” days – so much so that it seems her time with the king is coming to an end. Not only do we see her remove her wedding ring, but the episode ends with the two separated – Carol in Alexandria, Ezekiel at Hilltop. Never mind the decapitations – it’s this that makes us want to see Alpha get her comeuppance.

Negan alliance

Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) gets a healthy chunk of screen time this week, mainly thanks to a set-piece that sets up a climactic encounter with Michonne (Danai Gurira). After injuring himself while rescuing 10-year old BFF Judith (Cailey Fleming) from the snowstorm, Michonne drops by to thank him and talk soon turns to their “common enemy”: Alpha. ”Facing evil brings good people together,” Michonne tells Negan, hinting that she’s finally convinced the former villain could be on her side. The thought of Alpha coming up against Negan and Lucille is terrific promotion for season 10.

“Hello?”

The closing scene of the finale teased what could well be the show’s biggest world expansion yet. Having communicated with Judith via radio, former Kingdom leader, Ezekiel (Khary Payton) – now a Hilltop resident – walks away and the camera stays fixed on the machine. After static sounds, an unknown voice can be heard saying: “Hello, can you hear me? Is anybody out there?” Now, those who don’t read the comics will have no idea what this could be alluding to; let’s just say, this show has plans to stick around for a long while yet.

The Walking Dead returns to FOX and AMC in October.