Catch the Fifth Season of ‘The Walking Dead’ finale

Have Rick and his fellow survivors finally found a place they can settle in for the long term?

That was the question left still unanswered at the end of Sunday night’s season finale of “The Walking Dead,” and a finale record 15.8 million viewers tuned in to find out the answer.

Rick was back in “Ricktatorship” mode, telling the residents of Alexandria that he knew what it took to survive and they should follow him.

The season finale gave Glenn the perfect opportunity to take Nicholas out for good, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Variety spoke with Yeun the day after the finale to get his take on why Glenn made the decision to let Nicholas live, what Glenn represents in the world of the zombie apocalypse, why he wishes everyone could binge watch the show and how he thinks the first meeting between Glenn and Morgan might go down.

But it’s not a profound show, for better or worse. And the ideas it has about home, family and the necessity of violence are best expressed through action, not through talk or staring at old photographs or baking cookies. Carl (Chandler Riggs) shooting his mother in Season 3 said more about the world these characters live in than the entire half-season we just watched. The best, most believable moment of the finale came early, when the wandering Morgan (Lennie James) looked up to see a friendly, crazy, homicidal young man pointing a gun at him. That’s what’s likely to happen after the zombie apocalypse.

By the time “Walking Dead” returns in October, we will have seen another part of the world in this summer’s companion series, “Fear the Walking Dead.” What are your expectations or hopes for that show?
I haven’t heard too much about it. I do hope it’s great. I hope it fills out our world. It’ll be cool to see what happens in that arena and where it goes. But my focus is less on that whole big picture and more on how do we make our show better every single year?