AMC’s smash hit zombie thriller ‘The Walking Dead’ will conclude its second season this Sunday with a dramatic episode set to deal with the fallout from last week’s cliffhanger.

In the most recent episode, “Better Angels”, Shane (Jon Bernthal) was killed off before immediately reanimating as a zombie without coming into contact with one – which the series had previously intimated was the sole way of transforming into one. This has led fans to ponder if all of the surviving characters are already infected with the deadly condition that has being driving the series’ main storylines since its very first episode, and an answer is expected to be given in this Sunday’s episode.

As for the other cliffhanger from the March 11 episode, the last scene showed dozens of zombies making their way toward the farm where the characters have been staying for the majority of this season, setting up a probable confrontation and potential character deaths in the much-hyed season ender.

Jon Bernthal’s exit from the series last week, when his character Shane was killed during a confrontation with Rick (played by Andrew Lincoln) came as little surprise to fans of the comic book series on which the television is based, as Shane was originally killed off much earlier in the story.

For fans of the television series who were unaware of the narrative timeline in the comic books, Shane’s death also came as a relatively minor shock, following the announcement in January that Bernthal was set to join the cast of ‘L.A. Noir’, a new series from Frank Darabont, who was in fact ‘The Walking Dead”s original show-runner until disagreements with the network led to his departure from the series last summer.

As for the remaining actors on the series, there have been no announcements about any of them joining new television projects, leaving the fates of their characters in this week’s finale unknown. However, the death of Bernthal’s character came just one episode after the death of fellow original cast member Jeffrey DeMunn’s character Dale, leading fans to speculate that the season finale could mark the most severe loss of life yet.

‘The Walking Dead’ already centred its mid-season finale around the revelation that the series’ youngest survivor from the pilot – Sophia, played by Madison Lintz – had died and transformed into a zombie, forcing group leader Rick to execute her in front of her mother Carol.

The relatively high number of on-screen deaths in recent week has been welcomed by some fans, after the first half of the season was criticised for being too slow-paced and lacking any particularly gripping storylines.

In spite of these criticisms, ‘The Walking Dead’ has continued to perform well in the ratings, maintaining its status as AMC’s number one program. Season-to-date, ‘The Walking Dead’ has averaged 6.7 million viewers per week over its 12 airings, up more than 20% compared to the 5.2 million average it received for its 6-episode first season. AMC has has given the series a vote of confidence by renewing it for a 16-episode third season.

This increased episode order makes ‘The Walking Dead’ one of only two series on AMC, the other being ‘Breaking Bad’, to go beyond the network’s standard 13-episode order, a standard still in place for ‘The Killing’ and its Emmy-favourite veteran ‘Mad Men’, which will take over ‘The Walking Dead”s time-slot when it returns for its fifth season on March 25.

As for whether ‘The Walking Dead’ will end its season on a cliffhanger or hint at what the characters will face in the future, fans have only a few more days left to wait and see.

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‘Southland’ will end its season next Tuesday (March 20), as the cast, crew and audience wait to find out whether TNT will renew the critically-acclaimed drama for a fifth season.

Debuting in April 2009 on NBC, ‘Southland’ was intended to take over from ‘ER’ (John Wells and Christopher Chulack executive produced both shows) as the network’s next, gritty, high-octane drama series. It followed the experiences of several members of the Los Angeles Police department, weaving in and out of various divisions ranging from Homicide, Narcotics and Patrol. The first season order of six episodes performed well enough for NBC to renew the series for a second season to air in the fall of 2009, however, when NBC designated all of its weeknight 10pm slots to ‘The Jay Leno Show’, ‘Southland’ was left without a place on the schedule and was soon cancelled altogether.

Soon after, TNT picked up the rights to re-air the full first season and proceeded to put the show back into production for a second season consisting of six further episodes. Since then, TNT has continued to renew ‘Southland’, now with 10-episode orders, and the series will conclude its fourth season on March 20 with no word as yet on whether it will live to see another season. Season-to-date, ‘Southland’ has averaged 1.85 million viewers, roughly on par with its Season 3 average, making it difficult to determine TNT’s decision on the series’ fate.

Regardless of its uncertain future, the producers of ‘Southland’ have plotted this season in such an intricate, slow-burning way that the approaching finale will likely come to be seen as the most significant and game-changing one yet.

The season began with multiple changes to the series’ structure, with long-time patrol partners John Cooper (Michael Cudlitz) and Ben Sherman (Ben McKenzie) being re-teamed with Jessica Tang (special guest star Lucy Liu) and Sammy Bryant (Shawn Hatosy), respectively. Moving away from the teacher/student dynamic between Cooper and Sherman, which had served as the series’ central relationship throughout its first three seasons, gave Cudlitz the opportunity to play the lighter shades of his character now that Cooper was on more equal footing with Liu’s character. Similarly, McKenzie’s character got to move beyond his ‘student’ position by developing a more relaxed rapport with Hatosy’s Officer Bryant while making several lapses in judgement with regards to his professional behaviour. Detective Lydia Adams (Regina King), meanwhile, juggled a new partner of her own while coming to terms with an unplanned pregnancy, thereby enabling the show to explore the professional and personal ramifications of a woman in her late-30s who is ready for motherhood but must reconcile this with the dangers, not to mention institutional bigotry, of working on the streets and hunting criminals while heavily pregnant and already at risk of miscarriage due to previous complications.

In the penultimate episode, “Risk”, which aired on March 13, all of these season-long developments began to come to a head as:

• Cooper and Tang butted over Tang’s determination to secure a job promotion despite her behaviour following her accidental shooting of a teenage boy.
• Sherman and Bryant were involved in a car accident following Sherman’s involvement with a prostitute and her pimp.
• Adams revealed her pregnancy to her partner, but feared for her baby’s life following a physical altercation with a suspect.

Thus, fans are eager to see how the finale resolves the partnership between Cooper and Tang (Liu is only signed on to appear in this season, and has taken a role in a CBS pilot), how Sherman reacts in light of Bryant’s injuries and his continuing involvement with the prostitute, and how Adams will handle the nature of her job after the stress it caused to her pregnancy.

The season finale, titled “Thursday”, is written and directed by Jonathan Lisco and Christopher Chulack, respectively, who also wrote and directed the season premiere, titled “Wednesday”, suggesting that audiences can expect the episode to focus on the resolution of all of the above-listed season-long storylines.

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