Unpopular opinion...

But Zabel is revealing himself to be a very, very good showrunner. He's tying all the knots from S1 on S2 in a very satisfying way to me and all the big arc themes (aka choosing hope and faith - in all its aspects, not only religious faith, finding purpose within itself, bonding and loving people you wouldn't meet on normal life circumstances, no possibility of growth without change, taking true responsibility for your actions) that were there from day one are still important and reflected on. I love how he took the time to give every single OC character enough background story that we can understand why they are the way they are. Sometimes it's talked about (Codron and Losang), sometimes we get flashbacks (Isa and Genet), sometimes it's told with visual clues (Jacinta and Fallou). All the OC scenes, so far, have been so, so good to me. I love all the French cast and I love that their characters are respected and given time to shine. Also, Zabel said that every character arc serves Carol and Daryl's story, which is exactly what I'm getting. Even when these other characters are interacting with each other and Carol/Daryl are not on sight, their scenes have underlying caryl meanings. No scene is wasted and I don't even remember the last time I said something like this about any of the TWDU shows. I have no trouble saying that Zabel gave me no reasons so far to no trust his process to get Carol and Daryl where they want and need to be - emotionally and psychologically - so that we can have a romantic happy ending for them. I wanted to watch a compelling story where caryl is the heart of it but not the single focus and he gave me that. I truly appreciate him for taking care of all the elements, themes and characters he gave us in S1 so that everything have a fitting ending (not necessarily wanted by us, the audience, but fitting nonetheless) in S2. God knows Gimple would never. All I need is a title change for S3/S4 but that's on AMC. Let's see what the future holds. I remain confident that it is caryl.

To the Zabel thoughts anon,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on my POV and assuming I didn’t look into all sides of the information before forming my own decision on how to see it.

Yes Zabel was just a writer on ER, not the show runner, though he did write many of the episodes which were main beat points in the Abby/Luka relationship during his tenure there; forming longstanding emotional ties which were used in future episodes. So while he never had “full directional control” over where the story was heading, he did have a good grasp on a pairings and characters who were knew to him and well loved by a fandom.

Showrunners control arcs. Writers write scenes and interactions and how those arcs play out. After the showrunner gives the parameters to their writing staff they only give final approval after the product (script) is produced and then they go from there (filming or rewriting). Furthermore many of the Caryl great moments were ones created on the fly between Norman and Melissa, so the shows chemistry is as much a team effort as that who’s at the helm. One cannot write off the writers contribution in the past to what a show gave just as much as we can’t write off what may be from people in the future for Caryl.

I’m not going to keep rehashing the “what people thought happened at the finale event” over and over again. If we wanted to do so, one could say Melissa also seemed to be avoiding Kang there too plus on the final shoot day. Whatever did or didn’t happen is in the past; Melissa is a very capable and intelligent woman who wouldn’t be involved in something she didn’t believe in or thought was hot dumpster fire garbage.

Whether you like it or not Gimple is head of twdu and he purposefully chose to hire Zabel knowing his history on other projects. Take that however you want.

I’m so happy we can see someone else have and express a different viewpoint without having to cut them down because we believe differently.

Actually, Zabel was the showrunner on ER for many seasons! I grabbed a screenshot of his career history from Wikipedia and will enclose the link also. He not only wrote a good portion of Abby and Luka’s storyline, but some very important story arcs and episodes.  The Darfur arc. He also wrote the episode which Ray Liotta won an Emmy for, “Time of Death” was the name of the episode, which aired during the 11th season, the season he was named showrunner of the series. Imagine that, he was responsible for an Emmy award winning episode in his first season as showrunner.  This all makes me very excited for the possibilities of the spinoff. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Zabel

I’m old enough to have watched ER when it originally came out and while I was never as invested in any of the ships as I am with Caryl, I did appreciate the storytelling. After David Zabel was named the show runner for Raise the Dead, I went back to do some re-examination to see what I could possibly gather this could mean for Caryl going forward and found some things I think are interesting.

As far as we’re aware, rtd has 3 (2 confirmed) seasons; the first seeming to show Daryl trying to get home (to Carol), and season 2 following Carol’s attempts to find Daryl. If you look back on Zabel’s time writing for ER he carried Abby and Luka (coming in to an already established relationship) through the workings of figuring out themselves as well as a couple.

Luka was constantly thinking he wasn’t good enough for Abby, that she deserved better to find her happiness - plus he was always trying to find a way to make every situation come out roses for all involved, even if it was just a shit show.

Abby overcame her insecurities and self doubt to believe she was capable by herself. Also that she didn’t have to believe in the constant worst case scenario playing out/waiting for the other shoe to drop.

(Sound like any people we know?)😂😂

During the seasons Zabel was with ER, each part of the relationship grew through their inner issues (with each having a mainstay Ep centred around them) to draw them back together and get the satisfactory conclusion many had been waiting for in the relationship.

This all just goes to say; s1 Daryl wants to get back to Carol (works through his stuff), s2 Carol tries to find Daryl (works through her stuff), and S3 is all Caryl.

I’ll also say I don’t necessarily think this means we have completely separate arcs until s3. The main show left a bit to be needled out in the sm details with having to close a whole show sooner than higher ups originally expected, so this way I see how we can get the gratifying payoff of Caryl dealing with things (past/present) as individuals and as a couple.

My main point of this ramble is this: David Zabel has done it before (come in to a long-standing storyline to give existing and well-loved characters/couple the satisfying payoff), he could do it again.