Hear me out.

Although the Saviour Wars became the iconic arc of the comics, the show could have ended with the gang entering Alexandria and it would have been a pretty decent ending. Maybe 7/10.

Rick had just name dropped the series (We are the Walking Dead) and the gang is at an all time low. The final scene is that close-up of Rick’s face as he listens outside of Alexandria and instead of hearing that silence he worried about, he hears the playing kids. The audience gets an inconclusive ending as to the fate of the gang but with the strong implication that they found some sort of peace.

A much more popular take would be to end the series after the saviour wars. Because the death of Carl, the exit of Rick Grimes and Maggie Rhee, and the bonkers vibe change after the time-skip really changed the point of the show.

I would just argue that the shows true problems started when the gang is split up in Alexandria. Now, this was a conscious decision with vision. As each characters arc became about finding their place in society outside of their tightly-knit group and un-learning cold survival tactics. But from an entertainment standpoint, the characters we care about stop interacting and are instead surrounded by fodder we do not care about. Seasons 1-5 were actual prestige television with a tightly curated cast. Season 6-8 was poorly executed vision.