There were just so many unresolved issues with Merle. He wasn't one of my favorite characters or anything, and I was perfectly fine with him dying at some point, but this just seemed too early.
As for the finale, well, it's definitely surprising to me that at this point, the Governor is just kind of...out there in the world, just hanging out with Martinez and that black guy. But he has to return at some point, right? I'm hoping that by the time he does, he's just completely lost it. I'm hoping for him to just go completely insane, which would probably mean that he'll kill Martinez and the black guy.
Also, I'm pretty okay with Andrea dying. She was necessary during most of the show because she had Amy and Dale, and then she was the only real connection between the prison and Woodbury, but now that all that's behind us, she has no real purpose. And to be honest, she's always just been kind of bland and boring. She's never been very interesting. Also, she has terrible taste in men. Shane? The Governor? Really? C'mon, Andrea.
I also thought it was interesting that all of those people from Woodbury got brought back to the prison. I'm wondering how many of them are going to turn into actual characters, if any. I think the person from Woodbury who has the best chance of that is that woman Karen, the one who survived the Governor's slaughter and helped out Rick & friends. I do think a lot of them are going to end up dying though.
And one last thing. For some reason, I'm pretty excited to see how Tyreese is going to develop as a character. I couldn't give a sh*t about his sister though.