'Walker' Didn't Deserve Cancellation

The Big Picture

• Walker 's current season will be its last, leaving fans disappointed by the show's cancellation.
• Cordell Walker faces growing challenges, including a shorter final season affecting character arcs.
• The CW's future without Jared Padalecki is uncertain, now that the network has canceled Walker and other shows.

For fans of the CW's recent Walker, Texas Ranger reimagining, we have got some bad news for you. Unfortunately, the show's currently airing fourth season will be Walker's last, as the Jared Padalecki production has finally gotten the ax by its home network. This comes a year after its Western spin-off prequel series, Walker: Independence, was canceled following its own first season. With only a handful of episodes left in the neo-Western cop drama, Cordell Walker and his supporting cast members all deserved better.

Walker

A widowed father returns to Austin after one year, attempting to reconnect with his children, navigate clashes with his family, and find common ground with his new partner, while growing increasingly suspicious of his wife's death.

'Walker' Needs More Time To Properly Conclude

Every season of Walker has launched itself with a brand-new season-long mystery. In Season 1, our hero was solving the murder of his wife, Emily (Genevieve Padalecki), while the second season centered on the Walker/Davidson family feud, and the third meditated on the terrorist militia group Grey Flag. With Season 4, Walker has ventured into darker corners of procedural television by introducing the Jackal, a serial killer who has been on the loose since before the show began. With Walker diving head-first into this case, and slowly losing his mind to his opponent, this has been the toughest hour for our hero yet. On paper, ending Walker with a plot that stretches its titular character to his limit is a great idea. It infuses meaty character drama with an engaging (and seemingly impossible) murder mystery, but it also opens the door to darkened places that Walker might not be able to easily return from. Sounds simple enough, but there are a lot of other factors to this show that need to be taken into consideration also.

While taking down serial killers is part of the job, Walker may have written itself into a corner that the unfortunate cancelation verdict may not be able to get the series out of. If Captain Larry James (Coby Bell) once ruined his marriage by obsessing too much on the Jackal, what kind of damage could Walker do to his family, particularly Geri (Odette Annable) or his children, by doing the same? With only a few episodes left, it doesn't seem like there will be enough time to fix things if they go south (at least not in any meaningful way), and while the impromptu series finale will hopefully surprise us, there are a lot of other loose ends that Walker has yet to fully address. Liam (Keegan Allen) has been teetering between two different career paths all season, torn between his desire to run the horse rescue and to resume his previous legal activities. He's been directionless for most of the series, and it doesn't seem like that will change any time soon. Likewise, Stella (Violet Brinson) has no idea what her future holds, as she's been so consumed by this necklace-stealing plot that she's failed to spend any meaningful time at college. And they're not the only ones.

Abeline (Molly Hagan) and Bonham (Mitch Pileggi) have noted on several occasions that they may be looking to retire elsewhere now that the grandchildren are about to be out of the house, and Auggie (Kale Culley) might be following in the Walker family footsteps by pursuing a career in the military. Both these ideas are major decisions that deserve their due diligence, and while we've spent enough time with Auggie to see his arc through, the heads of the Walker family haven't had much to do all season. There's also the strange, unspoken tension between Cassie (Ashley Reyes) and Trey (Jeff Pierre) that was explored at the end of Season 3 and barely mentioned in Season 4. Their almost romantic chemistry has yet to be fully realized, but with Cassie dating Detective Luna (Justin Johnson Cortez) perhaps this is a non-issue. Of course, there are also fans still hoping for the return of Micki Ramirez (Lindsey Morgan) after her sudden disappearance at the beginning of Season 2, though that's increasingly unlikely the longer the show has gone on. All this to say, there's a lot for Walker to have to wrap up without an intentional final season; the CW would've been wise to give us one, even if it's a bit shorter than usual.

Cordell Walker Still Has Some Growing Up to Do

Walker Season 4 is already a number of episodes shorter than usual due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes of 2023. Most seasons of the show run about 18–20 episodes, while Season 4 was given 13 by comparison. While this is still nothing to scoff at in an age of streaming where 6-10 episodes reign supreme, for a CW series like Walker, it limits what the show can do and how well its character arcs will work. In the case of Cordell Walker, our favorite Texas Ranger still has some growing to do, and without a proper fifth and final season, all we can do is hope the show can at least start the process. In the original Walker, Texas Ranger, Chuck Norris' Cordell Walker was largely the same man through and through, and though he certainly had his challenges, his personality never shifted. The same hasn't always been true for Jared Padalecki's take on the character.

If we've learned one thing about Padalecki's time on Walker, it's that his erratic behavior can sometimes get the best of him. Whether he's seeing glimpses of his dead wife or trying to take on an entirely different personality while undercover as a criminal, Walker has a lot that he's working through, often while out in the field in the middle of a firefight. More often than not, these mental spirals cause Walker to make impulsive and often dangerous choices, many of which have followed him home. His best friend, Hoyt Rawlins (Matt Barr), was killed as a direct result of these choices. With the Jackal case now at the forefront of his mind, Walker is making these same sketchy decisions, and by forsaking his son's advice to get some professional help, he'll likely make the whole thing even worse. Whenever he does finally reach that boiling point, it'll assuredly affect everyone he holds dear, including Geri.

Since the first season, the show has built the romantic tension between Walker and Geri, but between grieving Emily and Hoyt, the timing never quite worked out. But now, with the two of them finally in a committed relationship, it seems as if Walker may finally get that happy ending he's been searching for since his last happy ending was robbed from him. Sure, he's come a long way since then, but Cordell Walker still has some issues to work through before Walker can officially come to a close. After all this time, he's not fully learned how to separate his job from his family, nor has he been too successful in mending things with his own children. Given that there are less than five episodes left of Walker before the final curtain call, it doesn't seem like he'll learn these lessons in record time, though maybe the showrunners saw the writing on the wall and prepared for this sort of thing.

The CW Might Not Survive Without Jared Padalecki

Ever since the CW first launched in 2006, Jared Padalecki has been a part of the network. For the first fourteen years, it was as Sam Winchester on Supernatural, but in 2021, he pivoted from Vancouver to Austin to take on Walker as Texas Ranger Cordell Walker. Padalecki has been as vital to the CW as a network as DC Comics superheroes have, and with both on the chopping block this year (Superman & Lois has likewise been canceled after its upcoming fourth season), it's a wonder what the network is hoping to become.

Either way, it's still a tragedy to see a show like Walker go. Not only is it a fun series with plenty of character drama and mystery to keep us invested, but it also has a particularly family-oriented perspective that's missing from most procedurals in this specific niche. Action dramas don't often have a strong family component to them the way Walker does, and that's part of why the show is so loved. To be fair, ratings for Walker have declined steadily over the years, though that's not exactly unfounded for a show on the CW. Still, after canceling both Walker: Independence and now the flagship series as well, this hasn't been the best year for the Walker family.

Now that Walker is done, many are hoping that Jared Padalecki will tackle a role on The Boys, reuniting with many of his Supernatural cast and crew mates, but this author hopes for something else. While the original Walker, Texas Ranger ran for an impressive nine seasons, it ultimately ended with a made-for-television film that continued the narrative. While that project ended on a cliffhanger, maybe Padalecki's Walker could return for a made-for-TV film or special to properly close out this chapter of Cordell Walker's life. If the series finale leaves us wanting more, it may be the only way to get the full closure we've been hoping for.

Walker airs its final season on Wednesdays on the CW and can be streamed on Max.

Watch on Max

ncG1vNJzZmibn6G5qrDEq2Wcp51kxKK4yp6pZqymYsCpu9Zmmpqmk5q5rbHDaA%3D%3D