Has an episode of The Walking Dead ever been more anticipated?
We’ve known for a while that The Walking Dead season 6 finale would include the entrance of Negan, the greatest villain the comic series the show is based on has ever seen. We also knew that in the comics, Negan kills Glenn with his bat Lucille. But we started to doubt that twist would be brought into the show once The Walking Dead faked us out with his death earlier this season.
Still, we knew someone would have to die. There was just no way to introduce Negan without having him and Lucille kill someone. Unfortunately, we didn’t learn the answer — which killed the momentum Negan brought to the season 6 finale. Like waiting for the answer about Glenn a couple of months ago, and waiting to find out what happened to Daryl tonight (nothing really happened after last week’s “scary” cliffhanger, it turns out), Negan’s scene left us hanging in a disappointing fashion.
Morgan the killer
At the beginning of the episode Morgan is out searching for Carol and comes across the horse the mystery men were looking for last week. After taking the horse for himself, surprisingly, he finds a tired and tearful Carol who’s wounded following her fight with the Saviors. That she would turn up again so soon is surprising — one would’ve expected we’d have to wait until TWD season 7 to see her again.
Morgan asks that she return to Alexandria, and Carol tells him no. As we wrote the other day, it’s a mistake for Rick to try and bring back Carol. She needs time to be alone. To find herself. To figure out what she wants to do in life. “Do you really just not get it?” Carol asks him. She doesn’t want to — and can’t — kill anymore. “You should know that,” she reminds him. When he continues to insist, she points a gun at him and asks him to leave.
Later, after being separated from Morgan, Carol gets attacked by the Savior who’s been trailing her. He shoots her in the arm to watch her die a slow death.
She smiles through the pain. “I’m going to die! There’s nothing wrong with me anymore,” she says, revealing that death would free her from her troubles. He shoots her again, this time in the leg.
Of course, Morgan finds her and points his gun at the Savior. He kills him. Morgan has killed someone, and with a good five bullets. Moments later, the men who were searching for the horse arrive and offer to help Carol. While we don’t know for sure, it’s very possible these guys are from a group called The Kingdom. Season 7?
We’re wondering if Morgan’s decision to kill will inspire Carol. Will she realize that killing is just a part of life now? Will she agree to go back to Alexandria since he saved her life? Or is she too broken at this point to change her thinking?
Rick heads for Negan
Rick, Abraham, Eugene, Sasha, Aaron and Carl plan to head to the Hilltop to get ailing Maggie taken care of (Enid tried to, but Carl locked her in a closet to stop her. Thoughtful!). Father Gabriel, who’s come into his own over the past few episodes, is now in charge of Alexandria’s defense while they’re out.
A group of Saviors blocks the road along their journey with some bait (some random guy no one knows who’s apparently from a community named the “Library”) lying in the middle of the road, and a stand off begins. Rick delivers some of his best lines here (“I don’t want to kill any more of you” … “Do you want this to be your last day on earth?”), but no gunfire is exchanged. Instead, Rick’s bus turns around and takes another route. While this was a simple scene without a fight, the numerous lines about the “last day on earth” are enough to stress fans out as much as any gun exchange would.
Another route is botched by another Saviors road block. Again, Rick (and Carl) decide to avoid a fight. Third time’s the charm? Not exactly. On their third route they encounter a wall of walkers tied to one another — and a couple of them have parts from Michonne and Daryl.
A few Saviors begin to fire at their feet, which (as Rick later points out) suggests they wanted to threaten them but keep them alive. Honestly, Rick should’ve seen that coming, considering the line of walkers was clearly the work of the Saviors. Of course they were going to start firing.
As they continue forward, they encounter yet another group of Saviors — all while Maggie continues to burn up with her fever. And then they hit another road block, in which the Saviors hang someone and create a literal firewall. What a horrible situation!
Thanks to AMC granting the show a 90-minute episode, viewers were treated to (?) lots of failed attempts at crossing the Saviors. I would’ve preferred a 60-minute episode if it meant we didn’t have to see these ultimately pointless Savior barriers. There were just too many, and getting Rick to Negan could’ve been depicted differently.
With the sun setting, the RV becoming increasingly vulnerable, and the 90-minute clock running out, they decide to stop running into Savior barriers and instead reach Hilltop by foot. As they make their way through the woods, they eerily begin to hear whistling. And then they walk right into them. The Saviors have them surrounded, and Team Rick is clearly, severely outnumbered. (What were they chances they’d walk straight into this large group, who were perfectly positioned to intercept them? It seems unlikely, but okay, we’ll let that go.)
Eugene has already been captured by the Saviors after separating from the others to take the RV back home. The look on Rick’s face and the weak tone in his voice says it all: They are screwed. Rick severely underestimated the Saviors throughout all of TWD season 6, and he’s finally realized the grave mistake he’s made.
This scene is easily one of the most terrifying in Walking Dead history. Every single one of the characters is scared because they think they are about to die.
Enter Negan
As Rick and his men drop to their knees and Rosita, Glenn, Daryl, and Michonne come out of the van the Saviors have been holding them in, Negan makes his long-awaited debut. He looks tough, he’s wearing leather, and damn… he’s pretty sexy. Over the next few minutes he introduces himself and explains why this on-your-knees situation is happening: Rick killed a ton of the Saviors, and it is “not cool. Not. Cool.”
Negan tells Rick he will start giving the Saviors “half his shit.” But there’s good news: Since they’re now working for him, he’s not about to kill all of them! But he still has to kill one of them because this is the season finale as payback for killing so many Saviors.
Negan begins pondering who will die, but he has a problem deciding who will bite the bat. So he starts playing the “eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a tiger by his toe” game. Fun!!
Of course, the show leaves us on a cliffhanger and refuses to tell us who Negan selects. It was a major disappointment for two reasons: 1) the other botched cliffhangers earlier in the season (the attacks on Glenn and Daryl), and 2) all the momentum that was built up over the course of the previous 90-minutes, guiding us to Negan murdering one of Rick’s people. We’ve been waiting for this moment for weeks, months, years… but now we have to wait another six months.
Consider this viewer frustrated and disappointed! Or to steal a line from Negan: It’s “not cool.”
“This is your way of life now. The more you fight back, the harder it will be,” Negan warns. The show has changed. Negan rules, and Rick must obey. Let’s just hope that the show changes too. This season had some great points but also made some fatal mistakes, like losing the patience of viewers once… twice… thrice.