Walking Dead Season 7 Discussion - Spoilers possible!

[Awesome Possum]

I'd argue that it was necessary to be gory to shock the audience as well as the main characters. We've seen Rick remain defiant and still in charge while lined up to have his neck slashed so he and the others could be butchered. The audience expects Rick to be badass in the face of every single threat they've come across. Negan turns this expectation on its head. He brutally kills Abraham, who manages to still remain pretty badass during it, he even gets out a final insult. Then when you're cheering for someone to do something, Darryl does and gets Glenn killed in the most brutal death to date in the series. Negan is a monster and it needs to sink in with the audience that he is far beyond anyone the group has dealt with. The audience has to be as horrified as the group, especially after seeing Rick reduced to tears in front of him. He broke Rick, he broke the group and he broke the audience. I'd argue that Glenn's death is the most important part because he's sort of the heart of the show. Negan tore out their heart and left them to deal with it, letting them know it can be far worse if they try anything.

 

[Evil Twin]

Boy, sure was nice of the walkers to maintain a respectful distance while everyone was having their Sad Time at the end of the episode.

Abraham (already past his comic expiration date) and Glenn (duh) were my top two candidates, so no real shocker there.

Looking forward to the rest of the season. The Negan arc's so compelling because they really are at his mercy. Makes the Governor look like an amateur.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

I'd argue that it was necessary to be gory to shock the audience as well as the main characters. We've seen Rick remain defiant and still in charge while lined up to have his neck slashed so he and the others could be butchered. The audience expects Rick to be badass in the face of every single threat they've come across. Negan turns this expectation on its head. He brutally kills Abraham, who manages to still remain pretty badass during it, he even gets out a final insult. Then when you're cheering for someone to do something, Darryl does and gets Glenn killed in the most brutal death to date in the series. Negan is a monster and it needs to sink in with the audience that he is far beyond anyone the group has dealt with. The audience has to be as horrified as the group, especially after seeing Rick reduced to tears in front of him. He broke Rick, he broke the group and he broke the audience. I'd argue that Glenn's death is the most important part because he's sort of the heart of the show. Negan tore out their heart and left them to deal with it, letting them know it can be far worse if they try anything.

Right, even in Terminus, seconds away from Rick, Glenn, and Daryl being clubbed in the back of the head and slaughtered for meat, Rick was absolutely defiant and convinced that they could overcome their predicament. It had to be something that directly exceeded that event and showed Rick how thoroughly they had been outclassed by Negan. And even after losing two of his people in the most brutal manner possible, Rick still hadn't gotten the fight beaten out of him yet.

 

[kitik]

Wow, an amazingly intense episode. Negan is a great character.

The whole time he and Rick were in the RV, that axe was just looming there, threatening to be used on more than just zombies. And then I really did think Rick was going to be forced to use it at the end. I guess I was just as broken as Rick.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

This!

I don't have a problem with characters dying but this was too much, it was brutal, disgusting and the extreme gore completely unnecessary!
I remember Lizzie's death, that was done well, this wasn't!

Funny you should mentioned Lizzie, because there were viewers who said her execution was "too much" and the series had gone too far with characters carrying out brutal acts. Some decided they could not stand Carol because of her decision to kill a child.

The bottom line is that the violence (in this case) served the story; just as The Governor beheading Hershel served his arc where he proved he was--as the title read--"Too Far Gone"--a potent example of how some are beyond reason and salvation. In the past, i've criticized certain characters playing judge and jury when it was unjustified, but for a truly immoral, nihilistic person (Negan, for one example), he will make his own rules and exercise every twisted desire. That's the world of TWD: a neverending canvas for the worst of humanity to lay out & explore their base impulses. I think some viewers need to remember that there's no reason why a truly evil person would not beat someone to death as their lesson/punishment to others. That certainly has many precedents in real life.

 

[Borgminister]

Boy, sure was nice of the walkers to maintain a respectful distance while everyone was having their Sad Time at the end of the episode.

Just as it unfolded that Negan's reach was more expansive than it seemed, perhaps he had the periphery guarded? Just a thought.
Rewatched it and have to say I'm still very clinical about it all, but can see the quality. Hard to boo-hoo about Glenn, who drove knives into the skulls of sleeping men. Blood is on everyone's hands. It'll be very interesting to see the Carl-Negan dynamic as time goes on--his look of hatred was palpable in the Glenn death scene. I think, though, the cliff-hanger lessened the impact of the deaths emotionally. It's better when it just happens, and people must deal with it.

 

[Starkers]

That was a hard watch. I'd heard some rumblings a few weeks ago that there might be more than one death so when Daryl (idiot!) punched Negan I guessed what was coming, and the moment I saw the framing of the shot I knew it was going to be Glen. I can see the logic but I did say that I’d be done with the show if they killed Glen and Maggie, so I’m still hanging in there!

Abraham made sense, he’s a fun character but you do feel they’ve gone with him about as far as they can, Glen though was, as has been said, the heart of the group and if they were ever to find a “happy” ending then it would need to be the Glens and Maggies and Aaron’s of the world who’d be needed to build something out of the ashes. So it’s just Rick, Carl and Daryl left from the beginning now?

Fantastic performance by JD Morgan though, to be that vicious, that evil, yet also appear almost reasonable at times was truly frightening. Lincoln was fantastic as well, Rick really did look broken at the end. I’m not sure where the show goes from here. I don’t think killing Negan would finish the Saviours, his people are inured to this utter brutality now (was there a guy taking a Polaroid of Glen’s body?) like concentration camp guards. Sure they might fall apart eventually, begin fighting amongst themselves, but even if Rick had killed Negan in the RV I think Negan’s people would have killed every last one of our guys and then someone would have taken Negan’s crown. Sure he probably wouldn’t have lasted long before someone else stabbed him in the back, but Negan’s empire would probably survive a fair few emperors before it completely collapsed.

Will Rick and co almost become like a guerrilla army within the empire now, nibbling away at Negan’s bunch slowly but surely, or will Rick eventually try and create an alliance of communities to fight Negan?

I have no problem with the brutality in this (frankly I still think its tame compared to what might really happen in this scenario) or GoT, but damn it’d be nice to have some hopeful TV to counterbalance this. I hope we can get that with Discovery.

 

[FPAlpha]

Will Rick and co almost become like a guerrilla army within the empire now, nibbling away at Negan’s bunch slowly but surely, or will Rick eventually try and create an alliance of communities to fight Negan?

I think getting together a few communities to take on Negan would be the best choice and in an obvious kind of way they have already set that up last season when the story took Carol and Morgan out of Alexandria where they met this other group that will soon be introduced in the full (including a badass looking "King" with a friggin' White Tiger!). However since this is the obvious way i hope there will be much more to it when the reckoning comes and i don't know if one season will be enough to set this up especially now that Negan turned out to be the best villain this show has so it would be a waste to kill him after just one season.

I rather hope they manage to form enough of a powerblock with other communities so they are able to stop Negan and extricate themselves from his immediate control, maybe with a big ass battle in the season finale but they will not be able to beat him completely so Negan will be a constant threat in the next season after this one.

I watched a few reaction videos to the episode yesterday and most of them were of the "Holy Shit" - fall from the couch types but some were outright crying and bawling when Negan killed Abraham and Glenn, that really suprised and shocked me a little.

Such a hardcore reaction is unique.. not even Game of Thrones didn't get this and that's a show that's not easy on popular characters. Not even the Red Wedding received this kind of emotional reaction so kudos to the writers and producers, i'd be very happy after yesterday and the season just started.

 

[OtherGene]

Watching TWD last night was a strange experience. On the whole I enjoyed it but having read a review this morning which described it as "misery porn" I have to agree with that a little. In my opinion, having concluded the last season in this manner anything other than what I watched yesterday would have felt like a cop-out and undermined any further dramatic jeopardy for the characters but even so, post apocalyptic or not, there has to be some sunlight in the gloom. What with that and the recent 'Logan' trailer is this the new zeitgeist?

 

[Scout101]

Some of the 'off' tone may be that these were executions instead of just tragic deaths. We're used to losing people to zombies, or even occasionally (more now) in fights/battles with other people, accidents, etc. These guys knelt on the ground for the better part of an hour on screen and we watched a guy select one, then another, and beat them to death with a bat.

That's a hard watch.

 

[Trekker4747]

I think calling this "Misery Porn" is a bit strong when we've had a number of fun, upbeat, episodes. (Remember the wacky hijinks with Rick, Daryl and the food truck?) But sometimes you have to inject misery and bleakness in order to have, you know, drama.

I'd be interested to know what the demographical divide is when it comes to split between how this episode was received. For me, it was an intense hour of TV that brought these characters, literally, to their knees. We've never seen them this low, this broken, and this defeated. Not when they lost the farm. Not when they lost the prison. Now when they had been on the road for several weeks with little food and water. The overcame the challenge and came out stronger, never letting the situation get them down.

But, here? Here we've seen them all defeated and broken. Rick had his head over a trough as men down the line cracked people on the head and then another man slit their throats and let them bleed out in preparation to use these people as food. Rick had no exit strategy here, yet his was stoic and confident he was going to win and get out of it. But the moment the Saviors ambushed him and The Group in the woods and he, in desperation, tried to talk out of it he's been in over his head. And now seeing one of the people he's closest to die and nearly being forced to Abraham his son Issac, he's the most defeated we've seen him since he entered his home at the beginning of all of this and couldn't find his wife and son.

I've seen plenty of posts and reviews on-line the last day with people thinking the show crossed lines and went too far with the visual brutality. I wonder, where the generational divide is there? It's easy to make fun of Millennials as being coddled and such but when we're talking about a generation of people who need "Safe Zones" on college campuses that edgy comedians won't speak at anymore because people are offended by harsh jokes it's hard to not wonder if Millennials aren't more disturbed by this because the show didn't coddle them, stroke their head, and tell them the apocalypse will be okay and all fun and bunnies.

With 005 above I can, sort-of, see his divide. His problems with it being just more for him the show "not being fun anymore" I guess makes sense. We already live in a fairly miserable world so watching more misery can be too much. But, I knowing somewhat where the show goes from here means that I know there's some hope down the road for our characters. Good drama means giving your characters obstacles and challenges to overcome. It's how a "story arc" is supposed to work. In movies we see this happen over the course of a couple hours, in episodic TV we see it happen inside of 45 minutes or so, in serialized TV we see it play out over a season or a franchise.

Having your characters on the top of the world able to overcome any challenge thrown at them isn't good drama. And that's where our characters were nearing the end of season 6. They took out, they thought, The Saviors at the cable station, they made their arrangements with The Hilltop, Glenn and Maggie were reunited and ready to start their family, Abraham had found the second win for continuing in this life and seeing, finally, things coming back to normal in his relationship with Sasha, where did these characters have any place to go but down?!

Were nearing the end of the First Act, folks. Our characters are at their lowest and defeated.

Life is sometimes brutal, it's even more brutal during an apocalypse. Watching Rick completely broken was powerful for me, watching Carl, stoicly, tell his dad to chop his arm off was powerful for me. (Carl, knowing Rick had no other choice.) JD Morgan was great as a villain and we truly saw how in a corner these characters are against a foe they apparently can't take on. Again, this is how drama works, our characters are supposed to be here for good story. In way over their heads.

Emotions stirred in this episode, but now I want to see how our characters overcome it.

If people are bothered by the violence, the emotions or whatever. Fine, I can get that to some degree. TV is meant for escapism and if that escapism isn't fun then, sure.

But to see complaints about the episode being too miserable, too graphic (when we've seen people's faces peeled off, babies ripped out of wombs, and pretty much every way to slaughter a dead-body imaginable) for me is a tad ridiculous. It's the apocalypse.

It's also interesting to see some other complaints out there about who Negan's second choice was. A FB friend said it was a racist choice which.... Okay.

Granted, racism against Asian people is, indeed, a thing and this show hardly has a good history with non-white characters but can you really claim racism played a factor in killing off a character who's been on the show as long as the main character, from the very beginning?

And you point out that killing Glenn followed the comics those people usually then pivot around by criticizing the show for only "now" following the comics.... Which... er.... You can't both be mad at the show for not following the comics and for following them at the same time. While the show has taken some diversions here and there it has more-or-less tracked with the comics, particularly so the last season or two.

Anyway, for me a good episode and I look forward to see our characters overcome.

 

[Saul]

That was a nasty episode in more ways than one.No level of violence is off the table here. GOT has it's work cut out for it.

 

[Starkers]

Watching TWD last night was a strange experience. On the whole I enjoyed it but having read a review this morning which described it as "misery porn" I have to agree with that a little. In my opinion, having concluded the last season in this manner anything other than what I watched yesterday would have felt like a cop-out and undermined any further dramatic jeopardy for the characters but even so, post apocalyptic or not, there has to be some sunlight in the gloom. What with that and the recent 'Logan' trailer is this the new zeitgeist?

Yeah, the only thing that will make me quit the show is probably a lack of hope. It is possible to have hope and drama and the occasional ray of sunshine in the gloom is always appreciated.

 

[FPAlpha]

I think calling this "Misery Porn" is a bit strong when we've had a number of fun, upbeat, episodes. (Remember the wacky hijinks with Rick, Daryl and the food truck?) But sometimes you have to inject misery and bleakness in order to have, you know, drama.

[cut for length]

You hit the nail on the head.

What do people expect who call this misery porn? The entire show is miserable.. good people that didn't deserve it die, good people had to make horrible choices that no one should ever have to make and it is set in a world where the simple act of walking into an unknown room carelessly might get you killed or where a small infected wound winds up ultimately killing you because you couldn't find a simple antibiotic.

As i said previously i am no fan of the zombie genre which is why i am a very late comer to the show but i stayed purely because of the characters and to see how they deal with this world they have to live in. This season start is the direct result of a monumental fuck up by Rick (i honestly yelled out loud "Do some recon first!" when he agreed to take out Negan for the Hilltop folks in exchange for some goods.. that was Rick at his most arrogant thinking just because he went through so much and most of the group made it with him and he managed to find/defend Alexandria and turn it into a haven that he can roll over yet another local thug and be done with it.

This was the most brutal reality check for the group and it has to be miserable, it has to be inhuman and it has to be monstrous but i never felt it was gratuitious because it would mean it would have to be done purely out of shock value and to give people something to talk about the next day.
This cruel scene should have the same effect on the viewer as it had on the character (well, less so because who of us has ever seen one of their best friends beaten to death by a baseball bat) and at least to me it delivered.

The stage is set for the season and now i can't wait for the long term repercussions and character developments.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

While I didn't get the outlash at ending on a cliffhanger which seemed more about "Why do we have to wait to find out?" I think it may have diminished the impact of the deaths had they happened at the end of last season. I think it would've been a lot more jarring to have ended with this than at the start after months in between. I think last season's finale would've been even more effective had they gone that route.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

It was completely necessary. It showed just what kind of a monster Negan is, and how he's arguably the worst one the group has run into since the apocalypse began.

Seriously?

If anything, I think Negan showed restraint. Rick was the aggressor in this situation. He went off of intel from a sketchy leader of a colony they had JUST MET and, without any recon WHATSOEVER, they decided to declare war against Negan just because some guy said Negan was the source of all their woes. Rick also killed people in their sleep. At least Negan had the decency to do what he did when they were awake. Negan had every right to execute every last one of them for what Rick and co. did to his group. In fact, I enjoyed seeing Rick being taken down a few pegs in this episode.

Also, Negan appears to be a better leader than Rick. Negan has thirty-plus men that appear to be relatively well-fed and in good shape while Rick maintains a revolving door of expendable extras that look filthy and greasy as shit on a good day.

I have to say, the show did surprise me. After the magic dumpster bullshit last season, I was ready to quit watching and was only continuing to see how they handled Negan. Needless to say, I was glad to see the show finally regrow its balls and actually kill a main character instead of a glorified extra. So, for the time being, I'll be sticking around

 

[FPAlpha]

Seriously?

If anything, I think Negan showed restraint. Rick was the aggressor in this situation. He went off of intel from a sketchy leader of a colony they had JUST MET and, without any recon WHATSOEVER, they decided to declare war against Negan just because some guy said Negan was the source of all their woes. Rick also killed people in their sleep. At least Negan had the decency to do what he did when they were awake. Negan had every right to execute every last one of them for what Rick and co. did to his group. In fact, I enjoyed seeing Rick being taken down a few pegs in this episode.

Also, Negan appears to be a better leader than Rick. Negan has thirty-plus men that appear to be relatively well-fed and in good shape while Rick maintains a revolving door of expendable extras that look filthy and greasy as shit on a good day.

I have to say, the show did surprise me. After the magic dumpster bullshit last season, I was ready to quit watching and was only continuing to see how they handled Negan. Needless to say, I was glad to see the show finally regrow its balls and actually kill a main character instead of a glorified extra. So, for the time being, I'll be sticking around

It goes without saying that Rick made a monumental fuck up and is solely responsible for what happened.. if they encountered Negan by chance and submitted right away no one would have probably have to die because Negan didn't need to establish his dominance, at the worst he would have mutilated somebody just to show what could happen if anyone decided to challenge him.

Rick has only killed when he had to and everybody he has killed deserved to die (at least in the harsh new world that is where laws and rules of conduct don't apply anymore and it's survial of the fittest).

As to Negan having the right to execute them.. no, he didn't if we go by the book (whatever the book is). Negan's men, the biker gang, threatened Daryl and his group, robbed them at gunpoint and he was about to kill them when Daryl fired off the RPG so even in our modern, law abiding, state that would have counted as self defence.. with an RPG

So if i recall the timeline correctly by extension Negan fired the first shot and established himself as a threat and it all spiralled out of control from there.

Being a better leader is a matter of perspective.. Negan rules through absolute fear. Him executing Abraham and Glenn was as much for Rick's group as it was for his own because that could happen to anyone who crosses him and i have no doubt he'd do the same to one of his own if he dared to oppose him. Negan keeps his people well fed and equipped, provides a safe haven and all he demands in return is absolute obedience.. in the world of Walking Dead having a safe place to live is the ultimate goal so giving up your freedom to a madman who will not bother you if you follow his orders seems like a bargain so that's where the loyalty comes from.

Now if someone were to slowly chip away at that in secret and sometime later openly through guerilla warfare and hit and run terror tactics so much that his men don't feel safe anymore they might change their tune some day and get the idea that Negan might not be the ultimate Saviour.. well, that development might get interesting.

 

[Trekker4747]

It's odd to blame/criticize Rick for what happened at the satellite/cable station. That was a preemptive strike, they heard from Daryl about the group that they ran into on the road (who mentioned Negan, flirted with killing one of them, and said they were going to take all of their stuff back at their compound.) Then they hear the stories from The Hilltop which they can take on some level of good faith given their trust in Jesus (the character not the savior) and it's consistent with what Daryl, Sasha and Abraham experienced.

The attack on the compound was preemptive, either they did this now on their own terms and conditions or they're abushed at their own gates somewhere down the road. It's not like Negan's men sleeping in their bunks were entirely free and innocent little darlings considering the actions Negan's men committed and that one of them had Polaroids of Negan's victims on his wall. These weren't good people.

So Rick's group "had" to do this at some point as somewhere down the road there was going to be confrontation with these people. And if it happened at Alexandria's gate there would have been a lot of fatalities at Rick's feet, most of those being people who're "civilians" and not fighters.

Can we really defend a group whose MO, by their own admission, is to go up to a community, execute one of them as a show of force, take half of their stuff and then ask for regular contributions with a variable concept of how much is and is not enough, and in the case of not enough they kidnap or execute more people?

How is what Negan and The Saviors doing anywhere on the same level as what Rick's group does? They've never attacked another group and stolen their supplies, the only groups they've killed/attacked were ones that were a threat to them. Woodbury/The Governor was a local threat and had kidnapped two of their own -and were going to kill them.

Now, Negan can be rightfully pissed that so many of his people died and his likely to be arrogant and self-involved enough to not realize that he's bringing it all on himself through his own behavior and actions, but he saw his men killed and he has to fight back. But Negan is a brutal, cold, man. The few times we've seen Rick kill someone as a show of force/power (off the top of my head, the "leader" of the prisoners) he did it quickly and with a good measure of justification (the guy was a threat, had tried to take rick out several times already.) But Rick would never, savagely, beat a person's head into chunky salsa and laugh and enjoy every minute of it making quips afterwards.

Both sides think they're justified and in the right, but only one side is going around bullying people, robbing them, and killing as a show of force. The other group killed in self-defense (even if preemptive self-defense) and took a single contribution in order to do so from another local group. (And we know Rick wouldn't be one likely to continue to go to The Hilltop for "contributions" lest he kill one of them.)

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Seriously?

If anything, I think Negan showed restraint.

*Sigh* There's always one "Gul Dukat wasn't such a bad guy" person.

Rick was the aggressor in this situation. He went off of intel from a sketchy leader of a colony they had JUST MET and, without any recon WHATSOEVER, they decided to declare war against Negan just because some guy said Negan was the source of all their woes. Rick also killed people in their sleep. At least Negan had the decency to do what he did when they were awake. Negan had every right to execute every last one of them for what Rick and co. did to his group. In fact, I enjoyed seeing Rick being taken down a few pegs in this episode.

An argument could indeed be made that Rick was overly aggressive with his murder spree on the Savior compound when they could have taken them hostage and possibly negotiated a settlement. I doubt Negan would have accepted it, since he only seems to become slightly more accommodating once total submission is given, but Rick and Co. couldn't have known that at that point. But they were not in any way the "aggressors". Negan's people struck first, and Rick had several pieces of intelligence pointing to their hostile nature.

First Dwight and his party, while on the run from Negan's Saviors, took Daryl hostage and threatened to kill him. Daryl escaped and stole their stuff in the process, but returned when he realized one of the girls in Dwight's group had insulin in the container and would go into diabetic shock without it. Daryl thus established Rick's group's good intentions by risking his own life to save someone who had kidnapped, beaten, robbed, and threatened him, and he offered to have them return to Alexandria. In response Dwight pulls a gun on Daryl and steals his crossbow and bike. Daryl got intelligence about the ruthlessness of the Saviors, even towards their own people.

Then Daryl, Abraham, and Sasha are ambushed by the Saviors motorcycle patrol while driving home in the fuel truck, are threatened with death if they don't immediately give up all their possessions to Negan, and one of them is about to be executed when Daryl destroys the group with an RPG.

Finally, while at the Hilltop Colony, they're present when a Hilltop colonist tries to assassinate the Hilltop's leader under Negan's orders, who is holding his brother hostage. Rick's group is told that the Saviors extort Hilltop and other groups for food, medicine, weapons, and supplies under threat of attack. They have definitive proof of the Saviors taking hostages and executing people, and of their own attempt to extort Daryl, Abraham, and Sasha and then Alexandria had they not escaped.

Also, Negan appears to be a better leader than Rick. Negan has thirty-plus men that appear to be relatively well-fed and in good shape while Rick maintains a revolving door of expendable extras that look filthy and greasy as shit on a good day.

Because they openly and preemptively attack other groups, execute their members and extort them with unreasonable terms, and steal their stuff as a matter of policy, which Rick and his group aren't willing to do, at least not until repeatedly provoked.

 

[Kahless the Unforgettable]

It goes without saying that Rick made a monumental fuck up and is solely responsible for what happened.. if they encountered Negan by chance and submitted right away no one would have probably have to die because Negan didn't need to establish his dominance, at the worst he would have mutilated somebody just to show what could happen if anyone decided to challenge him.

We must have been watching a different show last season.

It was pretty much directly implied (by the numerous Polaroids they found) that smashing people's brains in was standard operating procedure for them. Unless you want to try and argue that every one of those photos was in response to a group that attacked Negan's team first. But that's pretty much a laugh; the implication is that it is how Negan exerts him dominance over everyone.

Rick's group getting a double header (pun originally unintended) could be argued as an extra punishment for their preemptive strike, but someone was going to get a caved-in skull one way or the other.