Well, be careful what you wish for…for seven months we waited to see who met their end in a dance with Lucille. Now we know, do you feel better now? I know I don’t. Obviously there are spoilers ahead but in case you’re one of those folks who dangerously ventures on the internet after a show like this in hopes of non-spoilery reviews I’ll give you one last chance to be gone.
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We all hated that cliff-hanger, now that time has passed and the truth revealed we can all appreciate the level of emotional attachment brought on by them move. Instead of being something that happened and we all talked about for a week and moved on, it became a pop-culture phenomenon for half a year. The show has long deviated from the comics so knowing that Glenn was Negan’s first victim in the comics wasn’t much of a guarantee of things to come. Scott Gimple and the TWD writing team put together a gut-wrenching opening that brought real emotion that one doesn’t often experience for fictional characters. Pulling the band-aid off slowly the episode starts with a re-hash of what we’ve seen followed by Negan pulling Rick along into their RV and going for a ride during which the truth is slowly revealed. We find out that the death we saw in the season 6 finale was big Red himself, Abraham. That sucked, but our pain was only just beginning.
The genius of the writing here is lulling us into a feeling of safety for our favorite characters as we knew he was only taking one. We were wrong. Negan, played perfectly by Jeffery Dean Morgan, solidifies himself as the most psychotically sadistic son of a bitch we have EVER seen as he gloats with his blood soaked bat, making Rosita stare at the brain matter of her former lover Abraham all over Lucille right up until the point that Daryl takes a swing at Negan…and the hearts of female fans everywhere dropped. Right when it seems that Daryl is done for Negan swings his bat in another direction right onto Glenn’s skull fulfilling the comic book prophecy…and DAMN did they. What came next was so stomach churning and uncomfortable it’s hard to find the right words to describe it. The comic pane showing Glenn’s death was one of the more graphic in the series history to that point, they completely mirrored that pane and what followed was THE most graphic scene in the show, hands down. Heart-breaking isn’t strong enough of a word, but that will have to do. After the initial strike Glenn’s skull is crushed causing his eyeball to pop from his head ad he turns to Maggie, and the camera lingers, he struggles to utter his last words “Maggie…..i’ll find you”, then Negan finishes the job in a big way.
I can’t even lie, I’m not usually caught off-guard but this REALLY got me. My pulse was legitimately pounding and even as I write this I’m not emotionally right and that isn’t something that generally happens to me with fiction. Oh…but we’re not done. Still unsatisfied with Rick’s acquiescence Negan grabs Carl, pulls his shirt sleeve up and draws a line before telling Rick to choose between all of his people being gunned down or cutting his own son’s arm off. At this point there was no reason to believe this wasn’t going to happen but, sensing that we the audience couldn’t take anymore, the writer’s spared Carl as Rick was sufficiently broken. From here it was all about picking up the pieces…as much as would be possible to get back home. Perhaps feeling like we needed one last gut punch the end of the episode features a coda showing the group, complete with Abraham, Glenn, and Glenn’s would be son eating dinner together…what may have been and what will never be.The point of this episode was to establish Negan as a villain like none other, mission thoroughly accomplished. Television, media for that matter, has never seen someone like this. Someone who finds the most precious thing in your life and completely revels in not just taking it from you but doing so in the most traumatic and gruesome way possible. The only reason to want to come back next week is to see this shattered group find a way to rebuild and bring the pain to that sorry son of a bitch. I can only hope that they deviate from the comics and bring some true justice to Negan and every single one of his followers. The show writers had some fun with something we’ve been waiting for since the governor failed to take Rick’s arm way back when. A hatchet plays a large part in the episode, goading and teasing you. You just KNOW that at some point Negan is going to do what the Governor never did…but it’s just a tease and that’s just one of the many ways that they managed to keep the tension on a Xanax needing level throughout the entirety of the episode.
This episode was joyless, depressing, devoid of hope, and perfect…that’s what makes it one of the most powerful episodes of any show ever when you weigh it against the impact on the universe in which it exists. If I have any complaints it’s that the impact of Abraham’s death is completely overshadowed by Glenn’s making it almost unnecessary, adding only quantity and not quality to the whole. While I know that this show has never been about sunshine and rainbows I can only hope that there’s at least a moment of fun or light-heartedness in the next few episodes as I don’t think I can make it without a strong anti-depressant if this is how it’s going to be. The fact that a show can, in season 7, bring an event that can seismically shift everything we know is a testament to just how special this series is. Until next week, this is what’s up with The Walking Dead.
