Note: Major spoilers for the season finale of The Walking Dead, you have been warned.
After an entire season of buildup, the moment has finally come and gone, and I can honestly say that the season finale of The Walking Dead was everything that is right and everything that is wrong with the show all in one big episode. I'm not going to go through the routine of recapping the episode as I have done most of the second half of the season, but instead I'm just going to share my thoughts and observations of the episode, and the season as a whole.
Let's start with the OTHER storyline, since there were two real things going on in the episode, and we'll save the good stuff for last. Morgan and Carol have had a rough go of it this season, between not seeing eye to eye most of the time, to only find out that they both sort of want the same thing. Carol has had an attack of conscience this season, and it all came to a head in this episode, as she was being pursued by the remaining Savior from the attack on the road in the last episode. The man caught up to her and was about to kill her when Morgan got there, and in a bit of role reversal, he ends up killing the man to save Carol's life. She was pretty much ready to just let it all go and finally put an end to it all by letting the man kill her, but Morgan said that he isn't going to let her die.
I felt that it was a pretty underwhelming end to this story arc. I thought that one of the two of them was going to die, I thought more than likely Morgan, but instead neither of them did. I guess the fact that were able to come to an understanding with each other is probably the "happier" ending for them, but I guess the bleakness of this show just kind of makes you wait for the bad to happen instead of the good, to a point where I was kind of disappointed that things didn't end badly for them.
But they more than made up for that with the main storyline. After an hour of boring buildup, they finally got to the good stuff, but let's back up a minute. As I said in the opening paragraph above, I think that all of the problems I have with this show, as well as the reason I continue to watch it anyway, were on full display. The problem, you ask? I feel like they have an endpoint in place, and so everything they do is to justify getting to that endpoint, as opposed to letting the characters get their on their own. It's almost like they spend time doing background and character building, to just then throw it away when they get to part they were going to and let the characters just fly around as opposed to doing what they should. It's been on even more display in the last few episodes as the group that "doesn't take chances anymore" just started taking chance after chance until everything went down the toilet, culminating in the ending of the episode and season. So they spent an hour just (in my humble opinion) wasting a bunch of time until they could get to the moment they have been trying to get to all season. And that was the introduction of Negan.
As the lights go on around the group, and Rick realizes they are surrounded, the feeling of dread that comes over the group also comes over we the viewers. And so we can now forget about the boring first hour of the show because they have gotten us to where they wanted to go. Even the guy says it to them after they are surrounded, he says, "You have arrived at where you are supposed to be" or something along those lines. Now the big question has been for me all season, when they get to where they are going, is it going to be worth it? I have to say that it is a resounding yes, at least mostly. I have a minor qualm, which I will get to at the end here, but overall this next part played out as good, if not better, than I had hoped for.
As Negan walks out for the first time, he has the look and the feel that he should. He is a larger than life character, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan played him perfectly. He doesn't mince words, he is intimidating, and as Rick realizes that this guy can and will do whatever he has to do, it is truly an amazing thing to watch. The look in Rick's eyes is top notch acting by Andrew Lincoln, and everything about the scene plays out as one of the most intense scenes I have seen on television in a long time. All the way up to, and including, the game of eenie-meenie-miney-mo that Negan plays to pick which one of the group members has to die. I think the beauty of this scene is that Negan already well knows who he wants to pick, he has sized them up and already figured it out, but he plays the game with them just to make things worse on them, to intimidate them more and more with each passing second. Until the crushing blow, done from the point of view of the victim so we the audience don't know who he picked.
Which brings me to the minor qualm I mentioned above. I felt that it was a cop out by the show runners. I understand why they did it. Ratings, buzz during the off season, open discussion amongst the fans. But I felt like they spent the whole season building it up, just to then say, "Okay, now that we have built it up for the last six months, you can wait another six months to find out what we built up to." I personally think that had I found out who the victim of Lucille was, the more likely I would want to watch next season, to see what sort of effect that has had on the rest of the group. By the time the show comes back on again, I feel like the shock value of it will have worn off, and it will more just be, "Okay, so which one was it," and I won't feel the same impact as if I had just experienced the scene and got to see the aftermath briefly before the long hiatus.
Overall, I thought the episode was subpar, until the last twenty minutes, which was one of the better scenes in the entire series, so it's kind of hard to rate the episode as a whole. I just felt like most of the episode was spent waiting in anticipation, and so it felt like most of the episode was just filler that was unnecessary and didn't really add anything to the end sequence. I was glad that the payoff on Negan was so well done, I just wish we could have gotten the full resolution to this season long setup instead of letting this season now run over into the next one. Hopefully when it comes back on in several months, the fallout from this whole thing will make me see that it was worth the wait, but I have my doubts about that, and expect to just be back in the same boat again. Hurrying up and waiting for the next big moment to keep me coming back for more.
My rating for the episode is 7/10 (5/10 for the first half and 9/10 for the last half)
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