Maybe you can go full Andrea in the back-half of season 7. Way to go from being one of the most compelling, badass character on The Walking Dead to being utterly intolerable, Carol. She just wants to be left alone in the house that was provided for her, eating the food that was given to her and reaping all the benefits of community without having to contribute. He doesn't have much success in this (though I think he's absolutely correct) and mostly we glean from this exchange that Carol is seriously selfish and annoying now. More Rosita, please.įinally we had a weird scene between Carol, Morgan, and one of Ezekiel's lieutenants who wants the two of them to help convince Ezekiel to attack Negan. Oh well, at least Rosita continues to be pretty awesome.
Everybody loves Daryl, and he escapes, while Eugene, who nobody really cares about, is taken hostage to become Negan's Court Bullet Maker. So we trade the beloved Daryl for the largely irritating Eugene as captive of the Saviors, which also feels a bit cheap. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is at his best in this scene, his jovial animosity shattering for a moment into something more like rage, and perhaps a little like fear.Ī serendipitous moment for Negan results in Eugene being taken captive. Lucille saves his life, and much like Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King, this small miracle makes him more god-like than ever. Maybe that luck is one reason he's in charge. This is a great moment because we've been asking why nobody just takes Negan out and finally when someone tries, we discover that Negan has uncanny luck.
When Rosita tries to shoot Negan-thank god someone actually made an attempt!-she hits Lucille instead. Negan might be a little better after tonight, but there was nothing bold or interesting about his choice of victims. These are characters we either dislike or don't care about-their deaths don't inspire us, so how do they inspire Rick? "Oh there they are!" he jokes.) Killing off the lady whose name I can't remember that Negan keeps making fat jokes about is also a cheap move. (He accuses Spencer of having no guts, then cuts his belly open and watches his guts fall out. Nobody likes Spencer, so seeing him gutted does very little other than bring us a mild sense of satisfaction-and one of Negan's best lines. I still think he's mostly annoying, but I liked him more tonight than I have previously.Īnd yet.killing off Spencer is kind of a cheap move. These actions give Negan a little bit more mystery and depth than I've given him credit for, granting a touch of complexity to a black-and-white villain. Negan could have just killed, captured or tortured Carl but he refrains. He could have taken Spencer up on his offer and put him in charge, but he doesn't. When Negan later tells Rick that he A) brought Carl home even though he tried to machine-gun him and B) killed the guy who was trying to get Negan to kill Rick, I had to agree with him. Negan kills Spencer for being a weasel and that's gratifying. We're so used to him being really, really bad that when he does really, really bad stuff we feel a little numb. There's really no way to top his earlier atrocities, for one thing. I wish that the show hadn't spent so much time on Negan before this episode. His shaved face was way more creepy, for one thing. I will admit that I liked Negan more tonight than I have at any other time. An escape from the arch-villain's lair could be half an episode worth of content, but because everything was stuffed into the midseason finale, Daryl's moment of victory was almost an afterthought. He sees a room filled with guards and rather than having to find some clever way to get past them he ns past them. Daryl's entire escape sequence was castrated. In other ways, this felt like a huge misfire.