The Walking Dead Season 7 Episode 1 Review

The Walking Dead
The Day Will Come When You Won't Be

Season 7 Episode 1 Review

**SPOILERS FOR THE SHOW, EPISODE AND COMICS FOLLOW, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK**

At the end of season six, we've found eleven of our lovable heroes at the mercy of a new threat by the name of Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), and his weapon of choice: Lucille, a baseball bat lovingly draped with barbed wire.  Previously, Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and his crew assassinated several of Negan's men in their sleep because they were threatening the Hilltop colony, and they offered to take care of Negan's men in return for half their supplies.

Rick and his group have faced adversaries before (The Governor, the Termites, hordes of Walkers), and they felt like nothing could stop them, and Negan would be an easy enemy to off.  They were wrong on every level, as Negan's army far surpasses Rick's in both size and tactical maneuverability, which was shown at the end of season six.  Daryl, Rosita, Glenn and Michonne were captured by Dwight, and Rick, Maggie, Abraham, Sasha, Eugene, Aaron and Carl were heading to the Hilltop because Maggie (Lauren Cohen) was experiencing severe pregnancy pains.  Along the way they were stopped by Negan's men, and were eventually herded to the woods where they were ambushed with hundreds of Negan's men.  They were forced on their knees where the Big Bad finally emerged from the RV, cradling Lucille in his arms.  He tells the crew that they had killed many of his men, and in retaliation he will kill one of them with Lucille, and he would then own the others and they would surrender half their supplies to the Saviors.  When it came to deciding who would die, he played the most evil game of Eenie Meenie Miney Moe ever, and it ended on a cliffhanger where we don't see who he bludgeoned.

This resulted in a summer-wide anger fest with people rage quitting the show because they didn't receive instant gratification on who died.  To me, it seemed like a no-brainer they would end on a cliffhanger, because being a child of the 80s, I remember when a season would end, it would end on a huge cliffhanger to keep the audience talking and thinking about the show all summer.  Back then, there was no Internet where people could play CSI and meticulously scrutinize every frame, stalk the actors or offer their own spoilers.  In today's day and age, we seem to want that instant fix, and anything that would cause us to wait is something deemed evil and "lazy writing."  To me, it energized my desire to see the eventual fallout (even though, I digress, I was also angry), and the several month anticipation only heightened my resolve to see it through.

The episode centered around the dual nature of Rick and Negan, and Negan's resolve to reduce Rick to a sniveling, compliant slave.  Having already done his deed, he takes Rick and Rick's axe to the RV and go for a drive.  He stops at a foggy area surrounded by Walkers, and throws Rick's axe out the door, demanding him to "get my axe."  Rick reluctantly relents and sets out to retrieve it amidst the Walker horde, which were some of the most frightening we've seen as of late, mostly because they would emerge from the fog in a strange ethereal way.  As Rick almost gets eaten time after time, Negan comes to his rescue, showing again his dominance over the once-confident Alexandrian leader.  Having gotten the axe, they head back to the scene of the crime.

So what happened before?  In flashbacks we see the total carnage Negan and Lucille unleashed on our group, as Abraham became the unfortunate victim of the Eeenie Meenie game.  As Negan brings Lucille down on Abraham's head, he gives one last "Abrahamism" by glaring at Negan and saying, "suck my nuts" as Negan continually brings Lucille down on his head, to the utter terror of those around him and the audience as well.  There's several scenes of Negan swinging the bat down and the sound of it connecting, but its not until he's finished that we see the utter devastation left in its wake: Abraham's body, but his head is nothing more than a red pulp.  Seriously, it was so gruesome you couldn't even tell it used to be a head. 

I wish I could say that was the end of the sadness, but it was just the beginning.

Negan, gleeful in his kill, gloats to his captors about how great Lucille is, and forces Rosita - who used to date Abraham before he dumped her for Sasha - to look at the blood-soaked bat.  Rosita is visibly shaken, and Daryl - in blind rage - rises and punches Negan in the face.  This is the second offense the group performed against Negan that night, as previously Glenn tried to stop Negan from possibly killing Maggie.  Negan told them then that no more outbursts would be tolerated, and he proved himself to be a man of his word as, without provocation, he turns and brings Lucille down on Glenn's head.

If you thought Abraham's death was gruesome, it compares to a Disney movie compared to what Glenn got.  Negan brought Lucille down once, and Glenn's eye almost pops out.  Yet he's still awake, coherent and alive, and in a truly gruesome visual we see him struggling to speak, and all he utters is, "Maggie, I'll find you," to his wife Maggie who looks on helplessly with sheer terror.  Negan then brings Lucille down again and again and again, until Glenn is just as unrecognizable as Abraham is.

At this time I will discuss the gruesome nature of this particular scene.  For a show like "The Walking Dead," we're used to seeing our favorite characters get disemboweled, decapitated, shot in the head and devoured in the revolving door of death (RIP Noah), but there was something about this episode that took the gore factor to new heights, which resulted in nausea, anger, extreme sadness and downright shock from the viewers.  Maybe it's because Greg Nicotero's brilliant use of prosthetics and makeup made the event all-too-real.  Maybe it's because we saw two fan favorites die in the most gruesome fashion.  Maybe it's the true heart-breaking event of it all, the helplessness everyone felt.  In any event, these two deaths seemed to be different than all the others, and reverberated not just with the other characters, but the viewers as well.  We now know that Negan is no one to be messed with.  He is a psychopath of the highest order, who delighted in reducing heads to mush, and seems unstoppable.  Nicotero told reporters that he wanted to make the deaths as gruesome as possible to show Negan's dominance, and to that end he succeeded greatly.

Not to mention this day has been eagerly anticipated since The Walking Dead Issue #100 hit newsstands, which introduced Negan to the world and resulted in Glenn getting the bat.  This death shook the characters to the core and sent them in new directions, which no doubt will happen on the show.  For years they've been teasing Glenn's death: in Terminus, he almost got clubbed by a baseball bat, and when they went to Noah's hometown, he found a baseball bat at an abandoned house.  We all knew Negan was coming, and pretty much figured out the television series Glenn would meet the same fate as his comic counterpart.  However, when Abraham got it, we breathed a sigh of relief, thinking Glenn would be fine.  That was our one moment of comfort as the rest of the show tore our hearts out and crushed it under its boot.  True to the comic, Glenn's death was just as terrifying, just as bloody, and just as heartbreaking. 


Having the flashbacks end, Negan and Rick are back in the woods, and we find that Negan isn't quite done yet.  He hasn't broken Rick down completely, and orders his men to put guns to the backs of everyone's heads.  He then brings Carl forward, throws him on the ground next to Rick, and marks a spot on his hand.  Rick thinks Negan is going to chop Carl's hand off, but in one final breaking moment, Negan tells Rick that Rick will do it - or everyone will die.  We now see Rick as a completely broken man, something he's never been in the history of the show.  He is now Negan's pet, and no longer any sort of leader.  After tearful pleading, Negan begins a countdown, and Rick finally rises his hatchet to chop his son's hand off.  Mercifully, Negan stops Rick from doing it, finally breaking him completely, and sparing Carl's hand. 

Having successfully broken the group, Negan takes Daryl captive as a prisoner of war, telling Rick that if he doesn't pay up, he'll chop Daryl up and send him in parts to Alexandria.  Rick promises he'll pay, and confident that he's finally won, Negan and his men leave Rick's group, saying he'll come gather his first payment in a week.

As the sun rises, our heroes finally come to terms with what has happened, and we as the audience are finally able to take a breath, cry some tears and wonder what is going to happen in this new world.  Maggie, in a surprise turn of bravery, is the first who wants to retaliate and take out Negan, but Rick tells her they can't.  She's angry and decides to continue to the Hilltop alone, blaming herself for bringing everyone out there.  Sasha - after a heartfelt talk with Rosita - vows to get Maggie to Hilltop safely, as the others load up Glenn and Abraham and begin their long trek back to Alexandria, no longer leaders, but servants under Negan and the Saviors.

The episode was teased all summer as being the most depressing, heart-breaking episode ever, and - as Negan - they kept true to their promise.  It was easily the most stressful, most emotional, most nerve-wracking episode of any series ever that I've seen on any show, and still reverberates to me today. Say what you will about the over-the-top violence, it got its message through loud and clear.  This will establish a whole new direction for "The Walking Dead," and I for one can't wait to enjoy the ride.

Fascinating Tidbits:
-The title comes from the first season, when the gang was at the CDC.  Jenner planned on killing them all because there was no hope,  but he relented and allowed Rick and his group to leave.  Rick told Jenner he was grateful, to which Jenner replied, "the day will come when you won't be."  It looks like today was that day.

-Glenn's final words to Maggie show that Glenn, to the end, cared more about Maggie and others than he did for himself.  This has been expressed throughout the show as he often risked his life to protect those he loved, especially Maggie, and served as a form of comfort that he would be with her in spirit, and was truly gut-wrenching and heart-breaking.

-Before Abraham died, he flashed Sasha the peace sign.  Throughout their short relationship, he would often give her a peace sign as a token of his love for her, and since he couldn't turn to her and tell her verbally how he felt before he died, he showed it by their own personal sign.

-This was the first time someone from the first season died since Andrea in the third season.  After Andrea's death at the end of the third season, the Atlanta 5 (Rick, Carl, Carol, Daryl and Glenn)  managed to make it through unscathed, but not anymore.

-When Daryl punched Negan, Dwight came forward with Daryl's crossbow, ready to kill him.  However, Negan responded in a condescending manner: "no, no you don't kill that. Not until you try a little."  Dwight then cowered away after looking embarrassed, showing there could be some rifts in Negan's group that Daryl could hopefully take advantage of at the Sanctuary.

-As Negan's group left Rick and his gang, one of Negan's members took a Polaroid of Glenn's corpse.  When Rick and the crew attacked Negan's outpost, Glenn saw a bunch of pictures of corpses with mangled heads, obviously victims of Lucille.  Now his picture is among them.


The Score: A+