“Walk” Right Up!

Lake Charles, LA

The Walking Dead has definitely had a peculiar season seven.  Some fans loved the violent opening that finally revealed the victim of Negan’s brutal attack.  They were shocked when Lucille, Negan’s beloved barb wired bat, dealt a second death to a character that was very near and dear to viewers of the show.  Many viewers (and I’m betting that most of them were casual) believed that the violence in that episode was a bit too much for viewers, and demanded changes to the levels of violence in the program.

Where in the heck have these people been since season one?  Oh, well, AMC folded to the complaints and apparently a lot of the gore that we would have seen this season was reduced to wide angle shots and audio-only deaths.

BEWARE!  SPOILERS AHEAD FOR SEASON 7!!!!  STOP NOW IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED THIS SEASON YET!!!!!

From there, the show went on what many consider to be a hit-and-miss cycle of episodes.  Many of these episodes focused on just one or two characters, like The Well, which caught up with Morgan and Carol, and Swear, a Tara-centric episode.  I enjoyed both of these episodes, and pretty much every other character driven episode like these, with the only exception being the Rick and Michonne lovefest known as Say Yes.

Other episodes saw our beloved heroes attempting to acquire support against the Saviors from the Hilltop community, the Scavengers, and the Kingdom, all with varying degrees of success.  The Scavengers, lead by the bizarre Jadis, agreed to an alliance after uneasy (and violent) negotiations in New Best Friends.  This carried over into the Say Yes episode, as did a considerable amount of poor CGI, but I’m not going to talk about that today.  The Kingdom refused, but despite this, Rick found allies within the group, particularly Richard.

As the season wore on,  Richard tried unsuccessfully to force the Kingdom to join with the Alexandrians by setting up Carol to be murdered by the Saviors and then attempting to sacrifice himself but failing in that attempt only to have young Benjamin die instead.  The result of Richard’s actions led to the return of the voices in Morgan’s head, as he brutally choked Richard to death in front of a gang of Saviors and King Ezekiel.  I was so glad to see crazy Morgan back, as well as crazy Carol after she reunited with Daryl and found out about Abraham and Glenn.

Last night’s episode, The Other Side, gave us a slightly deeper look into the life of Jesus, revealed even more friction between the Hilltop’s leader, Gregory, and Maggie, who is quickly building her own following within the community, and focused primarily on Sasha and Rosita as they set out to murder Negan.

Rosita’s vengeance has clouded her mind, making her want to infiltrate the Savior’s compound and kill Negan.  Sasha, the levelheaded member of the duo, believes that it is best to shoot Negan from a distance.  Rosita is eventually convinced that Sasha’s sniper technique is the best method to use, and while waiting for the perfect shot, the pair iron out their differences over Abraham.  When Sasha can’t get a clear shot, Rosita’s desperation plan goes into effect.

The pair make a failed attempt to free Eugene from the Saviors.  After successfully making it to the front gate of the compound, Sasha and Rosita offer to free Eugene.  He refuses their help and runs back into the compound.  This sets off the community, and Sasha seals herself inside the compound after tricking Rosita to stay outside of the gates.  She tells Rosita that she’ll get another chance and then runs off into the compound.  Rosita runs off and then the camera focuses on her shocked face whenever she sees a figure watching her.

Who is it?  Rumors are flying around, but you’ll have to wait until next week to find out.

With that brief summary out of the way, I have to say that this season has been lacking.  I’m a huge fan of the character development episodes (heck, I enjoyed season two, the heavily loaded character developing season that many fans hate with a passion), but only a few of them were strong this season.  There were a lot of boring sequences (and that dumb Easy Street song) that made watching some of the episodes quite a task.  Also, the CGI was noticeably horrible in the two episodes I mentioned earlier in this post.  I’m assuming that the background behind Rick in New Best Friends and the wretched deer from Say Yes were a result of AMC throwing all of their money into Ezekiel’s tiger, Shiva.  If that’s the case, lay off of the CGI until Shiva shows up in a scene!  Shiva has looked pretty awesome for a television series CGI animal, but don’t sacrifice the rest of the show just for the cat.

On the plus side, I’ve grown to really enjoy the performance of Steven Ogg, who portrays Simon, one of Negan’s most trusted leaders in the Saviors.  In all honesty, he’s more imposing than Negan.  There’s no showboating with a bat or excessive leaning back.  Simon’s just straight up untrustworthy.  I love that about the guy.  In last night’s episode, I’m not sure if he was truly wanting to help Gregory or setting him up for a fall.  That difficult to decipher demeanor and the added bit of “just one wrong word shy of crazy” makes Simon one of my favorite characters this season.

Oh, and even though Jeffrey Dean Morgan is an excellent actor, I still believe that he is a poor choice to portray Negan.

Well, I’ve blabbed enough.  As always, thanks for reading.  If you enjoyed this post, feel free to share it on social media.  I’ll be hitting the con scene in the very near future, so look for me if you feel the need to do so.