Margaux and I begin our reunion tour by discussing the bloody return of The Walking Dead.
Trevor: Reviewing an episode like this is a pretty thankless task. There’s so much damn hype. I have to say though, I’m impressed that AMC was able to keep the identity of Negan’s victim(s) a secret for so long, but they just did it in a shitty, underhanded way, by having Steven Yuen appear in a happy birthday message to Demi Lovato, and having Michael Cudlitz talk in an interview about a world containing both Abraham and Negan. But I guess you gotta make lemonade when you end a season as poorly as The Walking Dead ended season six. Anyway, what did you think of “The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be”?
Margaux: Actually, and I think it was Fox, aired a trailer where if you paused the video, you could figure out who got the bat before the season premiere yesterday. Luckily, AMC rectified that immediately because so much of “The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be” heavily relies on the “shock” of that reveal. So it was kind of nice to see AMC get an 11th hour F-U. But let’s get to this clunky ass episode title. I really think Scott Gimple has been working there too long, it’s like they threw a bunch of TWD “most common terms used” and fridge poetry’d the hell out of it.
Initial impression of the premiere in chronological order: who died? Oh, okay, everyone saw that coming. Well the rest of this is kind of a stupid exercise in futility. But goddamn, Negan is insane, right? Okay. All this tracks.
Trevor: We’re really through the looking glass here, evidently.
I know neither of us are among the camp of people on the Internet who think this is the worst TWD episode ever, but it was supremely frustrating at times. All summer, among other lies from AMC, I heard that we’d learn who dies in the first ten minutes. So by minute eleven I was feeling the kind of betrayal and entitlement that nerds feel more than others. Why did they have to cocktease us for so long? If I were running this show, I’d have started right away with Negan beating the shit out of Abraham. That would have been ballsy, and might not have shown the active contempt for the audience that The Walking Dead is known for.
Margaux: Plus, from a basic storytelling standpoint, that would’ve been the best, most logical way to start the episode: where we left off. TWD has a really hard time just telling the fuckin’ story. And where the episode starts is doubly insulting because it was a clip that they’d already released TWO WEEKS AGO. They cannot help stepping in shit.
Trevor: That’s exactly right, and it left a real sour taste in my mouth. Was anyone surprised that they delivered a shitty cliffhanger, waited 202 days, then waited even longer to satisfy the audience’s curiosity? Were they worried people wouldn’t tune it to the highest-rated show on cable?
But, if I can pivot a little bit because I’m getting tired of complaining, can we talk about how terrific Jeffrey Dean Morgan is as Negan? He was the main reason I tuned in, and he really delivered. How are you liking him as the heavy?
Margaux: Negan is reason for the season, tbh. He’s basically the evil, parallel universe, slightly more successful version of Rick. Pretty sure a lot of viewers last night had mixed emotions about being sexually attracted to Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan because he’s so damn charming, as well as extremely unhinged and unpredictable. Honestly, Negan’s jokes were kind of welcome, no matter how dark the context was, because after 3+ seasons of serious, navel gazing inward introspection, it’s sort of a breath of fresh air to have a character who is so…uncomplicated. Follow his rules or get the bat, or the threat of your arm getting chopped. I haven’t felt so tense and on the edge of my seat while watching TWD then when I was watching Negan countdown to Carl’s arm (possibly) getting hacked off by HIS FUCKIN’ DAD. I mean, that is…some shit.
Trevor: Morgan is a wonderful addition to the cast. He really is charming, which is a big part of Negan’s character, and he really makes quite an impression here, probably because he gets 95% of the dialogue. (Let’s take a moment for a solemn LOL at the Internet’s stupid fantasy-land casting demands for Negan: Jon Hamm, Tom Hardy, or Henry Rollins.)
I gotta say, though, I’m (almost) as equally impressed with Andrew Lincoln, who did some fine work in a largely nonverbal performance. There’s no vanity to his portrayal anymore; when Negan breaks Rick, he looks as though he’s going to stay broken. He was straight-up blubbering and pleading when Negan was making him cut off Carl’s arm, which was hard to watch, even after six seasons of Rick shenanigans. He’s been broken, or close to it, before – after Lori’s death. But I think this is much worse, or it looks like it’s going to be. Post-Lori, he had his little “stuff and things” breakdown, but I think the damage here will be much longer-lasting. Of course, since this is The Walking Dead, they could always shit the bed, who knows.
Margaux: Odds are a hundred to one that they will fuck up Negan’s character no matter what because this show has no idea who to walk the fine line of pleasing its massive audience and staying true (enough) to the source material, which it makes a conscience effort to stray from with a mixed bag of results. Some internet’ers had a problem with the amount Negan speechifying, to them I say, Kanye shrug. At least it wasn’t Morgan extolling this non-violent virtues to a fuckin’ lunatic who couldn’t or wouldn’t be saved, basically the literal form of wasting your breath.
Last night’s episode ushered in what I thought was a more gruesome, and bleak (visually and story development wise) TWD world, which I think suits its newest villain as finely as his leather jacket. It’s kind of nice to get away from “are WE the villains?” trope a bit because the Governor was mild at best and at worst weak, and this season needs a common evil besides zombies to rally against for this show to feel less plodding.
Do you have anything to add before we talk about the inevitable and hollow deaths?
Trevor: Yes, briefly. From a technical aspect, I really enjoyed this episode. It looked great, and it sounded great too. Bear McCreary doesn’t get as much credit as I think he deserves for his work as the show’s composer, but his music is consistently one of the best part of TWD. Okay, now we can move on to, as Bob Dylan might call it, the million dollar bash (he wouldn’t call it that, but I gotta get in a joke for all the Basement Tapes fans out there).
Margaux: Well, that’s because Bear McCreary is the King of “OMINOUS TONE” and often times comes across as cheap or unnecessary or both. Like when the remaining group was huddled around their respective dead body and crying and then SUPER SAD MUSIC swells, and you’re like, WE GET IT THEY BE DEAD WE SAW. It’s okay, you’re over praising, but you do that with Dylan too, so ya know, I get where you’re coming from. In short: his scores drive me nuts, and not in that Beatles in the 60s-coming-to-America way.
Trevor: Well, it’d be a boring review if we agreed about everything.
Margaux: Let’s talk about murder number 1: Abe. In the moment, it’s horrifying. Mainly because of the randomness, but also the overkill Negan seems to relish and delight in. That moment of it sinking in, this dude actually enjoys this shit and probably sleeps better at night than I do. But will I miss Abe? Nah, not really. His mutton chops were tight and his one-liners were funny (never forget: mother dick), but that hail Mary of character development to have him and Sasha fall in love never did land for me. Although I thought his little peace sign to her before he met his maker in Lucille was sweet and upsetting enough.
Trevor: I’ll definitely miss Cudlitz’s performance more than the actual character, that’s for sure. But even if Abe’s death didn’t gut-punch me, I think the choice of victims was smart. Hear me out: the “old” group (Carl, Michonne, Daryl, Maggie, etc) will be destroyed by Glenn’s death, while the “new” group (Eugene, Sasha, Rosita) will be affected by Abe’s. That said, I think Glenn was the absolute wrong choice for murder victim, but we can talk about that in due course.
Margaux: At least Abe went out on the most Abe note ever: “suck my nuts.” I think the order in which they revealed the deaths was smart, but yeah, by the second commercial break and still no brain bashing, you begin to get less invested in what’s about to transpire because if the show doesn’t care, why would you?
Trevor: And after dumpstergate, Glenn’s death was two middle fingers, proudly thrust into the viewer’s face. Why go through all that shit just to kill Glenn anyway? I get it, life is random, no one is safe, blah fuckin’ blah, but it just reeks of piss-poor writing.
Margaux: Even from a character standpoint it felt cheap to force Maggie watch yet another beloved family member get murdered senselessly in front of her. If they knew TWO YEARS AGO this is when and where Glenn would go out, why oh why did we have that dumpster bullshit happen? It really made his real death, which was gut wrenching when he said to Maggie “I’ll find you,” feel like whomp-whomp moment when we should of been bawling our eyes out. Glenn, the character and actor Steven Yuen, deserved better. I understand that the mindset behind killing him off besides no one being “safe” (which is uttered bullshit anyway cause why is Rick or Carl still around??) was math. Glenn has been here the longest and has always done the right thing, from saving Rick in the 1×02 to “adopting” Enid, he’d be the safest bet for the controversial kill. But they’d fucked up so royally, they really didn’t make anything right, only worse.
Trevor: Totally agree, with all of that. The bullshit about no one being safe is exactly that, bullshit. There’s no way Rick is going to get his ticket punched, and let’s not pretend that Daryl is ever in any real danger. That being said, I do applaud the show for how graphic the kills were. Neither Glenn nor Abe got any last words (which means we’re probably in for a flashback-heavy season), and their heads were reduced to absolute nothingness. That’s a hell of a thing to do to two main characters, and you rarely see it outside of, say, Game of Thrones. So I admired the lack of sentimentality there. I was worried it would all happen off screen.
Margaux: This group has seen and been through some shit, but I feel very confident in saying this was probably their worst day yet. And for now, it doesn’t seem like they’ll be taking any sort of stand. They’re down a Daryl, who was taken by Negan’s camp, and no Morgan and Carol for now. I understand and kind of appreciate the single-mindedness of “The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be,” but I wish they would’ve cut to other characters (i.e.: Carol, there is never enough Carol. Or Tara) and what they were doing, it would’ve broken up the Negan hour a little bit and would’ve given the audience a chance to breath, they could of done away with that whole “go get MY axe” sidebar with Negan and Rick, which felt aimless and pointless. Guess what you guys, you don’t need a fuckin’ flashback IF YOU JUST TELL THE FUCKING STORY.
Trevor: Agreed. For me, “The Day” is a solid three-star episode. It’s pretty much a line drive straight down center field in terms of quality – it did some things well, some things poorly and was overall indicative of the level of quality we can expect from The Walking Dead these days. It’s not the end of the world you know? It’s fine. It’s fine. Negan is a wonderful addition, but the show screwed up the deaths so badly that it’s going to take a while to recover that goodwill. Your thoughts?
Margaux: Anyone who truly thinks this “is the worst episode of The Walking Dead” has clearly never seen this show, “The Day” wasn’t horrible – it tried really hard and probably would’ve landed more praise and respect if it’d been part of the finale. But this is what we got. And I think it was a C+, aka 3 stars. And they’re gonna have to do more than the obvious to win back this audience because season six did a lot of alienate and turn people against this show. Negan’s a good start, but will he be enough? We’ll see.
“Negan is a wonderful addition, but the show screwed up the deaths so badly that it’s going to take a while to recover that goodwill.”
3/5
“Good”
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