'The Walking Dead' recap: Negan debuts with a cliffhanger ending (2023)

So the season is over. Not a bang, but a bang.

Yep, after months of teasing, Negan stepped into the picture with his beloved Bat, Lucille, changing the game for Rick and the rest of the survivors. Unfortunately, we don't know what Rick's team's new world will look like, as the episode ended with Negan being murdered.someone, but who that person is remains a mystery.

Before we get to that pivotal moment, however, let's go back to the beginning of "Last Day on Earth," because a lot happened in the long season 6 finale.

However, we are talking about the real road here, because the real events of "The Last Day" can be simply summarized as follows: Rick wanted to take Maggie to the top of the mountain for treatment, but the Salvation Army set up several roadblocks at every turn to prevent them from reaching their destination. Negan is tired of having his men killed and eventually seeks revenge and compensation. At first he just played with his food.

Almost every celebrity in Alexandria followed Rick in an RV on the way to the summit. Father Gabriel stays behind and is now in charge of protecting the town (especially Rick and Judith), with Spencer by his side while Enid leaves against her will. She begs Carl to go with them, wants to be with Maggie and help save her, but Carl refuses to put her in such danger. So he lured her into a closet in the Armory, locked her up and told her "just somehow survive”

So the rest of the troopers (well, the ones Dwight and the Salvation Army didn't catch last week) rode out of town, with Maggie burning in the rear as they scrambled to get her the medical care she desperately needed.

Rick tried to reassure her along the way, saying that they were in this together, that everything they achieved was accomplished as one, as a family. But any comfort those words offer should wear off at the first hurdle they hit. A small group of saviors, their cars parked on the road just ahead of them, Steven Ogg's chattering saviors leading the way. (Although you might recognize him from his appearances on shows such asyou better call saul, Ogg is probably best known for the man behind itGrand Theft Auto Vtrevor.)

Rick gets out of the van and offers a deal, but Ogg's savior tells Rick he wants them all and might kill one of them. (Things are such nebulous bargaining terms, but understandable why he doesn't always have a detailed list. Who knows how long he'll have to linger at that hurdle?) Rick would rather take their "stuff" than Kill anyone, but it's no surprise that no deal was actually struck. The Saviors have a prisoner they spray paint on the street after beating him to a bloody pulp earlier (he says he's from "the library" but I'm not sure what that is), assuming he must be one of them.

So Rick leaves, just as the group's main savior delivers the first big preview speech of the episode. Rick asks if he will make today his last day on earth, and the saviors ask him back, implying that he or his loved ones won't be on this earth for long.

Whatever mind games he's playing, they certainly seem to be causing Rick's trembling, and he's visibly more worried than he's seemed lately, even more frightened. The group turns around, intending to go the other way (the part where Abraham tells Sasha, in his own way, that he is open to the idea of ​​starting a family with her). Naturally, they encountered another battalion of the Saviors, a slightly larger and better armed battalion, which again forced them to find another way.

So they came to the third block on the road, and on the surface, there was no savior here. Instead, a group of walkers are chained across the road, and a caravan crossing the road threatens to disable their vehicle. So Rick and a small group slowly got out of the van and noticed the familiar markings on the walkers. Michonne and Darryl show signs that their friend is in serious trouble, but if a fire breaks out, they'll soon be in danger. Rick attempted to neutralize the Walking Dead's defenses by severing an arm to break the line and free the Walking Dead.

Next: Morgan continues to search for Carol, Rick and his friends set out to rescue

He and a few others set out to take them down, while firing on nearby Saviors hiding in the woods to get them back to their RV and on their way to safety. After breaking free from the fight, Rick naturally noticed that the Savior shot the Alexandrians in the leg instead of killing them. They have a plan and they want them to go down this path.

This path naturally leads them to a fourth obstacle, as a group of no-nonsense armed messiahs block their way. Rick, clearly exhausted by this point, told them to turn the van around and find another way to get to the top.

This naturally leads them to a fifth and perhaps most ingenious obstacle, a massive wooden wall blocking the campers' path. (Although the sense of progression is obvious now that since this episode is basically a long build-up to the final scene, I think we all sensed their troubles at the third stopping point.) The tree was burned and the savior let them go, but until Later his former captive, now adorned with a large X on his shirt, hangs from a nearby overpass.

Warning signs were prominent, and with so many road closures, it was clear rescuers had considered every possible route for the campers. However, Eugene subtly points out that the Redeemers seem to be only concerned with the RV itself. They had no idea who was inside, so why not use the RV as a distraction while the others carried Maggie on foot in the dark.

Whether he made a plan or just volunteered, Eugene was the one who stayed in the RV while everyone else left on a stretcher with Maggie. He says what he thinks are his farewell words and gives Rick a prescription for making bullets in case he doesn't get a chance to do it himself, while Abraham apologizes for never trusting him before.

So Rick and the others make their way through the woods in the dead of night, hoping to find safety, because they think they've outwitted Negan and the Savior. But the Salvation Army appears to be fully engrossed in the plan, as the group soon hears a series of whistles echoing around them, until they find themselves in a clearing, surrounded by the Salvation Army and their rides, Eugene and The RV is already in their car. .

The only one missing is Negan, but fear not...or fear, because he's finally here.

Want more? Subscribe to our newsletter for all the latest news on TV last night.Go here for more details.

But in the spirit of postponing that moment for a few more minutes, let's briefly touch on another story that runs parallel to Rick's Roadblock Simulator 2016.

Morgan continues to search for Carol, though he's not the only one after her, as the only surviving Savior from last week's shootout with Carol is also after her.

Morgan, however, makes it along with the help of a friendly horse friend with whom he rides into town, only to find Carol huddled on the sidewalk, wounded and seemingly terrified. He patches her up and tells her he's not the only one looking for her. They want her back, but Carol says she can't. She has to kill to justify her place there, and there's no room for anyone who won't or can't kill (given, of course, the diametrically opposed views Carol and Morgan shared earlier in the season). He doesn't want to leave her, but she holds him at gunpoint and asks him to leave.

He took care of the wandering walkers that Carol couldn't kill, at least temporarily. When he returned he couldn't find her, so he drove off again to find his compatriot Alexander.

Carol set off on foot again, and when she reached the wrong walker, she struggled to kill him, his face softened, and she was caught by the surviving savior. He tortured her, shooting her first in the arm and then in the leg. Carol said she didn't suffer enough.

He didn't kill her, he caused her pain, but she wept for him. She asked it to stop. He can't leave. He needs to end it, so he rushes back to do so. Until Morgan shows up.

Morgan pointed a gun at the Salvation Army and asked him to put the gun down, telling him they could get out alive, but the Salvation Army had no patience for this confrontation. He was about to kill Carol, but was killed by Morgan. Every life is precious, but perhaps Morgan has come to believe that there are exceptions when a precious life is at stake.

Morgan's murder of a man isn't the only surprise, however, as two men in armor show up, not looking for trouble but asking what happened. One of them was on a horse with a spear in his hand, which made Morgan realize that the horse he owned belonged to an infantryman. These people whether real life guards or LARPers choose a weird moment to pretend to be in real lifeold roleCivilization, with some help, hints that another civilization will be introduced in the near future. (Readers who have read the comics probably know what it is, but for the sake of spoilers, I will not say more as a non-watcher.)

Next step: Enter Negan

And, without further ado, Negan. Jeffrey Dean Morgan steps out of the RV to see Rick's entire team lined up in front of him. Daryl, Michonne, Glenn and Rosita were also brought out of the hideout. (The episode occasionally references them with recurring gunshots that don't actually do anything other than show where they're being held.)

Now Negan doesn't appreciate all the killing by his men, first in his sleep and then by those sent to kill Rick and his men. Rick will regret crossing it, Negan told him before he objectedextensiveA villain's monologue.

As played by Morgan, Negan is cool, calm, and enjoying the moment. He made the request very clear. He wanted their stuff and they had no chance to negotiate. To make matters worse, he's about to kill one of them because he can't let what happened go unpunished. If they fight back, life will only get worse. Negan owns them now, he owns the damn door that his men knocked on when they came to Alexandria and demanded whatever they wanted.

He wants them to work for him, they can't if they die. However, one sacrifice did the necessary damage to Negan's mind, but he couldn't choose. How could he? He just has almost all the main characters in front of him to choose from. So much potential, so many ways it could irreversibly change the lives of Rick's team.

So instead of making the right choice, he walks around playing eeny, meeny, miny, moe until he decides on his choice.

That choice... remains a mystery. The camera switches to first-person mode after frantically switching from one Alexandrian to another as Negan confronts his victim. A few words delay his final decision, but he inevitably actually kills him, as he bumps into one of Rick's men and hits him or her over and over again, dripping blood from a first-person view, Like the game's "Game Over" screen for first-person shooters.

But the identity of this view will be unknownmoon, and feels like cheating in many ways, though that's somewhat unsurprising when an episode featuring the fate of Glenn aired and ended last week with Darryl shot and blood splattered across the screen. Don't show who died,living deadThe writers put the only real twist they could do in a moment that anyone who read the comics (or who got the details of Negan's entry through interviews, spoilers, or Wikipedia) knew it would end in death. Maybe it'll coincide with the death in the comics; maybe not, but anyone with experience wants the protagonist's lines to end. So they staged that death, but without the satisfying revelation audiences were expecting.

Negan's introduction and the entire episode seem to convey this twist. thisbigThis moment obviously won't come until the end of the episode and season. But the extended length of the episodes, the repetitiveness of Rick and the team getting to this point, and the delayed gratification of Negan's tirades and indecisiveness all push the revelations and resolutions further into the distance. And this episode doesn't just push the answer to the episode's ultimate question until the final seconds. In this episode, Lucille is content to figure out who killed Negan and throw him months into the future.

Is that right? Not at all personally. Cliffhangers could work for the season finale. I'm certainly old and enjoying it, but the finale and most of the season clearly culminates in this moment, in this introduction and death. The repercussions of that death will reverberate throughout the series, but those repercussions are more speculative and contemplative than mere identities. No matter how good Jeffrey Dean Morgan was in his first scene as Negan, the show is robbing fans of the chance to get something deeper at this point that really sums up the season as a whole. story. The rest of the finale lacked enough meaningful material or character development to warrant a lack of resolution in the end. The ending should come as a shock to fans, an unexpected twist that was expected. Still, the latest in a season full of suspense isn't shocking. What a disappointment.

Someone in Rick's group did have their "last day on earth" during the finale, but because of the way the last day was handled, it's hard for the show to care about who that person really is.