I can confidently say that I have watched this episode four times now and my feelings have not changed. Tonight's season finale dishes out befuddlement with a side of frustration, and I've spent many hours shaking my head over this. Sure we finally get Negan and sure his introduction might be one of the best character entrances ever, but let me remind you that this episode is 90 minutes long and very few of those minutes belong to TWD's new badass. What happened the rest of the time? Here's the summary of "Last Day On Earth."
It's Something Unpredictable
The episode opens with Morgan on his search for Carol. As he makes his way through a field passing a sign that says "you are alive," he comes across a horse just chilling in the tall grass. Maybe this is the horse Rick's escaped victim from last week was looking for? Maybe when Morgan threw off Rick's shot, some sort of full circle nonsense happened and now not only is Morgan reminded he's alive, he now has a horse to be alive on. He also doesn't look half as awesome on his horse as Michonne did on hers. Just sayin'.
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| "And all life is precious. Or something." |
Morgan finally finds Carol, tired, injured, emotional, and leaning against a doorway in a nearby library. He takes her inside and patches her up the best he can. Morgan wants to take her home so she can take the antibiotics Denise died fetching, but Carol tells Morgan to get the hell out of there. She says she's not coming back, citing the whole "I can't kill for anyone" thing. Carol, honey, you're preaching to the choir. Morgan brought his not killing stick with him for crying out loud. They argue, she pleads some more, and he finally does leave.
Meanwhile that Savior walking around with Carol's rosary has caught up to her as well. As she wanders around outside and finishes off a Walker that almost ate her, this guy attacks her and catches her completely off guard. He's injured and pissed off and he wants Carol to suffer. He shoots her arm...and then her leg...and then he wants to walk away and leave her to die. She yells to him "Unless you kill me now, I'm not going to die! You don't get to walk away and get what you want!" He turns and walks quickly toward her with his gun pointed at her head. Suddenly Morgan appears on the other side of her. He is not holding his not killing stick. Instead, he's holding the gun Rick gave him before they parted ways. Morgan has a choice to make and when the Savior moves to make his last shot on Carol, Morgan shoots him six times. Damn.
Carol looks at Morgan and begs him to let her go. He says: "It's not your time. You're going to come back from this." He hears someone behind him....it's the guy Rick would have shot last week if Morgan hadn't knocked his arm. He is accompanied by another guy on a horse. Morgan tells him "I found your horse. I found my friend too. She needs help." The horseless man says "then let's get you some help." Okay Morgan. Full circle.
Another Turning Point
Maggie is in bad shape and it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the God knows how old pickles Enid gave her last week. The Grimes group (what's left of them) is loading up the RV so they can get her to the doctor in Hilltop since, you know, Alexandria is fresh out of doctors. Abraham, Sasha, Eugene, Aaron, Rick and Carl plan to get Maggie to safety, which is pretty much everyone left in Alexandria who's worth a damn. Enid wants to go to but Carl locks her in a closet because he's tired of her whiny ass he thinks she'll be safer at home. With all of these people leaving the community and knowing Daryl, Michonne, Smokin' Hot Rosita, Glenn, Carol and Morgan are also MIA...who's in charge? Well, since Gabriel proved himself in protecting Judith with his zombie guts poncho and shooting that random Savior guy that one time, he's going to be in charge of Alexandria with Spencer as second in command. Might as well promote Tobin and his paper cut to the 3rd spot and just burn the place down.
Once they are on the road, Rick assures Maggie and then reassures Maggie that everything is going to be okay. They're family after all. "As long as it's all of us, we can do anything." Well, considering half of "all of us" is missing, I'm not sure if we should set the bar so high.
We see a terrified man running through the forest trying to escape a group of armed people who are whistling (they whistle pretty well, but the way). I'm not sure who he is but I don't recognize him at all from Alexandria. He says he came from "the library," which I'm assuming is the same one where Carol briefly took refuge. Anyway, the Saviors are chasing after him and after they catch up with him, they beat him and drag him onto the road. And then they wait.... for Rick and the RV to pull up.
Abraham is driving the RV and says some choice words before asking Rick, "are we doing this?" Rick says no and all but Maggie step outside to try to make a deal. If I didn't know that Jeffrey Dean Morgan was cast as Negan, I'd assume the asshole doing all the talking over the beaten library guy was Negan. This Savior isn't looking for a deal. Instead he goes with the very vague "gimme all your stuff." What stuff dude? The weapons? The RV? Carl's eye patch? Rick says the deal isn't going to work and doesn't think anyone needs to die. He says he's taking his people and leaving and the not Negan Savior says "Okay friend, plenty of ways to get to where you're going." Instead of just letting this guy have the last word, Rick stops just before getting back in the RV. "Do you want to make today your last day on earth?" Rick! Just go! Not Negan turns the question right around on Rick and encourages him to be kind to the people in the RV. "You never know...(snap) just like that." The RV slowly backs up and turns around.
A Fork Stuck In The Road
Eugene busts out a map and finds another route to Hilltop and off they go. Sasha sits in the passenger seat next to Abraham and he pretty much tells her he wants to put a ginger bun in her oven. Good lord. (No Jesus in this episode by the way). Sasha looks surprised and kind of smiles. She doesn't get the chance to say anything though because the RV has hit another road block...more Saviors. One-eyed Carl wants to make a stand against them but Rick doesn't want to risk it given their main mission is to get Maggie to a doctor....which would have been way easier if they wouldn't have let their only doctor go out on a run that cost her an eyeball and a portion of her brain.
As they start down a new path, Rick and company are trying to figure out how the Saviors are still strong in numbers since Daryl blew up a bunch of them, Rick's group murdered a bunch of them in their sleep, and Carol burned a bunch of them alive. It's a fair question. Oh but look! Another road block. This time it's a chain of Walkers secured from one side of the road to the other. There's something special about these zombies though - one is wearing some of Michonne's hair and another one is sporting Daryl's arrows. Uh oh. Gunfire immediately rings out from the trees and everyone gets back in the RV....so they can turn around again Forrest Gump style and drive away. Are they going to hit a pier next? Design t-shirts? Did they just feel like driving?
As the group looks over the map again Maggie's condition is worsening....but so is the overall condition of this troupe. Abraham has to stop the vehicle again as an army of Saviors is now blocking their current path. This is getting so ridiculous on so many levels. They turn around AGAIN and drive until they see a bunch of tree trunks in the middle of the road on fire. Over their heads, the beaten library guy is flung from a bridge with a chain noose around his neck. Aaron thinks he might be able to shoot the chain and break it but Rick tells him to save his bullets...and the RV
Although there are a couple more routes they could try, the group realizes the Saviors are probably blocking those paths too at this point. Eugene comes up with a plan. When the sun sets he offers to stay with the RV and keep distracting the Saviors while everyone else heads out on foot. They put Maggie on a stretcher and make their move. Eugene gives Rick the written instructions for his bullet making idea and says goodbye. Ugh. This is one guy I do not want to say goodbye to. To make matters worse, Abraham gives Eugene a hug and tells him he was wrong about him. "You're a survivor. We just didn't know it."
Dead Skin On Trial
The move Maggie on foot plan is in effect but short lived. These guys no sooner make it through the woods to another road...and they come upon their own RV, and a mass of armed men whistling. Shit. Eugene has been captured and beaten again and was not able to use his teeth to get out of this one. Not Negan welcomes them and their weapons are confiscated. The reactions on the Grimes group's faces throughout this ordeal is gut-wrenching. We've gone from "we can do anything together" to "we are completely screwed but at least we're together." Not Negan tells them all to get on their knees, including pale, exhausted Maggie. Once they are all situated on the ground, Dwight appears and pulls his prisoners out of a van. Michonne, Rosita, Glenn, and Daryl are brought to their knees as well. Looks like Daryl was shot in the arm last week. I think we all knew he was still alive. Not Negan says "All right, we've got a full boat. Let's meet the man!" Enter...Negan.
Negan steps out of the RV and he is everything I hoped he would be. He opens with: "Pissing our pants yet?" Um, yes. I'm pretty close at this point. He verbally introduces the group to Lucille, his barbed wire bat and explains the new world order. "Give me your shit or I will kill you. Today was career day. We invested a lot so you would know who I am and what I can do. You work for me now. You have shit? You give it to me. That's your job...This is your way of life now. The more you fight back, the harder it will be." Negan starts pacing back and forth and then says he doesn't want to kill the people in Rick's group because he needs them to work for him. However, Rick's group killed a whoooooole bunch of Saviors already and for that, someone has to pay. "So now, I'm going to beat the holy hell out of one of you." Is it bad that I kind of love this guy? I mean, he's pretty cool in a psychotic sort of way.
Negan can't quite decide who he wants to kill. He glances at Abraham and Abe has a "bring it" look on his face. He's the only person kneeling on the ground that isn't in tears or close to it. He looks at one-eyed Carl and tells him to lighten up. Negan then gets to Maggie and tells her she looks like shit (true story). "Let's just put you out of your misery now." Glenn starts screaming and lunges forward. Negan gives Glenn a pass for that outburst but warns everyone else not to try that shit again. We have about four minutes left in the episode and Negan finally goes with "eeny meeny miney moe" to choose his victim. With each word he points his bat at one of our beloved characters, with the camera shot switching to each face each time. I can't breathe. When he finishes, the camera switches to the first person perspective. We're seeing Negan from someone's eyes now and he's grinning from ear to ear. "Anybody moves, anybody says anything, you can cut the boy's other eye out and feed it to his father....You can breathe, you can blink, you can cry. Hell, they're all going to be doing that." He brings Lucille down hard and the person shakes but doesn't fall down completely. Blood starts to trickle down the camera lens and Negan strikes again and again. We hear stifled yells and everything goes black.
And with THAT the season is over. The finale was 90 minutes with almost no payoff. The "who did Negan kill?" cliffhanger probably would not infuriate me if Glenn hadn't done the dumpster dance earlier in the season and Daryl hadn't been shot (though we never really learned more of that) at the end of last week's episode. So what happens in October when the show returns? Do we pick up with a mangled body on the ground? Do we pick up with the screams and agony of our heroes as they watch one of their own be brutally beaten to death? Or will this be a total cop out where we pick up later with the new world order...
Stop reading now if you don't want to know how this plays out in the comic books. The reason many people flipped out during Glenn's dumpster dance is because this is how he meets his end in the comics. It's epic. However, Denise's eyeball arrow was actually paired with Abraham in the comics...so is it possible that TWD show runners will give Abe this death instead? Are they gutsy enough to switch this major event in the comics? On the one hand, the fact that the victim did not go down right away makes me think it could be Abraham. After all, he's a really tough guy and there's barely room for Maggie's baby in this story now, never mind a Sasha/Abraham love child. Plus, I think the writers hate Sasha almost as much as they hate Tara. But on the other hand, they neeeeeeeed to give this one to Glenn. As much as I'd hate to see him go, it's a huge deal in the story and what comes next, and it's a pretty amazing way to lose one of the Season 1 chararacters. Also on the horizon? It seems like Carol and Morgan are off to The Kingdom to meet Ezekiel (which is not quite the same as being off to see The Wizard). I'm greatly looking forward to seeing the TV show's take on that story too. Just 6 more months to go...
joanna@mail.postmanllc.net
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