The Walking Dead Season Six Finale: Eff You, Eff You Very Very Much

Do Not Read If You Don’t Want Spoilers

For anyone who knew what happened in the 100^th issue of The Walking Dead comic, season six of the television show has been a season of agony. Anxious fans have waited months to find out  who meets the business end of Lucille, the barbed wire-wrapped bat of the supervillain Negan. Finally, Negan shows up in this last episode…and we STILL DON’T KNOW who he kills. And it’s frustrating as hell.

Let’s back it up a bit. First, let’s check in with Dale over at the RV.

Action Chick, what in the hey-hey is going on over there?! Beth came by here for a little while, several folks I’ve never met came through, and a big guy in a hat named Tyreese gave me a recipe for pudding. It’s bananas! And by that I mean both the situation and the pudding.

Thanks, Dale.

Season six overall has been mediocre. It feels like the people in charge of The Walking Dead are taking advantage of the show’s huge success and the fans’ intense desire to find out who Negan kills by stringing us along, milking it for all it’s worth the entire season. I, for one, am tired as shit of being worried sick about who dies. So I’m not going to worry anymore. And TWD can count on me to not watch the season seven premiere…at least for a week.

The finale had some good stuff alongside some seriously meandering, get-to-the-freakin’-point stuff. Carol and Morgan’s storyline was great. You can really see the influence they’ve had on each other and Carol’s growth is very intriguing, although I do miss Terminator Carol a little. Morgan reminds both Carol and the audience that all life is precious. It’s easy to get caught up in the struggle for survival and cheer for Rick’s Rebels to kill everyone who poses a threat, but it’s also important to remember that if you survive without any semblance of your humanity left, are you really human anymore?

Also, the scene where one of the Saviors is shooting Carol, limb by limb, is pulse-pounding, both because Carol is amazing and you want her to live and because of what a fascinating look it gives into both Carol’s strength and the guilt she’s been dealing with all season. I loved it when the Savior walks away and she says, “What, are you done?” with a tone that was both disappointed and challenging.

Now, the other story line of Rick and company driving around on the RV for forty-five minutes of the show was interesting and tense the first two times the Saviors blocked their route, but after that it’s just stalling, dull, and annoying. Pull your head out of your greedy little asses and make things happen, TWD! The Saviors’ plan to block every traversable path possible in order to lead Rick’s Rebels into a trap is an extremely elaborate and incredibly unlikely to work. To the audience it feels both contrived and like the show is stalling (something it’s done a lot of this season).

Ultimately, this unlikely plan leads to the capture of eleven of Rick’s Rebels, all candidates to be killed by Negan: Glenn, Maggie, Sasha, Rosita, Michonne, Daryl, Eugene, Rick, Carl, Abraham, and Aaron. While the stalling about who will die is definite bullshit, Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan is anything but. He was only onscreen 10-15 minutes but the man made a powerful impression, embodying the charisma and menace which made the comic book character so memorable. Unfortunately, after we get the awesome arrival of TWD’s Big Bad, season six ends on one of the most annoying cliffhangers in the history of the show—Negan starts beating someone, but we don’t know who it is. What the freakin’ hell, Walking Dead? Do you think your fans are porn stars? Do we look like the kind of fans who enjoy being fluffed all season long only for you to yell cut right before we’re able to finally get some relief? COME FREAKIN’ ON!

My thoughts on who Negan killed:

I think it’s Abraham. He had a great character arc the last few episodes, leading him to profess to Sasha that he’s ready to have some little Abraham babies. He’s a changed man looking to start a family and put away the demons. Usually when someone goes through this kind of growth on TWD is right around the time writers are setting things up to killing them off.

Looking at who the other options are: I don’t think they’d subject a woman to such a brutal beating since that’s a pretty questionable thing to show on TV, so that leaves Glenn, who’s had a lot of close calls with death already and died via Negan in the comics (making him unlikely to go down the exact same way in the show) Daryl, who’s already wounded and the show’s most popular character, and Rick and Carl who we know are safe since Negan said “If anybody moves, if anybody says anything, cut the boy’s other eye out and feed it to his father,” meaning they aren’t the ones getting the bat. Eugene, Abraham, and Aaron are left. Aaron’s too new for his death to have quite enough impact, and Eugene’s a weenie. Abraham is definitely the strongest out of these three and already challenged Negan by sitting up straighter and looking him right in the eye as he’s walking around trying to decide who to kill. What better way for Negan to prove his power than to take out the strongest person in the bunch? Negan also said, “Look at that. Taking it like a champ.” At this point, this could honestly describe any of them, but would be highly characteristic of Abraham, so my money’s on the big guy.

This is the Action Flick Chick, and you’ve just been kicked in the ass!

Dale’s Deeds by Alex Langley