The Walking Dead, Season 7, Episode 7: Sing Me A Song
The biggest entertainment factor in the Walking Dead right now are its two new larger-than-life additions, Negan and King Ezekiel. Both are just insanely fun, and for a show that's gotten more and more gloomy and full of despair (with no real end-game in sight beyond 'survive the season' it's easily a frustration to keep watching because you know they'll go through similar arcs in the next season) it's these far more fantastical, weird comic-book characters that make the show interesting now. Sure, they're still rooted in reality, more or less -- Ezekiel's explanation as to why he acts as a king and has a loyal tiger is easy enough to swallow, and Negan's ultimately a crazy maniac with a baseball bat.
So yeah, this episode lives or dies on whether you enjoy Negan (I certainly do!) or if you just see Negan as yet another Governor-type villain that's hyped up to be the ultimate threat. He's not an unfamiliar archetype, of course. A sadistic monster who the audience finds likable because he jokes a lot about every single god damn thing that is going on around him? That's fun to watch.
The premise of the episode is simple enough. Picking up from the Carl sub-plot from last episode, Carl ditches Paul, and decides to Assassin's Creed this thing and shoot Negan dead for killing Glenn and Abraham. Though at the same time, if he's treating this like a suicide mission, why not actually, y'know, pull the damn trigger and shoot Negan when he's pontificating? There was definitely a window between Carl killing that one random mook and him being knocked down.
Whatever the case, though, it's easily one of this season's stronger entries. We have Negan, who's basically taken a huge shine to Carl for being a one-eyed badass little devil, give him the big tour of Sanctuary, all the while making a point that Daryl's broken and is doing his bidding. Let's talk Daryl first -- he's not completely subservient the way Rick is. He doesn't speak up and doesn't react when Dwight or Negan hurls abuse onto him, but at the same time he was fucking ready to take Negan on at the end of the episode when it looked like Negan was going to hurt Carl. And, well, there's that mysterious letter telling him to escape, which I'm assuming was Sherry.
It also answers the question that the dude Dwight killed in episode 3 raised -- why is everyone so subservient to Negan? Sure, he's got a spiky baseball bat, but look at the amount of people around him! Big burly dudes with machineguns, and that's not counting the civilians in Sanctuary. Why don't they rise up against him? Here Negan shows off his cult of personality to Carl. In between going through the big scenic places like the big zombie cage arena, to showing off the fancy rooms with looted furniture, all the people kneeling to Negan and applauding for the reward of giving them free veggies, to showing Carl his harem of scantily-dressed wives*, it's a display of power and one that's far more effective than what he did to Rick. Also important is the little subplot where Negan discovers that one of his wives is cheating on him with her ex-husband, and we learn what 'the Iron' that Dwight receives is. It's hot iron, which Negan uses to publicly punish the dude that betrayed his rules.
*Negan doesn't actively rape his wives and makes it a point that he only fucks them if they want to, and even when he offers one of them to Dwight two episodes ago it's with the condition that the lady is willing. It's a bit that's probably as horrifyingly emotionally manipulative as forcing Rick to thank him for taking only half his stuff.
I'm not sure what Negan's big game plan is for Carl. One would say that he's trying to seduce Carl to the Dark Side the way he did Dwight, but he keeps making a point that he doesn't want Carl to be shitting his pants, but to maintain the fact that Carl needs to continue to be a ruthless angry one-eyed bastard. All the while making Carl do things to 'make up for what you took', like forcing him to sing while he practices his baseball swing nearby, or forcing him to open the bandage and show the eye socket. All the while we get brief moments of non-sarcastic sympathy from Negan in regards to Carl revealing that he shot his own mother, or when Negan scared the kid too much and he begins sobbing. It's definitely nice to flesh the dude out more than just a chaotic plot device as to when and whose head Negan's going to turn into goop next.
At the end of the episode Negan returns to Alexandria to wait for Rick, and after making poor, poor Olivia piss her pants he finds Judith and while the man seems to be really happy with holding a baby it is still Negan. Babies are an effective way to instantly ramp up tension, and, well, it's a cheap trick but still an effective way.
It's actually effective stuff, even if the script doesn't really give Carl much to do in-between death glares, glowering confusion or breakdowns. Like, I'm not sure I buy that Carl was at all tempted by all this stuff, but having Negan and Carl's weird-ass relationship is definitely much more entertaining than another montage of 'Alexandrians submit to Negan while trying to make plans to murder him'.
Which, by the way, was something we actually also got this episode on the brief moments we cut away to Alexandria, but the fact that said plotline was more of a B-plot instead of an entire episode, it's definitely much more well-done. Rosita asks Eugene to craft her bullet, in the meantime insulting Eugene (which the man takes but also notes to Rosita that she meant it and he knows it) because of all her frustrations with Abraham's death. Pretty sure this plotline is really the only time Rosita's been relevant in the show, with more screentime she's gotten since her debut.
Michonne, meanwhile, pulls off her road warrior act again. And it's gloriously done, and a reminder that she used to be an independent badass before her softening in Alexandria. She takes a Saviour hostage and prepares to go after Negan herself. There's an amazing scene with Gabriel telling Doubting Spencer that having evil thoughts doesn't make you evil, but it makes you "a tremendous shit". Yeah, Gabriel is fast growing into my favourite supporting character. Spencer himself seems hilariously pointless and I genuinely do not care for anything that he's doing, fighting that weird arrow tree zombie and getting a gigantic truckload of supplies... and somehow he changes religions to the Church of Rick? Meanwhile Rick and Aaron, unaware that Negan is in Alexandria waiting for Rick's return, are out scrounging for supplies for the fightback, but it's mercifully short.
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