The Walking Dead S07E16 Review: Shiva Didn't Die!

The Walking Dead, Season 7, Episode 16: The First Day of the Rest of Your Life

Welp, that was... okay? It wasn't bad like last season's crappy finale, but it tried to be a rousing action battle finale and it didn't quite delivered on that front either.

Mind you, as predictable as it was, I really enjoyed the moment when all the reinforcements from the other colonies showed up. Especially Negan's terrified "GOD DAMN!" when Shiva the tiger jumps out of nowhere and eats somebody's face. And Shiva didn't die! Ezekiel's huge, hammy declaration as he leads an army on horseback, as Morgan the spear-swinging ninja monk and Carol the one-man army shows up, while the Hilltop army is led by Commander of Vengeance Maggie. 

The rest of the episodes had some decent ideas, ended with a nice cliffhanger that Negan is forced to retreat with a middle finger, but he has a bigger army and "we're goin' to war!" while Maggie gives a speech about why things matter and stuff. But it's not quite emotional enough because there's not quite enough emotional oomph or tension, and it's not quite action-packed enough because a huge portion of the episode is devoted to "whatever the fuck Sasha's doing". It kind of makes sense in the end, but we alternate between flashbacks to when Sasha and Negan move out of the base, Sasha listening to an iPod in the dark, an even further-back flashback of her talking to Abraham before the night when Abraham got killed, and an even further-further-back flashback of her and Maggie sitting together and talking about the future. Which kind of kills tension -- the finale really wants to enforce that we should really feel sad for Sasha's big sacrifice, but it ended up being kind of underwhelming, and in any case Sasha has never really been built up that much beyond being Maggie's buddy at hilltop and last episode's... whatever.

Negan shows up to fuck Rick's shit up before his big alliance is ready, but the Scavengers and the Oceanside guns are, y'know, ready. But all the season-long preparation, and his big plan is... putting Rosita's dynamite sticks into a truck to blow up Negan's forces, which admittedly isn't the worst play in the book (if not very complex) but at the same time he was ready to blow only Eugene up so Rick's clearly not thinking very straight. 

Oh, and then it's discovered that the dynamites are actually sabotaged, and Negan actually knew about the guns... and the Scavengers are actually in league with Negan! I admit that this is a pretty good plot twist insomuch that I didn't expect that happening. But at the same time I never expected the Scavengers to amount to much beyond being cannon fodder, so either way. We get some shoot-out, and apparently some background Alexandrians die (we couldn't even have had some Olivia-tier dude no one will weep for dead this time) but honestly, the thing ends up feeling so... tensionless, I think?

Sasha's big sacrifice only leads to her zombie self jumping Negan, but at the same time I never really felt -- or got the illusion -- that our heroes are in any sort of big truoble. Jadis shoots Rick in the hip instead of somewhere fatal for no good reason. Michonne gets into an extended fight with a Scavenger we don't even know the name of, of course she's going to win no matter how much fake blood you smear on his face. 

And Negan? Despite being built up as "I take whatever what I fucking want, and I kill anyone I fucking want" he's very, very tame here compared to the rest of the episode. Why spend a couple of scenes bargaining with Sasha about how many people he can kill? Why use Sasha as a bargaining chip at all? Why not just have Jadis and the Scavengers shoot everyone dead? Why not baseball bat one of the lesser characters first, if his big plan is to fuck Rick's mind up? Sure, he was gonna do so to Carl, but that took like so long to get to. The show makes Rick look bad for having Negan get the drop on Rick twice (the bomb and the Scavengers) and for whatever reason Rick has so much confidence that he apparently doesn't care that Negan bats Carl to a mush -- he had no idea Shiva was going to literally jump on-screen at that exact time. And the fact that Rick looks bad and still manages to outwit Negan without Negan dealing any kind of blow to the Alexandrians makes Negan look even worse in comparison, especially when his big plan apparently hinges on Sasha's cooperation... which I never, ever bought at any point ever, unlike Rick's broken-ness on the season premiere which at least lasted for a while.

Hell, Hilltop was all Maggie, and the Kingdom coming at all was because of Morgan and Carol, so Rick's huge confidence was completely unfounded and it's this weird insistence and cockiness he has, and the already questionable plan to trust the garbage people in the first place that got Rick into this stupidity, but the show and the other characters act like Rick's the end-all be-all and that's just doing both Rick and Negan a disservice.

Oh, and the whole Dwight thing ended up being pointless. I was waiting for when Dwight's side-switch (which doesn't seem to be Negan's plan, or something Negan is aware of) would be relevant, but it never was. He never got a chance to prove whether he's actually ever on Alexandria's side (notes don't count) and I was honestly on Tara's side when she cheered for Dwight's execution. Though Daryl wants to kill him after this ends no matter what. Do that, man. What else? We got some more Morgan stuff, which was... okay, I guess?

But you know what? At least this finale had Shiva jumping around killing people and scaring the god damn beejezus out of Negan, and didn't get herself killed. That was fun. Overall, though, while not good by any means, it's at least not completely horrid and I enjoyed it for the most part.