The Walking Dead: Last Day on Earth (6x16)

Well that was dumb.

Cons:

Seriously, it was just dumb. One of the worst episodes this show has ever produced. What a letdown after such a great half of the season. I could go on and on about this, but I'm going to try and keep things concise.

First of all, the entire episode was one long, drawn out setup for the last fifteen minutes. Just like this season was building up to Negan, this episode was building to him too. Now that would be just fine, if it weren't for the fact that the characters themselves seemed to just be marking time until the final showdown. Nothing that happened before the last fifteen minutes or so felt important or significant at all.

The basic setup is this: Rick, Carl, Abraham, Sasha, Aaron, Eugene and a very sick Maggie all take the RV to try and get Maggie to the doctor at Hilltop, but they are continually stalled by groups of Saviors blocking their way. They are essentially herded into the woods, where they are ambushed by the biggest collection of Saviors yet. Daryl, Rosita, Michonne, and Glenn are added to the mix, and this entire group is lined up kneeling on the ground. Negan emerges at last, and says he wants these people to work for him - but first he's going to kill one of them with his bat, Lucille, to teach them a lesson. He ruminates over who will be his victim, and then as the episode ends he brings the bat down hard on an unknown victim, as the others scream and cry.

So many things to complain about. First of all, I get the sense that this episode was hoping to build suspense by showing us all of these different groups of potentially threatening Saviors, clearly herding Rick and the others to their doom. But not one of these obstacles seemed like a legitimate threat to the characters' immediate safety. We all knew we were just biding our time until Negan showed up at the end, so what was the point of all the fake-outs?

Abraham had a gross moment where he talked about wanting to have some babies with Sasha. Seriously, where the hell did this romance even come from? I feel absolutely no investment in it whatsoever, other than my desire that Sasha get away from Abraham and find somebody actually worthy of her. Yeesh. Abraham is the worst.

There were also a few weird moments at the top of the episode that were supposed to be interesting character moments, but that did absolutely nothing for me. Carl traps Enid in a closet to stop her from coming along on the outing, because he wants to protect her. What is this sexist bullshit? Enid and Carl's relationship has been so underdeveloped that when I saw this moment, I basically just thought it made Carl look like a total sexist pig, not a concerned friend. Enid has been trained. There was no reason to leave her behind if she wanted to go. If Carl had made a better argument for some people needing to stay behind to protect Alexandria, I might have been less annoyed by this.

Rick leaves Gabriel in charge of Alexandria's defense, and I guess we're supposed to all marvel at Gabriel's character development and how he's really a part of the community now... but so what? I don't care about Gabriel. They haven't given him enough to do lately, anyway.

As a side note, where the hell is Tara? We still haven't gotten a reaction from her about Denise's death, and by the time she shows up next season, the pain of that loss will totally be overshadowed and forgotten by whichever big character gets axed off.

Then there's the fact that I thought we were building up Rick and the others as villains. I mean, look at it realistically - Rick and the Alexandrians have killed so many of the Saviors, while the Saviors' bad behavior has been pretty much entirely heresy as far as they are concerned. Denise has been the only casualty on their side! Rick and the others have taken out the Saviors with absurd ease, making me wonder why there's so much incompetence in a group that could then turn around and so effectively ensnare our protagonists. You'd think Rick would be smarter than to be herded like that, and nothing thus far has suggested that Negan and his men were smart enough to pull something like this off. It's like the villains suddenly got way more clever, and the "heroes," if you can call them that, became naïve idiots.

There was also a subplot with Carol and Morgan that felt totally shoehorned in. Despite how intriguing Carol's story has been this season (mostly thanks to great acting), all of these cutaways to Carol and Morgan felt like padding to fill up the hour and a half before the final moments. Basically, Morgan catches up with Carol and tries to convince her to come home, but Carol reiterates the same thing we've already heard her say: if you care about somebody, you're willing to kill for them. And since Carol is unwilling to kill anymore, she has to get away from the people she cares about. She escapes from Morgan and is run down by one of the Saviors she had massacred on the road in last week's episode. He is the last survivor, and he is here for revenge. He talks to her about how he wants to watch her die slowly, and shoots her first in the arm and then in the leg. Just as he's about to come in for the kill, Morgan shows up, telling the guy to back down. When he makes to shoot Carol again, Morgan shoots first, killing this man in order to protect Carol. A mysterious man then shows up, seemingly a good guy, and it looks like he'll be willing to help Carol.

Ugh. Where to start with this? First off, it was boring. We heard Carol and Morgan both repeat their philosophies for like the millionth time this season. And then there was the bad guy speechifying at Carol. I mean, come on. We all knew that Morgan was going to show up at the last second and "pay the price" for caring about Carol. It happened exactly the way everybody would have predicted it. The mini cliffhanger of the newcomer was so overshadowed by everything else that it became a total side note. And Carol's whole thing about not wanting to kill is fine - very interesting, even. But a suicidal Carol who thinks she deserves to be punished, and lies there weakly after almost being taken out by a single Walker? I just can't get behind that. Morgan killing somebody to save Carol could have been a cool dramatic moment, but it was so on-the-nose that it was hard to get invested.

Okay - and then there's the cliffhanger. I get it - in an episode where literally everybody was waiting for a big character to be killed off, the only way to subvert expectations was to hide the victim from the audience. I can understand that, on a certain level. But when you spend an entire half season saying "wait for it... wait for it..." and then end with a "wait for it" destined to last until October... it's a bad call. This kills the momentum. Now we're going to associate Negan's first appearance with a frustrating cliffhanger instead of with the loss of a beloved character. By the time the truth comes out freakin' six months from now, we'll have resigned ourselves to whatever outcome we get. The only way I'll be truly shocked is if somehow it was Carl, but Negan seemed to rule that out when he said that he'd punish them all for trying to stop him by feeding Carl's good eye to Rick. That would seem to confirm the safety of both Carl and Rick. In any case... another reason why this is a bad idea is that we're going to be able to rule out almost all of the possibilities by the time the show comes back in October. This idea that "it could be anybody" is going to go out the window the second people start getting pictures of the set for next season. It's possible that the answer as to who is dead will remain a secret, but we're going to be able to narrow it down to only a few people pretty easily, which kills the surprise somewhat.

Pros:

On a structural level and a plot level, there's really nothing redeeming about this episode. But there were a number of lovely character moments, and the acting chops on some of these people are impressive indeed.

Maggie and Rick had a number of really sweet moments. Maggie is not doing so good, lying in the back of the RV burning up with fever. At one point Rick goes back next to her, holds her hand and strokes her hair, and promises her that this is not the end. Maggie says "I believe in you, Rick." That could have come across as so cheesy, but it worked really well. These two have a strong bond. After everything they've been through, they are as close as can be. On a production note, the makeup people did a great job with making Maggie look sick. Particularly at the end, when everybody was on their knees. She looked so small and weak, like she could barely keep upright.

Eugene had a moment of heroism where he agreed to take the RV off away from the others to make the Saviors think the group was still inside it. He hugged Abraham, which was lovely, and he made his dramatic exit. Turns out, the whole thing was a fake-out, since he ended up being captured by the Saviors, and was in the clearing at the end for Negan's final speech. Still, I liked the character moment, and I liked the fake-out as well.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan was awesome. I mean, it's stupid that the rest of this episode was pretty much a pointless blur, because this show should know better. But at least the payoff of Negan's reveal wasn't a flop. JDM does an amazing job with the character. Truly. He's a little sexy, he's scary, his speech doesn't feel too long (even though it probably is) because he handles it with such care. He pays special attention to Carl, calling him a "future serial killer" because he seems so stoic in the midst of all this pain. He notes that Maggie is ailing, and is delighted by Rick's air of defeat. Great acting. Seriously.

And not just from JDM, either. Every single person in that brutal lineup at the end was acting his or her little heart out. I could feel how scared they all were, for their own lives and for the lives of their loved ones. Glenn does the cliché yet still totally heart wrenching bit where he lunges forward to try and protect Maggie from Negan's attention. We see the look of devastation on Rick's face when Michonne, Daryl, Rosita, and Glenn emerge from their cage. Nobody is safe.

So... that's what I have. The first hour and fifteen minutes were stupid, then the following fifteen minutes were great, and then the last thirty seconds were stupid again. One great scene is not enough to sustain me for a ninety minute episode. This show can do better, and it has done better. I'm disappointed. But hey, I'll be tuning in for next season right along with the rest of you suckers, waiting to see if my favorites (Daryl and Michonne) made it out alive.

5/10