But, man, was it bleak. As royally pee'd off as I was over all the Glenn stuff from last year being A TOTAL WASTE OF TIME AND NOTHING BUT GODDAMN FILLER!!!, the other stuff made sense. Well, mostly, because I think ol' Negan overdid it in the end. All he achieved in his little showdown with Rick over Carl's arm is make the gang feel for their fallen leader. He'd beaten them. They were done, and had he hacked Rick's hand off himself they'd have stayed that way. What he's done now is pee them off just enough to tip them back Rick's way. I did kind of like Negan's one-liners, though: "Look at my dirty girl!" "[Lucille's] a vampire bat". He makes The Governor look reasonable...and like a little kid pretending to be tough.
But therein lies a problem (and it's not just with TWD, but seems to be theme in US TV as a whole): after a Big Bad there always has to be a Bigger and Badder. Thing is now, they're going to have to go some to top this guy - and that runs the risk of it just becoming too cartoon-y to fly. Negan's probably sailing a mite close to the wind, if I'm honest. I mean, the guy can't just be a total psycho; his own people would have gathered around to kill him before now if he was nothing but a constant threat to their safety and cranial cohesion. There's got to be much more to him, yet the 'That bloke's a loony!' thing seems to be all they're setting him up as prior to the inevitable show-down at season's end. Though wouldn't it be funny if Daryl ends up being some kind of convert?
Ah well. Bring on the Rollerball Rejects and the dude with the cat (a seriously bad idea if I ever saw one, what with it being a carnivore and the guy being made of nice, fresh meat).
