THE WALKING DEAD Season 7 Episode 1
Episode Title: “The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be”
Writer: Scott M. Gimple
Director: Greg Nicotero
There are spoilers ahead for last night’s episode of The Walking Dead, but don’t pretend that you didn’t know that!
At some point, the question has to be asked whether any of this was worth the hype that AMC gave to it. What was the point in dragging out the suspense of who died on The Walking Dead if the producers were only going to pick two of the safest choices to kill off? Because that’s exactly what happened. The producers of this show have previously mixed up the fates of their main characters to keep some suspense for the comic fans. But this episode had a distinct lack of suspense, especially in light of all of the build up.
The way the episode was laid out, it was as if showrunner (and writer of this episode) Scott M. Gimple wanted to toy with fans a little longer. When watching the season premiere, there had to be someone who thought: “they won’t drag out the reveal of who died for another 20 minutes” or “they won’t really waste most of this episode on a detour that never happened in the comics.” And they did both of those things. Remember the second season of this show, when it stretched the group’s time at Hershel’s barn far past the point of parody? That’s what this felt like.
It was particularly striking that both Abraham and Glenn didn’t make it past this point in the comics. Abraham caught an arrow to the head a few issues before this happened, and this was where Glenn died, almost in the exact, eye-popping manner. This was around the time that the TV show really took off, and Steven Yeun even wrote into the Walking Dead comic about that. Glenn’s death has been a very poorly kept secret among fans of the comic, who seemingly haven’t minded spoiling it for the TV viewers. If ever there was a time to veer off course and change things up, it was now.
Related: ‘The Walking Dead’ Goes 360 in AMC’s New Video
There was nothing wrong with the staging of the death scene, as that was almost exactly how it went down in the comic. But the key difference is that the show already (almost) killed off Glenn last year in a particularly upsetting sequence that turned out to be a fake out. That was such a huge miscalculation that it actually robbed Glenn’s death of the resonance that it should have had here. This should have been The Walking Dead‘s “Red Wedding” moment. And they blew it.
Everyone who sat through this should be happy that it wasn’t a 90-minute episode, because this one felt pretty padded as it was. It’s not as if Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Andrew Lincoln weren’t entertaining together as Negan tried to tear down Rick’s spirit. It just went on too long, and it actually kind of wimped out on a chance to really make the show shock us by forcing Rick to chop off his son’s hand. That would have been brutal and something that we hadn’t seen before. And yet that’s where the show draws a line? Pathetic.
From a technical aspect, there wasn’t really anything wrong with the episode. Greg Nicotero did his usual job as a director and most of the episode looked good. But this story was a failure on an emotional level. The Walking Dead is never stronger than when it makes the audience empathize with its leads. This time, the show simply pushed too far against all credulity, and it was the viewers who suffered. The show really needs to work hard to earn our trust and make the characters connect with the audience again. Right now, this episode felt like a betrayal. And instead of waiting to see where the series goes next, the bigger question is how soon can it fix the mess that it’s created?
What did you think of the season premiere of The Walking Dead? Let us know in the comment section below!
