The Walking Dead Season 7 Review

The Walking Dead (2010-)
Season 7 - 16 Episodes (2016)

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Created by: Frank Darabont, based on the comic by Robert Kirkman
Starring: Andrew Lincoln, Danai Gurira, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Austin Amelio, Chandler Riggs, Lennie James, Lauren Cohan, Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride, Steven Yeun
Rating: TV-MA 

Plot: 
Sheriff Rick Grimes leads a group of survivors in a zombie infested post-apocalypse. The dead are treacherous, but the living are worse.
In season seven we discover Negan is the warlord of a group called the Saviors. Under his sadistic rule, all factions are subservient to him. Even Rick begins to serve Negan, but as we might expect that only lasts until the mid-season finale.

Verdict
The Walking Dead is my guilty pleasure. It's easy to find fault, but it's usually entertaining.
Few shows make you wonder what you would do in the same situation, and that's what makes this great. It's easy to be an armchair survivalist, and that makes this show fun.
While season six did a good job of overcoming flaws, season seven dropped the ball on the story. The second half of the season moves the plot forward very little. This could have been a nine or ten episode season.
Season six did a good job of bouncing between two groups to keep the pacing lively. Season seven adds even more groups, and we keep backtracking to see what the other groups were busy doing during the last episode. It just seems like a way to stretch the season.
This season introduces us to Negan and the Saviors. Negan is easily the best thing about this season, but we see a lot less of him in the second half unfortunately. We know their tyrannical rule will eventually lead Rick to fight back. The second half of the season is preparations for the big war I assume will happen in season eight.
There was a ludicrous fake out in season six with Glenn, and this season has a similar, though not as protracted, fake out. You know the show won't off a main character but it's either an affront to fans or just lazy.
I'm going to keep watching The Walking Dead, this season didn't make me want to quit like season four, but I didn't enjoy it as much as season six. You could easily watch the first nine episodes and then the sixteenth and not miss a thing. For that, I bump my verdict from a 'Watch it.' to just 'It depends.'
It depends.

Review
Beware of spoilers as I discuss annoyances, revelations, and episodes.

If you're watching on Netflix, I appreciated how episode descriptions were very nondescript. Characters were always described by their faction, e.g. "An Alexandrian is taken by one of the Saviors."

Season six introduced the Saviors. We got a great action sequence when Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and crew eliminated the Savors, or so they thought. They just got a patrol base and episode sixteen of season six introduced us to the real Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and left us with a big cliff hanger. Off screen Negan kills a member of Rick's group in retaliation. Season seven opens during that same scene, giving us a lead in before the death.

Negan

I refer to the first half and second half of the season frequently. AMC structured the show so that episode eight is the mid-season finale. The show took a break for two months and then resumes.

Season six did a good job of correcting the show's deficiencies. This season doesn't progress much. I like the first half because of Negan. Jeffrey Dean Morgan delivers a great performance that is just so much fun to watch. He's completely chewing the scenery and I love it. He's sadistic and crazy, but really enjoys it. Negan's reactions and expressions work so well. If you kill his men, he's mad but if you're daring about it he's still mad but also impressed. His barb wire wrapped bat Lucille is an imposing prop. The second half of the season suffered without him.

The first episode breaks Rick. He becomes subservient to Negan to stop any more deaths. You know it's going to reach a tipping point that will push Rick into action, and that's part of the tension. It was a great change of pace from Rick running the show to Rick bowing to Negan. The characters need some adversity to adjust and grow, but they don't develop much. The show likes emotional manipulation and that's usually employed to the detriment of the pacing.
Even Rick's turn to fight again coincides with the mid season finale which feels a bit cheap. Too much of the development is saved just to provide a cliff hanger.
The show bounces around a bit too much as the main characters are split up. It's frequently a way to slow down the plot as every other episode needed a disclaimer of 'meanwhile during the last episode over there this happened over here.' What amazing plot point did we miss and need to go back to? Carol likes to be a lone and read in her house.

King Ezekial

At first this season seems like a compare and contrast of different leadership styles. You've got sadistic Negan, conniving Gregory, theatrical King Ezekial, rash Rick, and many others and want-to-be leaders. The show doesn't take this idea far enough to pay off. It's more just a discussion point. Rick sees all of this and doesn't appear to glean any ideas from it. I still think it would be cool to have Rick go complete dictator. He could easily become a bad guy. That wouldn't just be an amazing plot point, it would be an amazing character twist.

After more people die, in episode eight or nine Rick of course declares war on Negan and the Saviors. The rest of the episodes are Rick re-declaring war and trying to win over allies in his fight. Very little happens until episode sixteen where Negan declares war on Rick. The second half of the season is disappointing. The Scavengers are thrown in just to set up a plot point later. Their defining feature is that they talk weird. The one distraction episode with Rick and Michonne that has no desire to move the plot forward at all is riddled with lapses in logic and poor story telling. The Walking Dead struggles with story and character development. This season frequently felt like it went out of its way to gross out viewers. Zombie gore is one thing as it's usually way over the top, but human gore is just unsettling.

The episodes I liked most were one, four, and seven. Eight was a change of pace that bordered on funny. Negan is playing house and you wonder if he'll snap. The second half way just set up. You know what's coming. At least Carol's story was taken off the shelf. They really mangled that, starting in season six when she decided to become a pacifist.

Carol had a cool moment with King Ezekial when he revealed his theatrics were just an act, but the neat thing is it works. The Kingdom is one of the better run factions.

We first see Dwight (Austin Amelio) in season six. His story is now one of just trying to survive in the Savior's system and that means doing Negan's bidding.


Spoilers will follow, as this is my episode play by play.


Episode 1 The Day Will Come When You Won't Be

The big cliff hanger at the end of season six was who died by Negan's bat Lucille, and that's still being teased. It's not revealed in the first scene. Negan beats Abraham with his bat Lucille. It's just gross. Gory zombies are one thing, gory humans is another. The show is taking a bit too much glee in this. This was my thought during Abraham's death, little did I know that Glenn's death would be even worse. The show doubles down on unsettling.
Negan is crazy and likes his rules, but his whole band, which seems pretty sizable, is good with this? Or is it a matter of survival? You do what you have to to survive. Talk about foreshadowing, I predicted Dwight's arc.
Negan's tactic is sound as far as his intentions. This is how you break people. He specifically singles out Rick. Is this the end of the Rick-tatorship? It certainly seems like it.
This was a very grainy episode from a picture quality stand point. Smoke and dust were all over the place, intrusively so. It looks like the episode was filmed with a cheap camera.

Episode 2 The Well

This episode flips to Morgan and Carol. They were picked up in season six by what turns out to be part of the Kingdom where they now meet King Ezekial, ruler of the Kingdom. Carol is playing along despite how crazy Ezekial seems. Ezekial is a character. He's playing a part in some medieval production it seems. You have to wonder how Ezekial came to power, though a pet lion helps. He's eccentric to say the least. Compared to Negan, Ezekial is an outlier. You know how Negan got power.
The Saviors get around, receiving tribute from Ezekial's kingdom. Ezekial likes Carol and tells her people want some one to follow, they need to stay safe. Ezekial created his tall tale and people liked the fantasy. That's how he rules. He's a man with a tiger.

Episode 3 The Cell

Darryl was taken as ransom by Negan in episode one. He's being held captive, having a rough time at it as they torture him. Negan sees a future soldier if they can break him. This could be an interesting season if it explores different rulers. So far we've seen two.
I don't see how Dwight drops the bike while standing still and does that kind of damage to the wheel. Multiple spokes are broken. Even in a wreck, I don't see that. It makes no sense, but the show needs him walking and doesn't want to injure him. Dwight's task was to re-capture a runaway. We see that Dwight isn't the psychopath that Negan is.
Negan recounts Dwight's backstory to Darryl. Negan says he and Dweight are cool, but I think that foundation has some cracks.

Episode 4 Service

Negan is fun to watch. Jeffrey Dean Morgan has a great character that makes it easy for him to chew on the scenery, though he's still putting in the work from the mannerisms to the quirks.
Why has Carl not gotten a haircut? This is a world where zombies are constantly trying to grab you, wouldn't giving them less to hold make more sense?
The Saviors come to take their tribute from Alexandria. Rick is in full submission, and I get it. He doesn't want anyone else to die. He's seen his friends die in gruesome manners and will do anything to prevent that. He's broken. This is a far cry from the killer Rick "You don't know who we are." we've seen previously. Why does Negan wear one glove all the time? This will be answered later, though you'd think he could just keep the glove with the iron. With the logic of wearing the glove all the time, he might as well carry a bat and an iron.
A Shane memory, how about that. And an acknowledgement of Judith's biological parent being Shane.

Episode 5 Go Getters
Now back to Sasha and Maggie at Hilltop. There are a  lot of characters to juggle, and it doesn't work. This part of the story felt like filler. Gregory is your stock bad ruler. Hilltop exists just to show how bad the Saviors are and provide another army in the war.
Carl has a dartboard in his room, yet he's not very good. Does Carl miss the dartboard completely because of no depth perception? Is the show making a joke? Carl and Enid just happen to find roller skates on the side of road? Did the bag have their names on it too?

Episode 6 Swear

Tara stumbles upon a stone cold woman tribe that kills on sight, except for this one time. It all comes back to the Saviors. The Saviors killed the men, but left the guns? That seems incredibly odd. Maybe the women found new guns, but since they're hiding and unlikely to leave home base I don't think that works. Could it just be Negan playing mind games, he does enjoy that.

Episode 7 Sing Me a Song

How much time has passed in this world? Do they really still have gas? Did we miss a fuel stabilizer scene? Even with stabilizer gas doesn't last forever. Maybe they've just converted a bunch of cars to run on an alternative fuel, maybe dead zombie guts. At least it's better than season three or four where they drove around in brand new Hyundais due to a sponsorship.
Carl plans to kill Negan. I see no flaws in that plan. Carl has the chance and sits there waiting, missing the chance, and then gets tackled. Come on, situational awareness. Did Carl not see movement out of the corner of his eye?  They got him from his good side. Negan has Carl, having taken a shine to the boy. I don't think a socket would fill in like that. It would still be a hole, though maybe this is just bad CGI that lacks a shadow to give the hole depth. I've seen movies miss shadows like that before.
So the iron is why Negan wears a glove all the time. Also, Spencer wants to overthrow big Rick.

Episode 8 Hearts Still Beating

In the suburbs with Negan, I like that. A great villain makes for a great show, though I wonder what did he do before the apocalypse? If you look it up in the comics, you can find out.
This is the mid-season finale. Rick is still subservient and Richard from the Kingdom wants a war with the Saviors. That seems short sighted.
Spencer is looking to get over on Rick. He claims it's for safety, but I don't know and apparently neither does Negan. This segues into a Negan assassination attempt, how about that.
Of course at the mid-season finale Rick has a change of heart and is ready to fight back. Darryl's back too and he brought Rick's gun.
Is it a symbiotic relationship? Rick can't rule without his revolver?
Why not just strike a Negan detachment? Of course now it's hard after giving away your weapons, but the first time they show up, you've got a wall, pick off Negan and guys. Without Negan they're a lot less scary. If they did that, there would be no season, but I get that Rick was shell shocked.

Episode 9 Rock in the Road
Father Gabriel selling them out again? Rick finds yet another group? So that's what happened to Gabriel. This group is here just to fill time until the finale.

Episode 10 New Best Friends
Seeds of war are definitely being planted. Richard wants to sacrifice Carol to start the Kingdom war. Darryl is thinking it's Carol, though Richard isn't providing a name. That doesn't bode well for Richard. The junkyard clan are quite a group, all dressed in black with long hair. It's like a uniform.
Now that's a monster. some Resident Evil type stuff. I wonder if Rick's tetanus shots are up to date? Pretty convenient to find this group right when Rick needs an army. Why does the junkyard clan speak as if they're aliens? We're provided no reason, though aliens would be one crazy twist.

Episode 11 Hostiles and Calamities

Eugene adjusts to the Savior life rather easily. It makes sense, he's an admitted coward. He's got it nice, but nice never lasts in The Walking Dead. He plans to kill Negan.

Episode 12 Say Yes    

Rick and Michonne find the guns needed to give to the Scavengers, all of them. How convenient. Roofs don't just fall in like that. Especially a roof that hasn't been exposed to the elements. This is a school, the base of that roof is metal deck.
Rick is really going to say the only way into a school is through the hole in the roof he just made? You know it's going to be a fake out, but it's still a cheap move. Rick falls off a ferris wheel, is swarmed, but is fine. Didn't the show realize how silly this was last season?

Episode 13 Bury Me Here 
Morgan is ready to get back to fighting and killing, recruiting Carol too. She's been coddled all episode. As a character, this was a way to put her on a shelf for a season and then bring her back out later. All the pieces are coming together for war.

Episode 14 The Other Side
Sasha and Rosita head to Negan's place to kill him. When they see Negan has gotten the doctor, they alter their plans. Really? They were ready to die and now they are jumping ship. It just doesn't seem like a justifiable alteration. I get Maggie needs the doctor, so the show wants us to think, but we've seen babies delivered without a doctor before... in this show!

Episode 15 Something They Need
Remember the women tribe that seemed to have no point other than the cache of guns? Rick needs guns and has come to collect.

Episode 16 The First Day of the Rest of Your Life     
Did the trash people test the Saviors like they did the Rick crew? The show plays fast and loose with 'rules.' The trash people betray Rick, siding with the Saviors. Just as Rick's end is imminent, Hilltop and the Kingdom come in at the last second, but from where? That's a lot of people that didn't seem to use the gate, the only entrance into Alexandria. The gate that has a bunch of Savior vehicles out front. Seems like a bit of a plot hole. Rick and allies win the battle, but now it's war and Negan has a lot of people. Numbers wise Rick's crew doesn't stand a chance, but that's never mattered before. I do look forward to more Negan though.