Not long ago, I was talking with a friend who used to be a fan of The Walking Dead, and when he heard that I still watched the show, he seemed surprised.
He said that it was the same thing, that they had run out of ideas. That the group loses some people every now and then, runs up against some bad guy or another, but that essentially, it is growing extremely repetitive.
This was food for thought, because my own interest in the show was already noticeably waning. It started to do that in a serious way following the finale of Season 6, when newly introduced Negan clearly kills one member of the group, but it is unclear whom he kills, exactly. We were supposed to wait six months to get the answer.
But that big tease came on the heels of another big tease earlier in the season, when Glen seemed to have died, falling onto his back from a significant height atop a dumpster surrounded by the dead, and with a dead person (and his dead weight) on top of him to boot! As soon as he hit, of course, the dead who surrounded them instantly got to feasting. But it turned out that somehow, Glen made a miraculous escape, and the dead somehow completely ignored Glen and feated on the guy atop him. Glen fought off the dead who tried to get him under the dumpster, and somehow, he fought all of them off and, of course, eventually, the place was completely cleared of walkers, and Glen came out seemingly without a scratch, and without even so much as a slight pain in his back that was in evidence.
It seemed a bit like cheating, and so did the death scene, when we saw that someone died, but not who died. Eventually, we learned in Season 7 Episode 1 that, in fact, two people would die. Abraham and Glen were both clubbed to death by Negan's beloved Lucille. I remember one of the writer's saying that they had done the Episode 6 finale the way that they did it - keeping the identity of the victim a mystery - because it was the end of that particular story of the group enjoying a certain measure of freedom and safety, and the next episode, the season opener for Season 7, would begin the new story.
Still, many people, myself included, were unhappy and felt cheated. Too many games by the writers of the series. Where once they seemed like geniuses to many, they now appeared to be getting too cute. I remember seeing a lot of commentary suggesting that fans were sick of it, and were done with the show.
I was not, and kept watching. But Season 7 dragged, constantly confirming that Rick and his group were subordinate to Negan, and that Negan was this really bad guy. That he kept rubbing Rick's face in it, time and time again. That the group no longer enjoyed the kind of safety and freedom that they once had.
And here it was. Season 8. And I must say, it grew kind of boring. Carl died at mid-season, and it was done in such a way that it lacked almost all drama, which made me care a lot less than I would have perhaps a season or two ago.
When the Season 8 finale came on, I missed it. Oh, I wanted to watch, but had to work, and needed the sleep, figuring that I would get around to watching it soon. Somehow, the urge was not that strong, and I only watched it a couple of days ago, even though it aired weeks ago.
Now that I saw it, I almost wonder if it was really the big finale that the writers had in mind. It felt completely lifeless and not believable at all. The commercials insisted that it would be intense, that just like that, the war would end.
It did, but not to the satisfaction of many fans, I'll bet. Certainly, I was not pleased. There was a moment when it looked promising, when the group once again found itself surrounded, like they did in the season 6 finale, before the calamity of two being killed by Negan, and a new reality. But then it turns out that Eugene managed to manipulate the guns so that they backfired, and the Saviors were the ones who were shot by their own actions. Negan was shot in the hand, and he took to running. Of course, it wound up being a big fight between him and Rick and, low and behold, Negan wins. He is about to beat Rick to death, but Rick asks him for ten seconds. Negan literally begins the countdown, and Rick talks about how Carl saw a peaceful future that they should try, that they did not have to constantly fight the war. Then, while talking about the blessings of peace, Rick cuts Negan's throat with a piece of glass that he somehow managed to get, although nobody saw how. Negan is surprised, tells Rick, "Look what you did!" and then collapses, apparently dead.
But he's not dead. Rick tells the doctor to save Negan's life, and despite the tremendous amount of blood that he has lost, and a significant amount of time that has passed, Negan survives. Rick and Michonne later explain to Negan that he will be part of the brighter future, by serving out his days behind bars.
We see that Maggie is not happy that Negan is left alive, that this does not sit well with her. She understandably wants him dead, and apparently, she is not alone. So does Daryl, and so does Jesus. Presumably, some others want him dead, as well. They promise to make it right, which seems to mean going against Rick and Michonne's wishes to see Carl's more peaceful future come to fruition. This will be the source of rift that the group will have to deal with in the future.
Meh.
There was never a point where I felt any serious tension within the show. Indeed, I was kind of shaking my head throughout, wondering why this no longer made me feel...well, much of anything, frankly.
Don't get me wrong. I was never one of those people who almost literally seemed to mourn the loss of major characters on the show. But I liked it, liked the unpredictability factor, the possibility of losing major characters in very dramatic, disturbing ways. And it was easy to get hooked - at least a little - on the tension that the writers seemed to masterfully build.
However, I find myself not caring so much now. It began with that ridiculous ending to Season 6 that was not a real ending, but only a billing for the Season 7 opener. One too many times trying to get cute. Then, ever since, it felt like endless repetition. It felt like the show was growing more and more stale. When that friend I mentioned earlier said all of those things, the worst thing was that there was no real way for me to disagree with him.
Still, I hoped that it might rebound, might somehow regain whatever it had lost, and become the kind of show that it seemed to be for the first few seasons.
Let's face it, though: Season 8's finale was a bore. The way that the war ended, and the way that the feud seemed to end between Rick and Negan, with Rick seeming to kill him, and then not killing him (despite promising to do so...twice) just felt completely unsatisfactory.
This show has lost it's way, and I am not even all that surprised that I was not eagerly anticipating watching the finale. In the past, I impatiently wanted to see the episodes, but the relative indifference this time around was only matched, if not outright surpassed, by the combination of a boring finale mixed with a conclusion which felt, frankly, totally unbelievable.
Yes, the Walking Dead has lost it's way. I felt the same way about Fear the Walking Dead, as well. Last year, I missed an episode, and then did not want to watch the next episode until I was caught up, and then two missed episodes became three and four, and then the rest of the season. The funny thing was that I was not even all that interested in catching up.
And that is what I felt about the original, as well. The drama seems missing, the intensity and the believability factor. I seriously feel that the show, and it's writers, have lost their way, and that is why they seem to be losing viewers and fans by leaps and bounds.
Is it intriguing, the tension between Rick/Michonne and the others who feel wronged that Negan did not die?
Yeah, not so much, truth be told.
Frankly, after the lackluster finale to this past season, I think they might just have lost one more, to boot.
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