There was an obvious trolling by the showrunners of the American post-apocalyptic horror drama TV series “The Waking Dead” on AMC during the Season 6 finale when they made the identity of Negan’s victim as the show’s cliffhanger ending.
When the seventh season of the show debuted its premiere episode on October 23, the trolling somehow continued.
During the six-month hiatus of the show after its Season 6 finale aired in March this year, creator and showrunner Robert Kirkman said that the first 15 minutes of the first episode of Season 7 would focus on revealing the identity of Negan’s victim and the show would subsequently move forward from there.
But as it turned out, Negan’s first victim was still not known after 15 minutes and it was almost 20 minutes later when it was shown that he made the first head blow on the very defiant Abraham.
For a while, fans of the “The Walking Dead” thought that it was all over with Abraham as the victim but the show trolled further. Negan even pointed his bloody barbed wire-laced baseball bat named Lucy to Rosita and insinuating that she should be the next to go as if the leader of the Saviors know that Abraham and Rosita had a relationship once.
That was when Daryl attempted to jump Negan and was even able to almost throw a punch. That caused Negan to strike Glenn as his second victim, highlighting the wrath of the leader of the Saviors to non-conformists, notes Forbes.
It would have been all over after Abraham if not for Daryl’s act. But then, Glenn was also meant to go as well.
Forcing Rick to submit
The episode also showed how Negan battered the defiant ego of Rick even after he already killed Abraham and Glenn.
It was shown during the first few minutes of the episode that Rick was still telling Negan that he would kill him for what he has done to Abraham and Glenn.
So Negan took him to the trailer and they drove. He played mind games on Rick by throwing him out into the horde of walkers to recover his ax that Negan himself threw out of the trailer.
When Rick was about to be bitten by the walkers, Negan came to his rescue because he never wanted the leader of the Alexandrians dead. He wanted him to submit to his wishes.
Even when they went back to the group shortly after, Negan sensed that Rick was still hiding his defiance. It was only when he decided to bring out Carl from the line and ordered him to chop off the left hand of his son with an ax that Rick broke down and bowed to Negan, reports the Vulture.
As if to get an insurance that Rick will abide by their agreement to provide for the Saviors their needs, Negan and the Saviors took Daryl as a captive, promising Rick that he would kill Daryl slowly if he reneges on his promise one week later.
Following the comic book source material
What seems certain after the Season 7 premiere of “The Walking Dead” is that the TV series shall follow the storyline of its comic book source material.
It could be recalled that in the comic book, it was only Glenn whom Negan battered to a pulp. Abraham was killed before that infamous lining up of Rick and company.
With the death of the two characters, it now becomes clear that there is hardly a deviation with the comic book source material in terms of characters and plotline. The teases of the upcoming characters including King Ezekiel and Shiva and The Kingdom also indicate that the main plotlines are already following the comic book source material.
With that being said, it would be a challenge for the show to find new excitement without the usual leakage from the avid readers of the comic book during the entire run of its current seventh season.