Setting Negan and Aaron up for some kind of reconciliation over their connections to The Whisperers could make for some juicy stories. The fire is more a small flicker, but it’s still flickering. We get it.Īs the first half of the season nears its end, my dwindling hope for a bold or unique episode remains. Someone getting sick, pregnant, or having any kind of medical condition in post-apocalyptia is going to be awful. Ezekiel having cancer is interesting, but also something we’ve seen happen a thousand times. Kelly’s degenerative hearing gets her into danger, we found out Magna and Kelly were stashing supplies in case things went bad, and Gamma is apparently going to seduce Aaron into supporting The Whisperers. However, it would make the statement from the writers a little more impressive: “you, the viewer, are the source of our show’s depravity.” I doubt they will, but if they do? Well, on one hand, I think it’d be a lazy, pointless backtracking on a character who really deserves the development. Perhaps they really are just waiting for a cheap excuse to make him a villain and undo the past few seasons they spent beating home the ‘he can change!’ narrative. There is a possibility that the writers could have Negan leap back into the violent past he surrendered. If they were ever going to make one, “stop trying to be like the bad guy” is as good as any. Negan murdering Brandon almost sounds like a statement from the show’s writers. Like an audience member watching from afar, Brandon’s eagerness to emulate a tyrant whose wrath he never felt resonates. He, as we are, is wrong to valorize the destruction he never faced. Brandon is a proxy for the audience in this gleeful recounting of terrible, traumatic events. He reminisces about stories and the ‘heroic’ brutality of Negan but never actually saw it himself. Brandon reads more like an excited fan harassing Jeffrey Dean Morgan than someone from within The Walking Dead’s world. Negan kills Brandon and heads off, jacket and bat in hand.Īssuming the show goes as expected and Negan joining up with The Whisperers is a ruse, this moment is brilliant. At least as redemptive as this show ever gets. The perverse obsession Brandon has with Negan and his violent streak seems to be the truly redemptive moment. The episode is overflowing with callbacks, including Negan’s trusty bat and jacket. Both Brandon and the audience love Negan’s violence. Brandon is a mirror for Negan and the audience in equal measure. His traveling buddy, Brandon, is a curious tool the writers employed. It seems like Negan will get his proper redemption arc. The episode centers around the recently escaped Negan and his idolizing new follower. There has to be something new this season, right? I’m still holding out for some painfully self-aware twist before the end of things. What little this episode does to move the story forward follows the exact sort of pattern we’ve come to expect. For as much as I thoroughly enjoyed this episode, with only three left before the mid-season hiatus, I have to wonder why the writers insist on dragging things out further. Hell, even my review is going to sound half like I’m reusing lines. Five episodes into the season and we’re right back to where we always are. What It Always Is couldn’t be a more apt title.
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