There Are Some Spoilers In Our The Walking Dead – The Big Scary You Review – Discussion
So we’re now up to the 5th episode of The Walking Dead for season 8 and the time sure has passed by quite quickly! This episode is actually one of the more interesting ones of the season so far as it shifts the focus away from Rick and his group and actually lets us spend some time with Negan and his group. We get to know Negan and a little bit more and also about how the Saviours operate.
For the first part of this episode we got to see what Negan and his team were meeting about when they were ambushed by Rick and his group in the first episode for this season. It seems that Gregory travelled over there and started complaining about his leadership of The Hilltop and his loss of control of it due to the Widow (Maggie). Negan spends some time questioning Gregory and delivers some speeches, giving the impression that he doesn’t really like Gregory all that much.
During the group meeting Simon mentions a plan that he has that would involve killing quite a few people at the hilltop due to their rebellion against the Saviours. But Negan actually rejects this idea and explains that this is not what he is about or what they are about, people are a resource he says. You can’t just kill everyone, you need to kill the right people at the right time. A bit of a plan is suggested about capturing Rick, the Widow and the King alive and then killing them publicly.
We later then switch to a more present point in time. Negan is stuck in a room with Gabriel and the two start chatting quite a bit. Gabriel speaks about his purpose and Negan speaks about his own purpose. The two believe they are both of the same purpose, that is, helping people. Although Negan does have a strange way of doing that.
Gabriel refuses to help unless he can take Negan’s confession about a time he was weak. It’s here where we learn a little insight into Negan. He does speak about his first wife and how he lost her at the start of the infection crisis. He was weak at the time he says and explains a little about his reckless actions during his marriage.
During the sequences with Gabriel we also learn a little about Negan’s motivations for leadership and what he was able to do with the place he now leads compared to the last guy who ran it. How he is is able to find certain strengths in people and how he saves them. The Saviours aren’t about killing, they’re about saving and Negan is their best saviour.
Eventually when the two escape the walkers who had them trapped. They do travel back up to where Negan’s group is and it seems that what Negan told Gabriel does ring true, he came back to save his group of workers. He stopped them from killing each other and he’s there to think of a plan to keep them all alive. Someone even yells “God bles you Negan”. Now I don’t know about if Negan is actually a good person, he’s the villain of the show, but does he think he’s done anything bad? No, what he thinks he’s done all the way through the show is only good things. This is usually good for villains and it’s likely he will never see an alternate way and I think why him and Rick are never going to get along.
Interestingly at the end of the episode Gabriel is placed in a room and nearly dies from the heat. Did Negan do it on purpose? Is he bad or is he a good guy now?
Overall this epiosde was quite interesting. In it we got to learn all about the Saviours and also Negan as a person. I never expected for the show to take some time to develop Negan’s character at all, but the insights into his back story and his motivatins as a leader of his group were very interesting. I’m very interested to see where the show will go next week.
The Walking Dead airs at 1:30pm and 7:30pm on the FX channel on Foxtel every Monday