Caution – There Are Spoilers In The Walking Dead The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Life Review
The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Life is the final episode of the 7th season of The Walking Dead, with fans now having to wait until next year for the show to return. In this episode we see the events from all the episodes of the season and all the characters actions come to fruition as they move against Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and his group.
I’ve been waiting for a long time for a big Rick episode and also for a long time to see what will happen between Rick’s (Andrew Lincoln’s) group and Negan’s should they go up against each other. Of course I knew that this would be saved for the finale, but you can never know how things are going to turn out.
Last week we saw Dwight (Austin Amelio) visit Rick and his group and offer to help him take down Negan, but unfortunately in this episode this storyline doesn’t really go to far with Dwight getting back with Negan quite quickly (how could they trust this guy?), but they decide to use Dwight nevertheless to see how he’ll go. Dwight has actually been one of the more interesting characters of the season with multiple episode appearances and with plenty of room for character development, with him still alive next year, I am curious to see how he develops.
Rick also hires a group of women he met at the dump a few episodes back to help him out with taking down Negan. But surprisingly, these women are not so loyal and end up on Negan’s side of things.
Rick’s plan primarily is waiting at his base for Negan to show up for his usual visit, with guns and a bomb site ready. Although the bomb doesn’t go off and the women turn on Rick and his group leaving things for Negan to take advantage of and everything looking lost.
The episode then goes into some chaos with Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) leaping out at Negan (in Walker form) and some gun fights getting started. Negan has the upper hand and is about to kill Carl (Chandler Riggs), but is interrupted when Ezekiel (Khary Payton), his tiger and the Hilltop people (Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and rest) come to save the day.
For the most part the episode is a bit slow in the lead up to the intense action events, a thing that has actually been common throughout this season and the series in general. It takes a long time for things to get going, but when they do, things feel tense and your heart can start racing. Knowing that it’s a finale, you never know what characters might be killed off. I did see Rosita (Christian Serratos) take a bullet at one point, but didn’t see her after that. The main character loss of this episode was Sasha.
Sasha was an okay character for the show, but I feel that her character wasn’t really going anywhere, especially lately. While there might be some out there that will miss her in the show, I feel that she wasn’t really as big as Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) or Glenn (Steven Yeun) who got taken out in the first episode this season. It was great to see Abraham back in the show for a couple scenes with Sasha, I do miss that character more than I thought I would.
Negan in this episode was the one to watch though. In a kind of anti-climatic way, no one ended up catching him. Quite funnily, for a TV show based on a comic book, the villain, Negan ended up driving away in a truck with his middle finger in the air, with no one really giving much of a chase. He’ll be back next year, stronger and scarier than ever I think, especially given that war cry at the end of the episode.
Overall this was a great episode for the show and while the climax didn’t result in much loss for Negan or even his capture. It was great to see Rick and his group get their confidence back, they’re now all fighters again and that’s what I love about that group, they’re all survivors and they’re a tough force to go up against, but Negan is tough as well. It will be great to see what happens next year.
