S10.E22: Here's Negan

[AngelaHunter]

3 hours ago, rmontro said:

But remember, this is the show that had Rick hearing voices and hallucinating after losing Lori.

IMO, that was understandable. All these horrors would give anyone PTSD. He did do some messed up things, like ignoring the infamous, begging backpacker. However, he didn't start torturing people and raping the women in his group.

[rmontro]

1 hour ago, AngelaHunter said:

He did do some messed up things, like ignoring the infamous, begging backpacker. However, he didn't start torturing people and raping the women in his group.

Might depend on your definition of torturing people.  Plus he killed those people in their sleep.  But I'm not trying to say he was as bad as Negan.  Sounds like Negan started from a shakier moral position in the first place, nearly beating a guy to death in a bar, and cheating on his wife.

[AngelaHunter]

Just now, rmontro said:

Might depend on your definition of torturing people. 

My definition would include gleefully burning someone's face with a hot iron to cause the utmost in pain for the pure enjoyment of it, and keeping a rape harem. Yes, Rick killed those people in their sleep and did other ruthless things but I never saw him grinning and gloating while doing it nor did I see him coercing and threatening women to force them to have sex with him.

[Crashcourse]

20 hours ago, AngelaHunter said:

IMO, that was understandable. All these horrors would give anyone PTSD. He did do some messed up things, like ignoring the infamous, begging backpacker. However, he didn't start torturing people and raping the women in his group.

I will never forget that scene of him and Michonne in the car, just casually passing by that poor guy.  Carl was a kid so I didn't blame him.

[Nashville]

19 hours ago, rmontro said:

Might depend on your definition of torturing people. 

Torture = inflicting pain and injury for fun and/or profit.

 

21 hours ago, AngelaHunter said:

He did do some messed up things, like ignoring the infamous, begging backpacker.

Neglect or callousness =/= torture.

 

16 minutes ago, Crashcourse said:

I will never forget that scene of him and Michonne in the car, just casually passing by that poor guy.  Carl was a kid so I didn't blame him.

 

Um, doesn’t the second sentence pretty much explain the first?  If Rick had been solo or accompanied solely by another adult or adults, then his reaction may have been different; to a father with his young son in the vehicle, though, playing Good Samaritan might pose a risk he cannot afford to take.  If the choice is between your child’s safety versus that of an adult stranger...?  That doesn’t even rise to the level of a seriously considered question.

[Crashcourse]

1 minute ago, Nashville said:

Um, doesn’t the second sentence pretty much explain the first?  If Rick had been solo or accompanied solely by another adult or adults, then his reaction may have been different; to a father with his young son in the vehicle, though, playing Good Samaritan might pose a risk he cannot afford to take.  If the choice is between your child’s safety versus that of an adult stranger...?  That doesn’t even rise to the level of a seriously considered question.

Um, they didn't look like they were concerned about Carl's safety.  They just didn't give a shit.  They could have protected the kid by binding the guy's hands and feet and even putting him in the trunk for safety until they got back to their gang.   

[AngelaHunter]

15 minutes ago, Nashville said:

Neglect or callousness =/= torture.

I'm not sure what that means, but for sure not picking up the hitchhiker was not torture. He had just decided, "Fuck everyone except my "family".

[heisenberg]

On 4/5/2021 at 6:20 PM, iMonrey said:

This just happens way too often on TV. A character has crossed a line and is no longer viable but the actor is popular the the show chases its tail trying to justify and soften the character to keep them around. I want to say it's insulting to the audience but there's a good chunk of the audience willing to go along with it because they like the actor. So I'll just say I'm not part of that audience and leave it at that.

Can I submit an exception,  Doctor Smith from Lost in space?🙂

[Nashville]

5 hours ago, Crashcourse said:

Um, they didn't look like they were concerned about Carl's safety.  They just didn't give a shit. 
 

I’d agree theirs was pretty much an automatic dismissal, but we might disagree on its basis.  IMHO it was simply a case of a near-instantaneous calculation: at that point in their post-ZA experience, any potential benefit from picking up a stranger simply did not outweigh the potential risks.

5 hours ago, Crashcourse said:

They could have protected the kid by binding the guy's hands and feet and even putting him in the trunk for safety until they got back to their gang.   

And if Backpack Guy had his own gang somewhere?  For all Rick and Michonne knew there could have been a pile of folks hiding in the woods, waiting to jump them as soon as they got out of the car.  Or he could have been a reconnaissance scout for a larger group, and taking him back to the Prison would both (a) expose their camp location and (b) give him the opportunity to scout them for future conquest.  Bottom line: potential risk > potential reward.

[heisenberg]

I know that this season they were doing filler episodes, but they made so much of them in the past...   Negan story should have been done years ago but instead they were puting new useless characters that we don't even see no more.

[Nashville]

3 hours ago, heisenberg said:

Can I submit an exception,  Doctor Smith from Lost in space?🙂

Would Dr. Smith be an exception, or a case in point?  😄

[Crashcourse]

11 hours ago, Nashville said:

I’d agree theirs was pretty much an automatic dismissal, but we might disagree on its basis.  IMHO it was simply a case of a near-instantaneous calculation: at that point in their post-ZA experience, any potential benefit from picking up a stranger simply did not outweigh the potential risks.

And if Backpack Guy had his own gang somewhere?  For all Rick and Michonne knew there could have been a pile of folks hiding in the woods, waiting to jump them as soon as they got out of the car.  Or he could have been a reconnaissance scout for a larger group, and taking him back to the Prison would both (a) expose their camp location and (b) give him the opportunity to scout them for future conquest.  Bottom line: potential risk > potential reward.

All this speculation might have been true, but if the situation had been reversed and Rick and Michonne and the kid had been on the road crying for help and they got passed by, I doubt they would have said "I understand why they didn't stop."  Just sayin'. 

[diebartdie]

All I got from this episode was both Negan and his wife were dirtbags who both apparently thought a guy enjoying himself at a BAR, talking over some old ass, overplayed, sappy love song "had it coming" and deserved to be beaten up. Other people might complain that in this episode we did not get to see how Negan actually formed the saviors but I say, why would anyone need to see that? We had already seen everything we needed to see with regards to Negan and this episode did not change anything at all about what anyone might've ever thought about him. There was no grand reversal like there was with Rick. Negan was ALWAYS a piece of shit, he was married to a woman who was also a piece of shit and had she lived, SHE would have been queen of the saviors and this whole show is just so awful I have no idea why I keep torturing myself watching it. It used to be an awesome show. Then it was a pretty good show. Then kinda meh. Now though....

[Starchild]

On 4/5/2021 at 1:15 PM, driver18 said:

I gotta say I don't understand the complaints about these episodes. They were never going to move the plot forward. That was never the intention. We were always going to be at the exact same place emotionally, plot-wise, etc. as we were at the end of the "regular" season 10 heading into season 11. These were literally BONUS, EXTRA episodes. They were filler episodes, giving us some bits of back story on these characters. Also they gave us some information on just how bad things are in Alexandria--which is clearly really, really bad.

The Aaron/Gabriel ep showed us that Aaron--despite everything--still believes, still has hope in humanity, while Gabriel has lost his faith pretty much. He's broken.

We learned that Princess has a whole shit-ton of mental issues that could (will likely) come into play. One of the complaints about the new characters that have been brought in is that even after more than a few seasons with them is that we don't know diddly-squat about them, they're ciphers. Princess is a real character now. She's not a cipher anymore.

The Negan episode gave us a guy who was fucked up, prone to violence, but held back because of the consequences of his actions and the love he felt for his wife. The apocalypse took away (he thought) the consequences, and then he lost his wife, so he let himself in his grief let loose his violence and never went back. Now, looking back he realizes that even though there's no law, there are still consequences.

The First Daryl/Carol ep that was more from Daryl's pov and the second, more from Carol's, were both setting them up for their journey ahead, getting them back to a more comfortable place with each other and actually explore who they are to each other. They are being broken down and put back together. Normally, shows don't have the time to do these kinds of scenes/episodes. This is what you see in fanfic frankly. (It's why Caryl fans loved the second episode, "Diverged" so much.) It's a deeper exploration of who these characters are in relation to each other, separately and together. Neither is what we'll get in the spin-off.

None of these episodes are what we would see in regular episodes. Again, these are just bonus episodes giving us some bonus material that we would never normally get. It's not about moving the plot forward, it's about digging deeper into these characters. I loved each and every one of them. I loved the exploration of these characters so much.

Exactly what I said last week, thank you.

[Starchild]

8 hours ago, diebartdie said:

All I got from this episode was both Negan and his wife were dirtbags who both apparently thought a guy enjoying himself at a BAR, talking over some old ass, overplayed, sappy love song "had it coming" and deserved to be beaten up. Other people might complain that in this episode we did not get to see how Negan actually formed the saviors but I say, why would anyone need to see that? We had already seen everything we needed to see with regards to Negan and this episode did not change anything at all about what anyone might've ever thought about him. There was no grand reversal like there was with Rick. Negan was ALWAYS a piece of shit, 

Usually, when a character gets some focus, they become more nuanced. By the end of this, IMO the opposite happened. I could see why Negan went back to the gang after his wife died. I don't think it was to save the doctor and the girl. It was revenge for delaying him to the point that he didn't make it back in time to stop his wife's suicide. So at the end of this he became less nuanced.

I also did not see anything in this episode that clearly influenced him to form the Saviors. Lost opportunity?

 

5 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

There is no question that there is a huge gap between what Negan was at the end of this episode, and his transition into the repulsive leader of the Saviors.  Which is why I think he should have the spinoff series.

I would not want to watch a series that focused on the formation of the Saviors. It was heavily implied that the Saviors were dominant throughout their reign, that they never came significantly close to defeat until encountering Rick et al. 

TWD is depressing enough without seeing the good guys always losing and the bad guys always winning.

[AngelaHunter]

I just watched the beginning of this, since I missed it last week. Negan has no one to whom he can speechify, sneer, and orate in his sad little lonely cabin (which is heaven compared to his cell) so he conjures up another Negan to monologue and taunt him. Two Negans at the same time. Whatever.

So Negan was a sleazy, himbo, video-gaming, useless asshole before the ZA, with no job yet blows money on buying some stupid Fonzie jacket for himself like the selfish, arrested-development jerkoff he is. He tended to his wife afterwards because he had just the faintest vestigial stirring of humanity to actually feel guilt at his disgusting treatment of her, i.e. cheating on her all the time and blowing her off the day she found out she had cancer "Ah, you'll be fine! Those doctors exaggerate! Gotta go!" so he could feed his ego and sate his desire to be seen as a great stud by some other woman.

And then, I don't know - FIVE YEARS EARLIER or LATER or maybe only TWO OR THREE DAYS LATER Negan spends what seems to be hours digging in the field while the slowest zombie on the planet shuffles towards him. Amazingly, he finds his beloved Lucille bat just in time to dispatch this walker. At least I think he did. My attention started wandering already.

Then, EARLIER, while on his mission of mercy, he meets some stereotypical, monologuing, Simon-esque, verbose, scenery-chewing, sadistic, evil, horrible cruel person who abuses him while Negan plays Tiny Tim - "Please, sir, may I take the meds to my beloved and cherished wife"? Even super-baddies want him to STFU. Then he meets more totally expected stereotypes, the super-kind, benevolent, sympathetic, self-sacrificing, philanthropist do-gooders who will do anything to help anyone - including Negan -  on his mission, even though he waved a gun at them. Yeah, newly-emerged Barcode Bitch conked him with the bat, but did him no harm, of course.

Didn't any ordinary, regular people besides our gang survive the ZA? Must they all be pure good/bad with no nuances?

[ByTor]

On 4/8/2021 at 5:08 PM, Nashville said:

On 4/7/2021 at 9:31 PM, rmontro said:

Might depend on your definition of torturing people. 

Torture = inflicting pain and injury for fun and/or profit.

I'll use it in a sentence: The Walking Dead tortures me, the viewer, with Negan 🤪

[Nashville]

22 hours ago, ByTor said:

I'll use it in a sentence: The Walking Dead tortures me, the viewer, with Negan 🤪

An excellent illustration.  😄

[Nashville]

First, a clarification: primarily by accident (a movie I was watching on AMC ended

Quote

All I got from this episode was both Negan and his wife were dirtbags who both apparently thought a guy enjoying himself at a BAR, talking over some old ass, overplayed, sappy love song "had it coming" and deserved to be beaten up.

I got a few impressions from Lucille’s “had it coming” phone call, but none of them were that she actually thought dude deserved a beatdown:

1. Lucille was loyal to her husband, sometimes to a fault - and maybe sometimes to the point of enabling his less-than-ideal character traits.
2. While Lucille has the right to ream Negan when he does stupid shit, nobody else does.
3. The person on the other end of the phone conversation was a mother/sister/best friend who had always thought - and repeatedly voiced, at every opportunity - THEIR considered opinion that (a) Lucille had made a mistake in marrying Negan, (b) he never was any good, (c) he certainly wasn’t good enough for Lucille, (d) they’d always known sooner or later Negan would go down in flames, (e) Lucille would do well to shed herself of him before Negan dragged her down with him, f/g/h/I/j/k, etc., etc. - I expect you get the idea.  And for Lucille, coming to Negan’s defense in such conversations is a near-automatic reaction.

[AngelaHunter]

5 minutes ago, Nashville said:

The person on the other end of the phone conversation was a mother/sister/best friend who had always thought - and repeatedly voiced, at every opportunity - THEIR considered opinion that (a) Lucille had made a mistake in marrying Negan, (b) he never was any good, (c) he certainly wasn’t good enough for Lucille, (d) they’d always known sooner or later Negan would go down in flames, (e) Lucille would do well to shed herself of him before Negan dragged her down with him,

I haven't rewatched that part yet, but I agree with all of the above. An asshole he was without power, and an asshole he remained with power. I really think he should hook up with Carol and find out what it's like to be with someone just as selfish and uncaring as he is.

Edited April 15, 2021 by AngelaHunter

[Nashville]

On 4/15/2021 at 4:58 PM, Nashville said:

First, a clarification: primarily by accident (a movie I was watching on AMC ended

Whoops.  What I started to say was: primarily by accident (a movie I was watching on AMC ended) I actually ended up watching this episode; AMC had it queued up in the next time slot.  Which makes this the first episode of TWD I’ve watched since God tried pegging the cast with space junk..

[shanndee]

Ok. I still haven't managed to watch the last 2 episodes. From a quick scan of the discussions here I tale it that:

1. Carol makes soup and destroys a wall

2. Daryl fixes his bike

3. Negan talks to himself and just illustrates that he is, was, and always will be garbage.

Have I got that right? If so, I safely feel like I can press delete and wait for the new season.

[Anela]

I can't remember the last time I watched. I just checked this thread, because I follow JDM's wife on instagram, and she mentioned it recently. I thought about trying to watch it online (we no longer have cable), but I really don't like Negan. 

[AngelaHunter]

On 4/17/2021 at 6:20 PM, shanndee said:

Ok. I still haven't managed to watch the last 2 episodes. From a quick scan of the discussions here I tale it that:

1. Carol makes soup and destroys a wall

2. Daryl fixes his bike

3. Negan talks to himself and just illustrates that he is, was, and always will be garbage.

Have I got that right? If so, I safely feel like I can press delete and wait for the new season.

Yeah, you pretty much got that right. There was a rat too. I was relieved it escaped.

Quote

Negan talks to himself and just illustrates that he is, was, and always will be garbage.

Especially that part, short and sweet. He reminds me of these sleazy guys who sit around bars and make gross propositions to women and use cheesy lines like, "Hey, baby - If I say you have a hot body, would you hold it against me?"

He's so disgusting.

[Moot Smoothie]

So, TPTB could have spared me the tedious droning and cartoonish posturing of the shark-jumpin'est character since that jacket's original owner by simply giving Mrs Fonzie Negan-Smith a friggin' CD player??

 

[AngelaHunter]

I just watched a little more of this, since I can only handle it in 5-minute increments. Negan is even more of an idiotic, juvenile asshole than I knew. A man his age, with a job at a school, gets into a friggin' bar fight?? He gets into this bar fight because he put 50 cents into the jukebox so he can play his wife's favorite song and everyone in the bar didn't shut up so his beloved Lucille (who he was cheating on probably with a number of women and I just hope he didn't bring any loathesome STDs home to her) could hear it properly? Of course the fool loses his job - who would keep a middle-aged man who is supposed to be a good influence on kids when he has zero common sense or self-control? Is this supposed to make us admire him?  I just bet this is little Bobby K's idea of a real man but of course, how would he know such things?

If my husband behaved this way I would die of mortification and dump his ass pronto.

[CletusMusashi]

On 4/11/2021 at 9:00 AM, diebartdie said:

All I got from this episode was both Negan and his wife were dirtbags who both apparently thought a guy enjoying himself at a BAR, talking over some old ass, overplayed, sappy love song "had it coming" and deserved to be beaten up. 

Yes, but in Negan's defense, there is no other possible way that you can listen to music. The only way to hear any song is to go to a bar, play it on the jukebox, and demand that every single other patron shut the hell up because you are too stupid to figure out how to play music in your own house. 

[Mr. Sparkle]

4 hours ago, CletusMusashi said:

Yes, but in Negan's defense, there is no other possible way that you can listen to music. The only way to hear any song is to go to a bar, play it on the jukebox, and demand that every single other patron shut the hell up because you are too stupid to figure out how to play music in your own house. 

Honestly, that's why I don't really care for music. I'm not a big guy, and I'm not a trained fighter, so every time I listened to my favorite song I'd get my ass kicked. 

[CletusMusashi]

Funny thing is... we are taking away the lesson that Negan and Lucille were a selfish white trash couple who considered themselves to be the stars of any TV show that they happened to be on, and... okay, I suppose they guessed that one right...

But I don't think the writers are telling that story. Just like a few seasons ago they did not understand how problematic the infamous "nut-tapping lesson" was, in this case I think they are honestly just so clueless about how hyoo-mons act that they seriously just looked at it like...

"Well, he's a really tough guy who can beat people to death. How do we know this? Well, how do hyoo-mons learn how tough they are? Unless 20th century Hollywood was making shit up, then... bar fights! But he has to be a good guy, so, um... (insert stupid fucking background story that we already heard...)"

[Smad]

On 4/16/2021 at 12:03 AM, AngelaHunter said:

I haven't rewatched that part yet, but I agree with all of the above. An asshole he was without power, and an asshole he remained with power. I really think he should hook up with Carol and find out what it's like to be with someone just as selfish and uncaring as he is.

So glad I stopped watching long ago. Reading this about Carol makes me incredibly sad.

To this day I wonder what the show could have been if AMC had just let Darabont do his thing with it. So what if he wanted to do stuff not in the comics? Considering the comics aren't exactly deep, deviations from it wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world.

[OoohMaggie]

2 hours ago, Smad said:

To this day I wonder what the show could have been if AMC had just let Darabont do his thing with it. So what if he wanted to do stuff not in the comics? Considering the comics aren't exactly deep, deviations from it wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world.

It’s especially painful to know that Kirkman actually wanted the show to deviate somewhat from the comics, it was ‘The Gimp’ who insisted on following them so closely, how I hate that man 🤬

[natyxg]

On 4/24/2021 at 5:43 PM, AngelaHunter said:

I just watched a little more of this, since I can only handle it in 5-minute increments. Negan is even more of an idiotic, juvenile asshole than I knew. A man his age, with a job at a school, gets into a friggin' bar fight?? He gets into this bar fight because he put 50 cents into the jukebox so he can play his wife's favorite song and everyone in the bar didn't shut up so his beloved Lucille (who he was cheating on probably with a number of women and I just hope he didn't bring any loathesome STDs home to her) could hear it properly? Of course the fool loses his job - who would keep a middle-aged man who is supposed to be a good influence on kids when he has zero common sense or self-control? Is this supposed to make us admire him?  I just bet this is little Bobby K's idea of a real man but of course, how would he know such things?

If my husband behaved this way I would die of mortification and dump his ass pronto.

I think the point was supposed to be that Negan was always terrible, but his wife and society kept him in check. He's an asshole and he has rage issues, but in his own way he loves his wife, which is why the fight is, specifically, about Lucille not being able to listen to "their" song, instead of being about some other random thing. With Lucille dead and society gone, there was nothing else to keep the monster in check.

For me, I guess the problem is that I don' see how this helps to make the case for Negan NOW. If he was trash before the zombie apocalypse, not a good person turned bad by circumstances, why exactly are we supposed to believe that he's better now? I don't see how being locked away in a cage for years somehow fixed him. What issue of his did the isolation and the endless thinking supposedly fix? I don't even know what his "issue" is. We got some new information about his past, but we didn't get his real origin story, which makes it seem like he was an asshole by nature... and therefore is still an asshole now.

I liked Lucille, though. I liked the actress.