About this time last year, AMC trolled Walking Dead fans with a very annoying finale. The last episode of season 6 introduced Negan, who then killed one of the show’s regulars. But the audience had to wait six months to see who died. This resulted in months of speculations and climaxed with an expected bloody season 7 premiere that shocked the audience. What followed after that first episode was a series of bad Walking Dead episodes that ruined the first half of the season. With that in mind, I can only hope that AMC will not troll us for another year.
However, it looks like the showrunners are going for an epic finale this season, one that will set things up for next year and the years to come. That might sound exciting at first sight, but I’d just wait to see what happens in the final two episodes of the series before actually getting excited.
“The season finale will be a conclusion that promises an epic story ahead. It’s about setting up season eight but also beyond,” exec producer Scott Gimple said on Friday at The Paley Center of Media’s 34th annual PalleyFest.
I expect a full-blown war between Rick and Negan to start very soon, but I don’t expect to see the conclusion of said war during the upcoming season finale. That’s because we already know Negan will appear in future episodes of the series, so he can’t really die. I do hope that AMC learned from its mistakes and that there won’t be any monumental cliffhangers at the end of episode 16.
Creator of Walking Dead Robert Kirkman said at the same event that he has conflicted feelings about Negan, Variety reports.
“The most impressive thing is that he’s this horrible person doing horrible things to characters you love, but he had this spark that’s engaging,” Kirkman said. “He’s so likable. He’s personable.”
This seems to be one other hint that Negan won’t go away in episode 16. That said, there aren’t any spoilers regarding what’s going to happen in the season finale, so we have to wait a couple of weeks to see what AMC has been working on that paves the way for “epic” storytelling.
