ThisWalking Deadarticle contains spoilers.
It was when Rick smiled.
Thats when I became hopefulThe Walking Deadseason 7 could turn things around.
7A was a brutal, boring first half of the season by almost any metric.
The show lost 5 million viewers after the premiere and never recovered.
The first half of the season was disorganized, slow-moving, and tedious.
Fan support was down, reviews were scathing or indifferent.
When it came back, it seemed markedly better.
Characters were almost all together again for the first time in a long time.
Then the end of the episode came and the gang was surrounded by steampunk trash people and Rick smiled.
That smile was the best moment of the entire season to me because it doesnt make much sense.
But thats what I liked about it.
Maybe Rick was smiling because he got his mojo back and was supremely confident in his recruiting abilities.
These new hostiles represented hope that Rick could now get the numbers to defeat the Saviors.
Or maybe he was smiling because he couldnt help but appreciate how strange his life was.
We are the walking dead, yada, yada, whatever and all that.
But at its best, it should also be fun.
Theres a moment that reflects this in the newest issue ofThe Walking Deadcomic.
Two characters are participating in an incredibly life or death activity.
This is a terrifying situation but at least they feel useful.
At least they can do something about it.
When Rick smiled, thats what I thought of.
The Waling Deaddid get that.
Just not better enough.
One of the problems was the seasons big bad: Negan.
Negan was introduced because Kirkman needed someone to die in issue #100.
Enter this stock, potty-mouthed guy with a barbed-wire baseball bat.
Kirkman has since said that henever anticipated keeping Negan around.
His initial ending was supposed to be just a few issues after he was introduced.
But then Kirkman kept on thinking of new and exciting uses for his interesting villain.
The tool of Negan kept on working so the writer kept him around.
This makes his character arc improvisational, which keeps it fun.
The Negan of the TV show, however, isnt allowed any such improvisation.
Hell, they wouldnt even let Jeffrey Dean Morgan keep his beard.
This has created a bland villain whose ideology and motivations the show cant quite nail down.
Not even in a fun, unexpected way but rather an inconsistent and frustrating one.
Negan as a villain in theWalking Deadseason 7 is every henchman in thisSNLPeter Pan skit.
Still, the show could have survived a bad antagonist.
Its done it before.
I dont want to dwell on comparisons to the comic but its necessary in this case.
Ughhh taking out the trash?The Walking Deadcomic is better.
Season 7 takes that hour or so of reading and stretches it to about 13-14 hours of TV watching.
This wouldnt be a bad thing if the TV writers felt less beholden to the comic.
Instead, they want to ensure every last bit of the comic is translated to a full season.
Thats what doomed season 7: time management.
To some extent, writing a TV show is all about time management.
The people behindThe Walking Deadare good at their jobs.
Still, when you know you have 16 episodes you have to plan accordingly, andThe Walking Deaddidnt.
Television shows are fragile ecosystems.
Thats what we witnessed this season.
There was simply not enough story to cover the episode order.
And in that vacuum of story we got inane bullshit that we didnt need.
This is about forgiveness.
When Rick smiled, I was happy.
There was joy back in the show.
And that joy did remain for the final eight episodes, including a somewhat cathartic finale.
Still, in season 8 there needs to be major structural changes.
