The Walking Dead - S07E01 The Day Will Come When You Won't Be (2016)

Sex :   Violence : 

Director Greg Nicotero
Writers Scott M. Gimple
Starring Andrew Lincoln, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Norman Reedus, Glenn Rhee, Lauren Cohan, Chandler Riggs
Genre Zombie
Tagline We're Just Getting Started
Country
The Walking Dead Season 7

Review

"Lucille is thirsty, she is a vampire bat!" - Negan

Rick and team are at the mercy of Negan and his henchmen, many of whom will no doubt be expendable as the season progresses, and Negan is sure someone is going to pay for the troops he has lost to various citizens of Alexandria. The first person on the chopping block is Abraham, who admittedly always seemed one step away from psycho himself. Seeing Abraham pounded to death as Negan goes ballistic with his baseball bat Lucille was pretty traumatic for the rest of the group. Daryl can't help himself and lashes out, this means Negan has to repeat the dose, and unfortunately Glenn is the next victim, much to the horror of long time TWD fans!

Negan still isn't happy with Rick giving him the stink eye and drags him off to the UV for a ride. Naturally Rick comes under more psychological pressure and ends up doing a task for Negan after the bat wielding maniac threatens the worst for the rest of the surviving group members. Having accomplished his task Rick is driven back to the clearing that dripped blood and is given one more trial, he has to cut off Carl's left arm or the rest of the group will be mowed down. Faced with an impossible decision Rick finally breaks, and Negan is satisfied that Alexandria is now under his rule. Unfortunately to enforce that rule Negan takes Daryl as a hostage to Rick's good behaviour, now that is going to have a few repercussions for Negan and his Saviours. Season 7 is underway sports fans, and I'm already excited.

Mortecai in folks and we finally found out who was on the receiving end of Lucille, after 20 or so minutes of Rick being forced to face the new Negan paradigm. Not against that, stretch it out as long as you want, who didn't know Abraham was for the chop right? Okay a few smart asses that made complete asshats of themselves on the internet by throwing out theories about who got it that would make Conspiracy theorists cringe. Hey and we did find out why they shot all those character deaths, not as some would have told ya, to switch between demises for ratings, but to reinforce Rick's realisation that Negan was going to do exactly what he said he would. Hey an honest Psychopath, possibly a PhD thesis in that somewhere. What a lot of us weren't expecting was Glenn being victim number two, in a gruesome and traumatic fashion, due to Daryl not being able to control his emotions. Sure those following the comic books knew it was a possibility, but I was holding out hope as Glenn is, I guess was, one of my four favourite characters. Good start to the new season, two main stay characters gone already, but I'm not so positive this will work out so well for AMC rating wise.

This episode will lose a few rating points for the show, time to cut the horror slummers from the audience

Slight personal interlude, continue to next paragraph if you want. Sorry to the editors this review is going to get loooonnnngggg. Okay every episode of TWD, since season one episode one, my Gal comes over, we make some shacks, get some beverages, and settle in for the episode, and The Talking Dead immediately after. She's not a huge horror fan, likes the lighter scary side, but sure digs TWD the most. Immediately after Glenn's gory demise she got up and started pacing, and then decided she needed to do something else rather than watch the rest of the show. Sure I got it, in the words of Negan she was processing Glenn's death - Maggie and Glenn being her reason to watch the show. This week she phoned to say she wouldn't be watching the show, yes I'm a week behind in reviewing, because it had lost all interest to her. Not sure if this is like a final curtain on TWD as far as she is concerned, she might come around, but does indicate AMC might have lost a number of viewers due to the content of the episode, there is going to be fall out if favourite characters are killed off. I know even the Jman was depressed by Glenn's death, feel the anger building people, RIP Glenn, you were the dude!

Getting back into the flow, there are two deaths in the show - if for the moment we excuse mass zombie slaying, the title of the episode could have been A Tale Of Two Deaths, all excuses to classic scholars for the wink. Abraham goes down stoic and defiant till the end, Negan can apparently suck his balls, but the death looked like a mannequin being pushed over. Anyone else think that? I didn't for a moment think this was a human being Negan had unloaded onto. On the other hand Glenn takes a shot to the head, clearly has some heavy brain damage, but is still reaching out to Maggie, before Negan turns his head into chowder, sorry to anyone eating at the moment. Glenn's death scene is gory, hard to watch, and I sure was appreciating the makeup and props departments for the work there. In one episode we get TWD at its most brilliant and most average. Just calling them as they roll folks, Reviewers by their nature are going to pull episodes to pieces, sum up the good and the bad, and then make a call. Oh and for those constantly yapping about lack of zombies, Greg Nicotero has your back.

Now I know this episode isn't going to work out for everyone, besides the deaths it boils down to Negan breaking Rick, and given the ex-lawman is a tough nut that takes a lot of psychology torture. Andrew Lincoln (Rick Grimes) simply plays it to perfection, from defiant in the face of Negan being a prick, to broken as the reality of the situation occurs to him, too concerned for Maggie in the aftermath. Lincoln gives one of his great performances in TWD this episode. On the other hand I was quietly digging what Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Negan) had happening, a complete off the wall psychopath with a streak of dark humour a mile wide. When Morgan was cast as Negan I was whooping, the dude looks the part; now that I've seen him in action the Actor has made me a believer. Bring on the rest of the season, Negan is going to be fun times guys; he makes the Governor look like a Sunday school teacher.

I have to give a call out to Director Greg Nicotero for his handling of a couple of the characters in key scenes. While he ironically presents Negan as a comic book villain, see Yanks can understand irony, he has Rick wounded in the shadows like something feral ready to lash out. We know that isn't going to work but Rick needs to take his licks. Director Nicotero further reinforces Rick's powerless situation as Negan pretty much drags him around and breaks him. I also really enjoyed Nicotero's work on fan favourite Daryl, he lashes out, gets restrained, before finally being thrown in the back of a van, where he proceeds to growl in the darkness. Outstanding characterisation, and no I didn't miss the constantly upward focused shots from Rick's POV in the RV. Nicotero having been long term staff on the show has his TWD on and knows exactly what he is doing to shock and awe the viewer. In the Director's hands this episode is a hard watch, I am certainly going to take some time to repeat view it.

Before I move on to summing up this exercise in hammering the audience into submission, Negan style, let's talk a bit about the rest of the cast. Rick's crew show various stages of mourning their dead, shock, and breaking down, no problems including Carl, who show little emotion but proves to be the badass we all know he is developing into - Carl doesn't take a backward step when Negan decides he should join the festivities. And we now have two of Negan's army identified, Dwight, who currently is following Negan's lead like a watchdog, and Simon, who seemed shocked by developments. The rest of Negan's outfit are going to be cannon fodder. Clearly these two characters are going to prove crucial in the coming episodes, though yes of course Dwight featured prominently in some episodes towards the end of last season.

Before closing I would just like to mention the gore content, which is the heaviest I've seen in the show for quite some time. ""Graphic violence like this is not and never should be acceptable for screening on mainstream TV" - reviewer Juneyhod, imdb.com. But, and here's the rub, what do people expect, you are watching a zombie series, it's not going to be all sunshine and daisies. The show has always harboured the tendency for shock value, and delivers on that each season. For the quoted author Juneyhod, this isn't mainstream TV, this is cable in the States, I would suggest sticking to some bonnet soap opera in the future, cable TV can be a nasty beast, with the surge in horror content that is going to get a whole bunch worse in the coming years, oh hell yeah! Problem for TWD, a lot of non-horror folk are watching, and getting their noses rubbed into the tropes. Not everyone deserves to die, yes there will be gruesome deaths, don't get attached to characters. Hey just like that Game of Thrones show I've avoided like the plague. Gore content high in this one, the Director is trying to hammer a point home to those with eyes to see, for the rest of the viewing audience, you picked the wrong show to follow.

Awesome first episode of the seventh season, they have already ordered season eight! Tension is dripping off every single frame, there's a shocking death, and I honestly didn't know where it was going. When Negan has Rick contemplate something dreadful toward the end of the show I was wondering if the Director was winking at the first encounter Rick had with the Governor in the comic books, Rick comes off a lot worse in the books than the show. The Day Will Come When You Won't Be is now in my top ten TWD episodes, I'll drop that on you end of season. It's a harrowing experience, but for horror fans, this episode promises a bloody new path for the show that has been a little uneven over the past two seasons. I'm counting down the hours till episode two, Mortecai out and satisfied.

Aftermath, well my Girl is throwing TWD to the gutter and is now demanding we watch that Game of Thrones show, hey they have zombies in it as well - why haven't we been reviewing it! Will check the first episode, if some horror content, then I is reviewing for the site!

Editor's Note: We haven't reviewed GOT yet due to the show being primary a Fantasy outing with horror concepts. But knocked yourself out, you are going to love the Imp!

ScaryMinds Rates this episode as ...

Excellent, tension filled episode, you could cut the atmosphere with an axe.