In The Walking Dead recap for the season finale, Rick and the survivors finally meet Negan for the first time and he’s everything as advertised and more….
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
It’s hard to remember if there’s ever been anticipation for a character’s arrival on a TV show as much as The Walking Dead has faced this season over the arrival of Negan.
One of the most talked about creations ever spawned from Robert Kirkman’s source material, Negan has been described as a force of nature, who will forever change the direction of The Walking Dead. Jeffrey Dean Morgan was selected as the actor to play the sociopathic, barbed-wire wrapped baseball bat wielding leader and there wasn’t a single voice who disagreed with that casting choice.
But finally after months of talk and tons of rumors, Negan finally arrived on The Walking Dead during the season six finale and now we can say that he’s everything as advertised.
But Negan’s arrival wasn’t the only part of the finale that everybody was curious about because when he first shows up in The Walking Dead comic book, he also uses his best girlfriend Lucille to send a message to Rick Grimes and the other survivors that he’s not to be reasoned with or bargained with. They are going to bow down to his control or more of them will die.
So with a few vicious swings of that baseball bat, Negan kills one of the survivors while the rest of his friends watch in horror. But who died?
Well, let’s just say that’s the most disappointing part about an otherwise brilliantly executed episode as we now wait six months to find out who kissed Lucille during Negan’s introduction.
Read on to find out exactly what happened as we recap the season 6 finale of The Walking Dead titled ‘Last Day on Earth’….
Gone for Help
With Maggie in bad shape and only getting worse, Rick decides to load up the RV and head out to the Hilltop where they can meet with the doctor to get her some much needed assistance. Rick takes a group with him as back up including Abraham, Sasha, Eugene, Aaron and Carl.
Actually, Carl stops Enid from coming along as well despite her desire to stick by Maggie’s side through this trauma with her pregnancy. To keep her in Alexandria, Carl locks Enid in a closet to make sure she doesn’t follow. Before he leaves Enid asks what she’s supposed to do if he never comes back (besides hoping somebody finds her locked in that closet) and he answers back with an ominous phrase she once gave to him.
Just survive somehow.
Before leaving, Rick leaves Gabriel in charge of Alexandria’s defenses while Spencer asks if the Saviors arrive should they try one last time to negotiate a truce. Rick tells him to pass along the message to wait for him to come back and he’ll give them an offer they’ll never forget.
Get to Where You’re Going
On the road to the Hilltop, Rick and the rest of his people run into a road block along the way as the Saviors make another appearance to let them know that they aren’t getting away so easily. In fact, the Saviors have taken another “traitor” from one of the colonies that are currently ruling over and use him as an example of what happens when people don’t abide by their rules.
Rick attempts to dissuade them from entering into a war he doesn’t believe this group can win but they aren’t going to listen to him much less enter into negotiations in the middle of the road. Rather than get into a fire fight, Rick opts for the road less traveled and Eugene finds an alternative route for them to escape this road and still get to the Hilltop.
Unfortunately the next road that he finds leads to an even bigger army of Saviors blocking the way to get to the Hilltop. As Maggie’s fever starts to spike, the confidence that Rick had starting the day that he was in control is really start to slip away.
Again instead of fighting, Rick opts to turn around and take yet another route back to the Hilltop.
And again, they run into a road block — this time a group of walkers all chained together on the road. Rick and the others exit the RV to get rid of the walkers but then they begin to notice something about these particular walkers, who have literally been chained together through body parts, blood and guts.
One walker is wearing Michonne’s vest and another is wearing something that belongs to Glenn and yet another has something that belongs to Daryl. A moment later gun shots ring out from the woods and it’s clear this was an ambush set up by the Saviors to trap Rick and his people on this particular road.
Thankfully this time, Rick and the others fire back and chop through the walkers before driving through the road that was originally cut off to them. But another wrong turn leads Rick and the group to the dead end for this road as well with a set of trees torn down and blocking the path before it all gets set ablaze. It’s clear these Saviors are well organized and they are operating some heavy duty equipment to move this debris around to block Rick and his survivors from getting to the Hilltop.
Finally, Eugene has a plan that he believes will work.
He suggests that the Saviors are looking for the RV and a path that takes them on the road. So he tells Rick to take Maggie and the others through the woods while he continues to drive the RV around to each dead end so the Saviors are convinced that they are just going in circles. Before leaving, Eugene hands Rick his recipe for making ammunition and it almost sounds like he’s saying goodbye for the last time, but don’t worry — they will meeet again.
Death Wish
Morgan continues to hunt for Carol on the roads outside Alexandria after sending Rick back home while he finishes the search himself. Along the way, Morgan finds the horse that ran away from the person they encountered last week — if you remember Rick and Morgan spot a guy in a field near where they were searching for Carol. The man claimed to be looking for his horse and Rick immediately wanted to kill him but Morgan stopped him before he could do it. Judging by the horse he found this week, Morgan confirmed at least part of that guy’s story was true.
He continues to search for Carol as we find more clues to the handiwork being done by the Saviors all around the area. The man who the Saviors captured and beat in front of Rick and the others as “an example” was staying at the library in town. The Saviors also mention that that they hung one person outside as sign so no one else would cross them.
Well, Morgan happens upon that very scene before finding a wounded Carol laying outside the front door, barely able to move. It seems in the battle with the Saviors along the road, she caught a bullet that grazed her along the side.
Morgan tends to her wound while Carol continues to argue with him about anyone coming to look for her in the first place. She explains that to live in Alexandria means she would have to kill again and she no longer wants to be that person. Morgan attempts to talk her out of doing this all alone — especially considering he’s fallen into similar dark places after the loss of his son. But Carol isn’t having it and she eventually wanders out of the library alone while Morgan can’t seem to let it go because he wants to do for her what Eastman once did for him.
Carol gets a good head start, however, but it’s not to her benefit because along the road she runs into the lone survivor from the car load of Saviors she wasted several miles back.
He gets the drop on Carol and tells her that she’s going to die just like him — in slow, agonizing pain.
He pulls his gun and fires a shot into Carol’s arm and another into her leg and it seems she’s begging to die, almost asking to leave this world once and for all. Just when it looks like he’s about to pull the trigger, Morgan swoops in to save the day while imploring the man to lower his weapon because they can all get out of this alive.
Of course the man doesn’t comply and Morgan unloads a rapid succession of bullets that kill him dead. It’s a good thing he took that gun from Rick after all, huh?
Morgan saves Carol despite her pleas to just let her go and he explains that it’s not going to be quite so easy. While Morgan wanted to make the Wolf his passion project earlier this season it sure looks like Carol is going to end up under his wing as we get into season 7 later this year. Just after killing the Savior, Morgan and Carol are intercepted by the man who was originally looking for his horse in the last episode as we find him another person riding horseback with spears in hand — like those made at the Hilltop. Morgan asks for help and they offer a hand — but are these people from the Hilltop or are we about to be introduced to The Kingdom?
The New World Order
After a split with the RV, Rick and the others carry Maggie through the woods as they attempt to make it to the Hilltop colony and find her medical care. As they step through the woods, a familiar if not haunting sound is heard in the distance — like a million voices all whistling at once. A few more steps and Rick finds a clearing where they are surrounded by dozens of the Saviors all holding onto weapons along with the RV and a bloodied up Eugene who has now been captured.
The Saviors explain to Rick and the others that this was always the plan – to lead them so they could get exactly where they were going — right here.
The group is ordered to get down onto their knees before Daryl, Glenn, Michonne and Rosita are brought out from another vehicle. They are all alive but now the Saviors have captured almost every able bodied person who was in charge of Alexandria and they are all lined up in a row, on their knees, just waiting for execution.
Finally, the Saviors say it’s time for Rick and the others to meet their maker.
Enter Negan.
Clad in black, leather coat, slick backed hair and a Louisville slugger called Lucille, wrapped up warm in a comfy bed of barbed wire, Negan has officially arrived and he’s not happy with Rick and the rest of his people after they killed dozens of his men. Now they have to pay and they also have to understand that they are living under a whole new set of rules now.
“You are so gonna regret crossing me in a few minutes. Yes, you are. You see Rick, whatever you do no matter what, you don’t mess with the new world order. The new world order is this and it’s really very simple so even if you’re stupid, which you very may well be, you can understand it. You ready? Here it goes. Pay attention.
“Give me your shit or I will kill you. Today was career day. We invested a lot so you would know who I am and what I can do. You work for me now. You have shit, you give it to me. That’s your job. Now I know that is a mighty big nasty pill to swallow but swallow it you most certainly will.
“You ruled the roost. You built something. You thought you were safe, I get it. But the word is out — you are not safe. Not even close. In fact you are pegged. More pegged if you don’t do what I want and what I want is half your shit and if that is too much, you can make, find or steal more and it will even out sooner or later. This is your way of life now. The more you fight back, the harder it will be. So if someone knocks on your door, you let us in. We own that door. You try to stop us and we will knock it down. You understand?”
Negan also explains that because Rick and his group killed so many of his people that he’s going to have to send a message back to them as punishment. Negan says he doesn’t want to kill them because if they are dead, how can they gather shit so he can steal it away from them? But someone has to die and that should put the rest of them in line.
To be fair and democratic, Negan has everybody lined up in a row and he starts pointing at each one while giving reasons why the could be his pick. When he gets to Maggie, he mentions how sickly she looks and it might just be a mercy kill, which sends Glenn into a rage. Negan’s men subdue him and he allows Glenn to have an emotional outburst but that’s the only one because the next will get them killed.
With such a tough decision to make, Negan decides to play a game of “eeny, meeny, miny, moe” with everyone sitting in a row as he figures out who is going to meet Lucille and not make it back to Alexandria alive.
One by one he points to each person in the group before finally settling on his chosen target and a second later Negan swings his bat down with force as he crashes into someone’s skull. Blood flows over the screen and a few more hits follow as gasps are heard from the people around them and Negan applauds his victim for taking the shots like a champ before finally fading to a forever slumber.
Unfortunately throughout this entire gory and horrifying affair, the person Negan swats with Lucille is never revealed. Instead, the screen fades to black and we are left waiting until October to find out who was the victim of Negan’s revenge. A completely satisfying episode until the end and while cliffhangers are part of what we love about television, this one felt a little cheap and unnecessary.
It seemed a bigger impact would be watching Negan unleash his venom with those vicious swings of his barbed wire wrapped baseball bat as we all sat in awe and horror while one of the main characters from The Walking Dead was executed. Instead, we are all left wondering for the next six months who got dealt the death blow? Needless to say some online detectives will be monitoring the actors who were part of that scene to find out who might be busy with other gigs when The Walking Dead should be filming this summer.
The Walking Dead returns in October and then we will all find out who Negan sent packing courtesy of his lovely Lucille.
Either way, another season of The Walking Dead has come to an end but don’t forget to come back one week from now as we begin our recaps for Fear the Walking Dead.