AMCLet's get one thing out of the way real quick: There was no reason for this episode of The Walking Dead to be 90 minutes long. Not a one.
After last week's blunder of focusing a 75-minute long episode of Tara and Heath, of all characters, the AMC series made another season seven shortcoming abundantly clear this week. That shortcoming's name? Negan. After all of season six's genuinely nerve wracking teasing of the big baddie's arrival, each new week we actually spend in the guy's presence chips away at whatever made him scary to begin with, leaving a character who we're having trouble fearing or even finding all that interesting. And that's no good.
Whether it's Jeffrey Dean Morgan's increasingly one-note portrayal or just the sheer one-dimensional way the writers have written him (or likely a combination of both), Negan is beginning to feel more like a plot device than an actual character. We know absolutely nothing about him or his motivations, which, in turn, is making subsequent horrible act he commits register with less and less impact. We know he's evil, it's time to tell us why.
It's clear that the writers are enamored with the character, but a good villain needs to be more than just nihilistic violence and bizarrely unfunny jokes. That sort of Negan may work on the pages of a comic book, but for TV, it's becoming incredibly boring. Are we supposed to be fascinated by his peculiar fascination with an out-of-his-depth Carl (Chandler Riggs)? Were we supposed to be scared when he forced the kid to sing "You Are My Sunshine" while he practiced swinging Lucille? If so, the writers are making it awfully difficult.
At any rate, war seems imminent. Negan's in Alexandria getting super creepy with baby Judith, Rosita's (Christian Serratos) got her bullet, Michonne's (Danai Gurira) making that woman take her to the Sanctuary, someone's aiding in Daryl's (Norman Reedus) escape from his cell, and Rick (Andrew Lincoln)—well, Rick's seeing about a houseboat in the middle of a walker-infested lake. When all parties collide in next week's mid-season finale, someone's surely going to die. But will we even care? The way things are going, that's looking less and less likely. (Also, by the way this season is trending, odds on next week lasting a full two full hours?)
Are you having trouble investing in this slog of a season or is it just us? Let us know in the comments below.
The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC.