No, "The Walking Dead" Will Never be Great Again

Time to take a barbed wire stick to "The Walking Dead"

Last night was the season finale of "The Walking Dead", and I wrote about it's hopes of me continuing to watch it afterward last week, and it was so maddeningly, infuriating, boring and a stupid waste of 90 minutes of my life. I understand that I have gotten to watch this show for free for the last seven seasons, and I understand that they don't owe me anything at all, but come on, this was absolutely atrocious and, if you call yourself a true fan, you should feel the same as me.

This finale was everything that has been wrong with this show for about 4 seasons now. It was so boring. It was wildly stretched out to inconceivable measures. The story was dumb as hell. All the lead up to Negan was for naught. I didn't care that the original survivors kept getting caught by Negan's crew. I kept checking my phone every 5 minutes to see how much time was left in the episode. I absolutely loathed all the slow, no dialogue parts. I hated the beginning part with Carl and his weirdo girlfriend. Basically, this episode, in my personal opinion, was terrible in every possible way, especially the stupid, moronic, spit in the face that was the ending.

This stunk.

That ending was so, so stupid. The show runners and writers and producers and AMC are getting way too big for their britches with all the stupid ass tease endings that they do on their scripted shows now and this "Walking Dead" finale was the high point, or low point, if you ask me, of this new trend. I thought this finale was ten times worse than the "Mad Men" series finale, and I hated the "Mad Men" series finale. This ending though, what the hell? What a load of dog crap. This was absolutely ridiculous. Sure, there may be some spoilers coming up, but not too many with the dumbass way they ended this season. Let's get into it. 

So, we finally meet Negan, with about 15 minutes left in the episode. Everyone knew he was being played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who is a very talented actor, but his portrayal, I thought, was way too over the top. He gives about a 10 minute speech and, instead of being filled with tension and heart pounding moments, I found it very dumb and Morgan couldn't have chewed more scenery while performing said speech. He said each word as if every single thing he said was as important as the next. In all seriousness, he was basically giving a speech about how he was going to brutally beat up, possibly murder, one of Rick's crew. It was a pointless speech for what he ended up doing. The camera kept panning around from the original survivors to Negan and his crew, and it was frustrating and very irritating. I HATED everything about this monologue. God, it was dumb as hell. Then, to decide who he is going to beat up, Negan plays the old kid game, eenie meanie minie mo, changing from person to person, with the camera showing all of the original crew. Hated this as well. Then, when he finally and mercifully picks someone, they decided to not show the viewer who he picked. They have teased a big name death all season long, and when they finally get to the scene where Negan picks someone, all we see is a fading image of Negan and his bat, Lucille. We have no idea who he may have beaten to death.

Screw you "The Walking Dead" for doing this.

This is a cop out and a slap in the face to the viewer. This show has never done this before, but this season, and last season for that case, has been all about bull shit teasing. This is so maddening. They can't promise the viewer something all season long, then not deliver. If I did something like that to my kids, promised them something, but then not deliver, I would be viewed as a mean parent. Why do shows and show writers think they can continue to do this? What gives them the right? It is the worst kind of cop out that a show can do. The people heavily involved with this show have been clearly persuaded by the uproar over the rumors of Daryl's impending death from the internet. It was rumored all season long that Daryl would be the big time character that would die, then when he got shot last week, rabid fans of the show took to the internet to openly complain that they shouldn't kill him, going as far as to start a petition. So, I think all this gave the writers a tough decision and they chose a tease ending instead of just doing what they had planned all season long. This is exactly what happened last season when they supposedly killed off Glenn, only to reveal in the next episode that he was covered by another guy being eaten by a zombie. That was bull shit and so was last nights finale. As I wrote last week, horrible things are supposed to happen in the horrible world that the "Walking Dead" creators have created. They killed off a lot of important people early on, Shane and Rick's wife to name a few, but they seem to be giving in to the mass media and public now. That really pisses me off. I can't think of another show, in the same vain as "The Walking Dead", doing what they have done over the past three or four seasons. It has been one cop out after another.

Besides this terrible excuse for the ending, the rest of this episode was a pile of garbage. I mentioned the opening scene with Carl and his girlfriend. That was dumb. All the Morgan and Carol stuff was pointless. I didn't care about the guy trying to make Carol suffer. I didn't care about Morgan finding a horse. I didn't care about Carol leaving Morgan's care. I just flat out didn't care about anything the two of them did or said to each other. It was stupid. I didn't care about Negan's crew showing up everywhere Rick's crew went. I didn't care about the preacher. I absolutely hated the "hero's" sendoff they gave to the guy with the mullet, I can't remember his name. I just didn't really care about anything that happened or about anyone in this finale, most of all being Negan. We were told all season long that he would be the "best villain ever on TV". He was going to be like no one we had seen on basic cable before. He was supposed to be great. Well, we got 15 minutes with him that seemed at times rushed, but then, at other times, very slow. He was a very uneven, very boring character. As I said before, I hated the monologue and he didn't scare or fill me with any tension whatsoever. The people most involved with the show built this character up way too much and I felt that he didn't deliver at all. Some of that is the writers fault and some is Morgan's fault. There's all kinds of blame to throw around.

In my article last week, and at the beginning of this post, I told the readers that this finale was going to be my decision maker as to if I was going to continue watching "The Walking Dead" and I can equivocally and without hesitation say that I will not be watching this show anymore. I loathed this finale and I do not care to continue watching. I had hopes that they could return to past glory, but they continued with the terrible and boring writing and stupid teaser endings that they have hung on to for the last four years. I feel like a weight is off my shoulders now that I'm done watching this show. I don't have "homework" on Sunday night anymore. This finale was terrible in every sense of the word and they lost one viewer last night. Good riddance to what has become bad rubbish.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. With his new found free time on Sunday nights, he wants to catch up on recent pop music. The guests on last week's X Millennial Man Podcast have some ideas. Like Ty's ideas? Follow him on twitter @tykulik.

Will "The Walking Dead" get Back to Being Great?

"The Walking Dead" has been exciting as watch this paint peel.

This Sunday, AMC will have a 90 minute "The Walking Dead" season finale. Some big things are supposed to happen in this finale we've been told. Some big name character will die, we will get to meet Negan finally and the group will be left in some kind of disarray. This seems to happen every finale, at least in the past three finales, with "The Walking Dead". Sometimes it hits, like when Beth was accidentally killed by that crazy cop at that hospital two finales ago, but it also misses. Case and point, I don't even remember how last season ended. I think Daryl may have lost his crossbow, but I honestly cannot remember anything else. I could also be wrong about Daryl as well.

For a show that started so incredibly strong, these past three seasons have been very dull and, quite frankly, boring. Yes, I'm still watching, as is most of the country, but it's staring to feel like homework and I'm beginning to not enjoy it so much anymore. They came out of the gates on fire. That opening scene in the series premiere, where Rick wakes up in an abandon hospital, and realizes something is not right in the world, is absolutely incredible. It only grew from there in the first season. The show was great, with great scenes, but it wasn't just a zombie show, it also dealt with the survivors. The show asked and tried to answer questions that included, how do we survive in this kind of world, and do we really want to survive in a world like this? I didn't want to watch this how at first, but I'm very happy my wife convinced me and I was immediately hooked. I couldn't wait for what they'd do next.

Then, in either season two or three, they found a farm and that's when the show started to turn. Yes, it was still very good and there was some excellent episodes, but when they went looking for Carol's young daughter, those specific episodes, it became very tedious. I thought, this is just a small part and they will get through this boring stuff very soon and, at first, they did. The stuff in the jail was great, Morgan returning was great, they seemed to have righted the ship. But, in the coming season, they found Alexandria.

Now, not to be this guy, but I'm totally going to be this guy, when they found Alexandria in the graphic novel, that's when it went from good to great, but the TV show just couldn't seem to find the right footing. Where the graphic novel still focused on the question of how to survive and live in this world, if that was even a good thing, the show decided it was time to start making up love stories and talk about the people to the point of tedium. They tried so hard to give Rick a relationship with some lady, who's husband was an abusive alcoholic, that I couldn't have cared less about. She also had some weirdo son that Carol befriended, I couldn't have cared less about that as well. They did too much of the point-counter point talking that worked well for them early on, but they had established a new world, and the talking made for very long and very boring episodes. I wasn't even really all that moved by the lady who ran Alexandria husband died in the finale. Spoiler alert, he was killed by Rick's new love interests crazy husband, in a fit of rage trying to fight Rick, then, with the "blessing" of the "mayor", Rick brutally murdered that man. I didn't care about any of that. The best thing about that finale was Morgan walking in right after Rick shot this guy. But, we had to wait an entire off season before we got to see anything from Morgan again. If that specific finale was supposed to make me feel something, all it did was make me angry. I didn't care about Rick and his new girlfriend and I didn't care about the original crew's plan to take over Alexandria. All I wanted, and they teased it all season, was to see Morgan, and all we got was that final shot. That was a bummer.

Then, last season happened. That last season was incredibly boring. I literally didn't care about anything that happened. I watched the season while I played on my phone, or wrote for this site. It was on, but I was half in and half out. I didn't care that Maggie was pregnant. I didn't care about the "Wolves". I didn't care that Carl had some new, weird girlfriend. I didn't care about Rick's girlfriends weird son and his relationship with Carol. I didn't care that Carol was becoming some badass that acted like a soccer mom. I did care that they barely used Michonne last season. She is awesome and when they used her, it was to be Rick's police partner. She had no huge story line or anything that important happen to her. She is the best one on the show and she was criminally under used during that season. I was ready to give up on the show after that uneventful finale I mentioned earlier, but I figured I'd give it one last shot. This show was great at one point and I thought they could do it again. I told my wife that the season premiere would be my gauge if I was going to continue or not.

Well, the premiere was very good. They got back to their roots. They focused on the story telling with the original crew. They had some awesome fight scenes. They made me care again. I was back on board. But, the second episode was pretty boring and pretty uneventful. The rest of this season has been wildly inconsistent. They've had some great episodes, but they've also had some duds. It's been very up and down. Some good stuff, the humongous fight scene in Alexandria was great, Rick finally has a cool girlfriend in Michonne, Michonne is being used more, a scene between Maggie and a guy from another town involving a trade for goods and services and meeting Negan's crew. Some bad and boring, Abraham and Rosita breaking up, the under utilization of Morgan, Rick going completely off the deep end, the character of Jesus and Carol's change of heart back to being a loner and all of the sudden a god fearing person. I just can't get my finger on what they are trying to do. In last week's episode, another spoiler alert, it ended with a gunshot in Daryl's direction and the shooter saying, "it will be okay". Some were outraged because they assumed that Daryl is dead. First of all, Daryl was never in the novel, so who cares if he is gone. And second of all, if they do kill him off, they can bring him back, just like they did, in super cheap fashion, with Glenn last season. I don't get the upheaval. People are supposed to die in a show like this. That's what happens. They also said a big name character would die. Someone important is not going to be in the upcoming season. Deal with it. We will finally get to meet Negan in Sunday's finale as well. I'm mixed on this, because I want to meet him, but I'm also wary of all the writers and showrunners saying that "he will be the best villain on TV ever". Don't say things like this, let the viewer decide. That's what they did so well early on, but now they feel that they have to sell everything and that scares me.

So, yes, I will watch all 90 minutes of the finale and I hope that it's worth it. If not, I will most likely give up on this show. It started so well, but it's been very hit or miss for the last four seasons and it's becoming tough to care and watch and pay attention every week. Hopefully they do something big and regain my full attention, but I don't think that will happen. Hopefully Negan is a great, once in a lifetime villain, but I wish the people involved weren't pushing him on me so much. I want "The Walking Dead" to be great again, but I fear it's time is up. We'll see this Sunday.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. In case of a zombie outbreak, Ty will hole up at Chesterfield Mall. Make sure the chopper is on time. Before the apocolypse you should follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.