Considering how diligently I have reviewed The Walking Dead in the past, it may seem strange to readers of this blog that I have yet to post a single review for Season 6.
There are a number of reasons for this, one of them being that I missed the entire first half of season 6 in which a number of significant events happened, like the attack of the gang called the Wolves on Alexandria and the resultant collapse of its perimeter wall, which led to the town being overrun by walkers before Rick (Andrew Lincoln), his group and the remaining residents of Alexandria forcefully took it back at the beginning of part 2 of Season 6. I therefore began my viewing of Season 6 a little disoriented as I missed out on several context-providing episodes.
Once I got back into the groove of things, however, I still wasn't entirely sure I had anything to say about this season. Rick hooking up with Michonne (Danai Gurira)? Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) developing an attraction for Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green), even as he carries on with Rosita (Christian Serratos)? I know these are natural human impulses, but when longtime characters hook up in an ongoing series it often means the writers are running out of ideas. Abraham's longings, at least, are based on things that happened in the comic books, but Rick's and Michonne's coupling, while not unbelievable, just seemed a little out of left field.
Another reason I had a hard time writing about this season was the introduction of the infamous Saviors. As anyone who has read the comic series in the last few years, a major character dies at the hands of Negan, the leader of the Saviors, and in fact, a recent episode offered quite a bit of foreshadowing. Now, in Season 6 none of the mainstays of the series has died so far; Rick's crew has remained pretty much intact since the death of Noah back in Season 5, so I think it stands to reason a major death is in the offing, and while there is at least one obvious candidate based on what happened in the comic books, the television show has been well-known to deviate significantly from the source material from time to time. It's virtually a given, though, that a major character will die at Negan's hands when he appears in the Season 6 finale, and the feeling of dread that comes with knowing that is not a pleasant one.
Finally, watching the last two episodes, I realized why this show is finally starting to lose its appeal to me. When Rick and his crew murder a gang of thugs in their sleep, even if it is to ensure a food supply from the community that these thugs were threatening, and even though they go through the trouble of showing Glenn momentarily agonizing over the decision before shoving a knife into a sleeping man's head, I realized that, for however long this show lasts, there's really nowhere to go but down, insofar as these characters' humanity goes.
I remember watching uncomfortably when Rick and his group, in a fit of revenge-inspired rage, murdered the cannibals of Terminus in cold blood, long after they had gotten the better of them. It was such an oddity; a scene that was both horrifying and satisfying at the same time. The cannibals of Terminus, having almost killed, cooked and eaten Rick and crew, definitely had that coming.
Anyone who's read the comics for the last few years knows who the saviors are, and what they're capable of, and the show has already offered hints as to what kind of people they are, but just the same, seeing Rick and his people slit the throats of sleeping people just made me realize that Rick and company are, at some point, pretty much going to run out of lines to cross.
When Alexandria was introduced at the end of Season 5 there was something refreshing about it, and how the writers had basically turned everything on its head. Suddenly, Rick was the hostile interloper, driven crazy by both his harrowing experiences and a conspicuous lack of female affection. Of course, in the end, Rick was right, Alexandria was nearly overrun, first by a gang called the Wolves, then by walkers, and it was, again, through grit, determination and a lot of violence that Alexandria was reclaimed from the walker horde. It was encouraging to hear Rick talking to Carl about a whole new world.
If the new world really was a wonderful place, though, then there wouldn't be a story left to tell. Sure enough, barely three episodes later, here Rick is shooting unarmed people in the head.
There was little doubt that the Saviors are very unsavory characters, and I'm sure the big reveal of Negan, as played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, will be just as brutal as the pictures Glenn saw in the Saviors' headquarters portend it will be, but murdering them still didn't feel right.
Really, I don't know how much lower there is for these characters to sink in terms of what they're willing to do to survive, and the trajectory really is just inevitably downwards. That's the disadvantage of having a story like this, one about entropy, go on as long as this has. How much humanity can one strip away from a character and still have him or her be compelling? I suppose at some point the writers and directors of this show are going to find that out the hard way.
I just hope I'm not around to see it.
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