So, the Walking Dead finale. I'm not going to put in and spoiler tags because it's long, but I'll leave out any significant comic spoilers. Don't read further unless you've watched up through the end of Season 6.
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Show Spoilers Below
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I'm getting tired of everyone constantly complaining about things. Admittedly, I primarily check out imdb boards which are pretty toxic and trolly (I should really stop, but imdb is a convenient place to get information on shows/movies I'm interested in), so my view may be distorted. But almost every episode comes with a barrage of trivial complaints, and this has episode was a culmination of it.
I get that people don't like cliffhangers. Personally, I feel showing the death and having the last shot be the mutilated corpse would have left a larger impact. On the other hand, they probably couldn't have made is as graphic as the novel, so it may have fallen short any way. We'll have to see what they show next episode. Also, the PoV shot was good in and of itself. And, it's interesting to see everyone analyze all the details to try to figure things out. (This part was fun for shows like True Detective.)
At any rate, I'd still prefer not to have a cliffhanger, but I don't have any problem with it. People are throwing around a lot of words like 'gimmick', 'lazy', 'cheap', etc. I don't understand where these people are coming from at all. Of course they want you to watch next season; why wouldn't they? I haven't read anything convincing that ending the episode without revealing who died harms the storytelling. Really, "we're going to kill off a main character" is a gimmick in the first place; Kirkman basically said this; he knew that he had to do something fresh in the 100th issue, and this was it. Gimmick or not, the storytelling is good.
The rest of the episode... I've read a number of people complaining it was boring. Man, I don't see it. It was tense. The main point here is we see a deconstruction of Rick's entire way of thinking. After pendulum swings between hanging on to old-world humanity and adopting new-world brutality, Rick has settled in to what he thinks is the new way of thinking in this world. He doesn't take chances any more, but community is still the most important thing. He's trying to build something in Alexandria, and he believes he can do it. They've encountered numerous threats from people and survived (Governor, the Marauders, Terminus cannibals, the Wolves), and they had a huge breakthrough in the mid-season premiere (S6:09), where they took care of an entire hoard of Walkers and realize that they are simply something that can be managed. He has such confidence that they can take care of whatever this new threat is that he jumps headfirst into an agreement to take out Negan. And it works almost flawlessly. (Even though Carol and Maggie were captured, they weren't hurt.) Even upon learning that there were more of them, and even after losing one of their own, he still believes he'll win, and they make a point of him saying so in recent episodes. He even says so in the finale to Maggie. Even after their first roadblock, he's still certain he'll come out on top. Even after the second and into the third one, he has confidence. He gradually starts to get worried (when he realizes they were shooting as their feet), and in the fourth/fifth one he finally starts to show worry ("we're going to need the bullets"). You gradually see more worry and fear in his face, and by the end of the episode, when they are caught by Negan's group, he is downright terrified. He's completely helpless and he knows it, and he has no idea what to do. He doesn't say anything during Negan's entire speech (except for the one outburst), and I don't think chose to do it because it was a better choice; I think he was simply too terrified to speak.
The entire season has been about paradigm shifts for Rick. He starts out with a isolationist philosophy (recall he and Daryl's conversation in S6:01, his conversations with Deanna, his 'us and them' attitude towards saving Spencer, etc.), and halfway through the season he realizes that he's been thinking about everything all wrong. He realizes they can build Alexandria together and make is strong, and that people together can accomplish so much more than individuals (his speech to Carl in the coma). And the finale completely destroys that optimism and confidence and makes him realize he doesn't know anything. A recurring theme in TWD story. Showing that the Saviors were ahead of them every step of the way, in multiple places with different people in different ways, just hammers this point in even more. At this point they seem like an absolute unbeatable force (even moreso than in the comics). The juxtaposition of the ease of which they dispatched the outpost and the confidence it gave them and the absolute beatdown they just received in the finale is exaggerated in the show, I think to good effect. It's probably stronger if you watch the episodes contiguously without commercials.
Andrew Lincoln's acting was top-notch in this episode. And Negan... I loved Jeffery Dean Morgan; I thought his speech delivery was perfect. I found it odd that he wasn't clean-shaven, just because that's Negan's iconic look (maybe they wanted the 'I better shave this' line?), and he did seem thinner (less muscle) than in, say, Watchmen. Even so, I thought his presence was great, and some of the lines made me audibly laugh ("It's an emotional moment, I get it!"). Would have been nice if he could have said 'fuck' or 'fucking' a few times, but that's been a gap between comics and show since the beginning.
Carol and Morgan.. I like their story. Morgan finally kills someone, as Carol said he would. Though he's already 'corrupted' Carol, as she arguably would have never gotten to this point if Morgan hadn't came into her life and tried to show her another way. So they corrupt each other, and now they're off somewhere that we can figure out if we've read the comics.
All-in-all, I think the episode was great. I think showing the death would have made it ... bigger, maybe? On the other hand, it would have been 'the thing' of the episode, and would have taken the focus off other parts. I don't know, hard to say.
