I actually enjoyed last nights episode. Especially as we finally got to see the "iron" in use. Thought it was Dwight who was the fall guy for this every time but obviously it's going to be used on any "saviour" and anyone else. Thought Negan was comedic in the darkest of ways. Just as you start to laugh at him picking on Olivia for saying that they are starving....he then goes completely ruthless and right there openly tells her he's going to rape her. Obviously this guy "does what he want's" as a dictator, as that what he is, I think he's using Coral as a protege which will destroy rick. There were moments in that "give me the tour" scenes where Coral was enjoying being alongside Negan. Impressionable would be the term.
The "eye" scene was fantastic and it wan't just "hey lets see your eye" it was a brutal reveal, with the highest intimidation. The prosthetics were great, as always. Then Negan turned almost sorrowful for a second which showed us yet another side of this psychopathic schizo.
I love the show, I'm biased, but i'm not immune to errors or "bad" story plots. The season has been a little too fragmented, a bit like when the prison was untenable and they all split. Maybe not as severe, as they all still (for now) have Alexandria/Hilltop as their base. Although we need to know what is happening with all the characters it's touched on too briefly to give any depth. In film making this is hard to do and there are 4/5/6 plotlines and then they throw in the Oceansiders and Then Boathouse guy Leslie William.... I caught...who may or may not be dead.
All in all E1 was a hard ep to follow. E2 showed us the key split but there was no real detailing. However we needed a rest from E1 (forgivable), still answers needed from The Kingdom though. E3 The Cell was great one man acting from Daryl as we saw him become 90% broken and thats hard to hold an audience when it's mainly just you in the majority of an episode. E4 was a little bit of a let down. Yes Negan had to come back to Alexandria and "take half of their shit" but it never fully got interesting, even the side plot of Michonne and the guns. E5 Was good. To get back to the Hilltop, see Jesus (who I thought would feature more tbh), Maggie and Sascha overthrow Gregory as he was weakening to the Saviours. It was a warning to anyone though that these Saviours are prepared to do anything and Simon is great....he's much better than Dwight. E6 Swear (Tara/Heath) we needed to know of Tara's whereabouts, but a whole episode...i'm not sure. The beggining threw me though which was good as I was like...where are we, what show am i watching? Although like the "JDM Iron foreshadowing" the credits could have told me Tara was Oceanside as "Alanna Masterson" appears on the crashed boat she is in towards the end of the episode. I like it though, it's a nice touch. However maybe they should've focused on the Oceansiders community more and suspended us with say them showing us Tara kidnapped by them later in the episode? Will we see them again? If not it was pretty pointless including them in the show, even if it gave us indication of Taras whereabouts....hmmm tricky one.E7 i've spoke about and I thought it was good although it fragmented by showing us where several of our survivors were. E8 is going to be pretty interesting as I can't really think how they're going to bring them all together. Carol is bound to show up, for sure?
One thing that got me about last nights episode was where the fuck did Jesus go after being on the roof of Negans truck? As they pulled away Daryl glanced up as if to have noticed him and then the shot went back to the van pulling away and he had gone....surely it was too "Saviour heavy" for him to jump of at that location?
Apologies for the long reply/review. So I await the abuse