Sorry for the long delay, but non-blog duties do take me away from making my originally planned twice-weekly updates. News flies so quickly in the massive world of comic book-inspired television and movie world so staying on top of things is pretty tough.
Besides, everyone already knows the big news. I'd like to focus on picking one bit of news and then expanding on it from an interesting angle. Or at least I try to make things interesting.
One thing I have been formulating in my head has been the debut of the nefarious, notorious Negan at the season finale of The Walking Dead.
By now, we all know a great deal of the reaction to the finale and the entire season has been somewhat negative. Viewer and critical complaints about the finale - and the season in general - focused on the slow pace of the series and the (supposedly) underwhelming debut of Negan. The complaints due have some merit since ratings for the season finale's ending were down. Fans were turned off upon discovering the reveal of who Negan killed would be delayed until next season. Viewers feel they are being milked for ratings. The tragic irony is the ratings have gone down. Viewers departed rather than experienced being taken advantage of.
That said.....The season as NOT bad and neither was the debut of Negan. I really though the season was quite good and Jeffrey Dean Morgan did make a great Negan.
The issue with Negan is he is always going to be compared with The Governor. In the comic book, Negan debuted - seemingly - as a redux of The Governor. The redux was just The Governor with a different personality.
And then several months of monthly Walking Dead comic books featuring Negan, readers quickly discovered the personality of Negan is a lot different and far more engaging than The Governor. Negan is not "yet another antagonist" for The Walking Dead crew to deal with. He is a psychopath with a strange moral code that is the yang to the yin of his hideous immoral nature.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan mixed Negan's strange sense of humor, violent sadism, and technocratic free market pragmatiism to great effect. Perhaps it was a bit overwhelming for viewers not familiar with the character. In time, as the character of Negan is revealed through the course of the next season, viewers are going to see he is far different from the other antagonists that have appeared on the program. The interactions between Negan, Carl, and Rick further establish he is a different kind of villain. The amoral nature of Negan plays against Rick's own decent into violent authoritarianism.
Remember, Rick's plan was to kill Negan and all his gang. The purpose was to - in essence - set up his own protection racket, one no different than Negan's. The only thing that put a stop to Rick's own violent rampage was Negan had greater numbers and organization.
The entire fiasco was Rick's fault. A confrontation with Negan could have been avoided. The life of the (so far unrevealed) character would not have been lost.
Therein lies the ironic dynamic between Negan and Rick. Calling Negan a villain is difficult after Rick crossed a serious moral divide. And he did so long ago.
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