Meh, people have been wetting their pants over Negan for the past 2 seasons.

Dont you remember when Glenn and Rick let him out of the container at Terminus?

 

Hi, my first time here, so here are my thoughts
I agree with you. Now everyone is talking "Negan this, Negan that". I'm afraid he's so much hyped, that eventually people starts to hate him. Remember when everyone was all like "Morgan this, Morgan that". "We need to see more Morgan!" Even when they knew how he was at the end of the Season 5 finale, people still digged him. And now they hate him. What's the difference of Morgan Season 5 - Finale and Morgan Season 6 - Now?

On to the topic, I hope Negan won't be a dissapointment to the audience. My only guess would be that they put his casting out in the public, to get the viewers in millions back, since the producers saw it's lower than Season 5.

 

The announcement of Negan was the one silver lining of late for me. Every episode stands on its own merit. The finale wouldn't have been any better if we didn't know about Negan. It's the plot and writing that sunk it.

Hearing about Negan is like a last place team that knows they're getting a # 1 draft pick. It instills some hope that things might turn around in the future.

 

I think the Negan mention was largely unnecessary, especially if he's not going to appear in the immediate episode or next few episodes. Rumor has it that he's slated to appear towards the final episodes of Season 6. Why tease him now, so early? I think the buzz and hype around Negan will encourage people to learn more about him and inevitably lead to more spoiled content, esp since there's two months of curiosity to kill. It kind of lessens the shock and surprise of his arrival/actions.

The MSF should've been 90 minutes. It also should've had some type of major resolution of the wolf situation (if he's free with Denise, it's not resolved) and/or the Ron/Carl/Jessie/Rick situation. But they didn't and decided to keep that for the next episode. So when you think about it, the MSF wasn't as strong as it could've been and apparently critics/the public agree considering the negative ratings for 608 (largely centered around "disappointment"). I think the Negan reveal is an acknowledgement that the writers didn't build enough suspense on the fate of Alexandria for there to be adequate buzz over the next two months. The events of No Way Out in theory should be more than enough to hold people over, without Negan's mention, but they played a weak hand and Negan is the wild card. Throw his name into play and you get automatic hype, on the strength, no more worries.

They picked the quick and easy route to build hype. It's cheap. It reminds me of Glenn's non-death in 603. Totally unnecessary, but I guess it served it's purpose for the months worth of buzz and interest in upcoming episodes it created. Did we need to see the 609 "prologue" (brought to you by Into the Badlands)? Not really...but I mean, people are talking about it so...mission accomplished?

 

Well if you can remember back to season 3, David Morrissey was already known beforehand to be cast as the Governor. It's pretty similar to this situation. And plus, people have been predicting Neagan's appearance for a LONG time, way back to season 2. This is nothing new.

 

The Negan mention was most definitely necessary. It went EXACTLY as it went down in the comics. And Negan has been teases going on forever. This just gives us confirmation that he's coming soon. And Terminus was mentioned early on in 4x03, and it only appeared at the end of the 4th Season, at it was pretty well done. That's probably going to be the case here too. And I agree that the MSF should have been longer, it's like they cut it short just to milk the cash cow longer. And I also agree with you about Glenn's "death". They shouldn't have done that in the first place. For one thing, it's extremely implausible, and the show's representation was 100% dumber than the theories on YouTube, which were highly detailed. Second it cut out potential screentime for Glenn, even if he is to be killed at the end of the season. It was also a complete waste of Nicholas' character, as I wanted to see him redeem himself.

 

I appreciate your retort. Having read the comics, I do think the scene needed to be apart of Season 6, and it is. It wasn't a bad clip at all by any means. But it's a scene from episode 609, the Mid Season Premiere and it should've stayed that way. A strong 608 negates showing the 609 prologue two months early, because the MSF should stand on it's own. If anything they could've shown this prologue sometime in January-February 2016 in the run up to the new slate. My issue is about timing. Just a week ago they announced Jeffrey Dean Morgan was cast as Negan, that's confirmation enough that he's coming soon. I hear your argument about the Terminus precedent, but that isn't necessarily a model that has to be repeated.

So I stand by my original statement, but your opinion is equally valid.

It seems like those who share this opinion are in the minority unfortunately, but as someone in that minority, I definitely agree!

 

I don't know if AMC would have been able to keep it a secret, seeing as the Spoiling Dead hounds their ass daily. They couldn't even keep Glenn's survival a secret. And maybe the timing is a bit rushed, but I have a feeling that without introducing the Saviors, they wouldn't have much material to fill up the second half of 8 episodes, and seeing as the writers screwed this MSF up bad, they would just shoot out multiple filler episodes without propelling the story forward.

And about Glenn, it seems to me that more people were upset at the implausibility of his survival, and wanted him to die. I guess we both just realized that it shouldn't of happened at all.

 

Yeah the spoiler issue is a huge detriment. I'm not sure how common this issue is with television production "in this day and age", but they actively need to try and combat this. After reading the source material the only sense of surprise left is the concept that I have no idea where they'll take the show. Off-screen spoilers really detract from the excitement. It makes me wonder if Negan's infamous kill (for the show) will be spoiled and common knowledge before it happens . The 609 prologue and comments from Robert Kirkman himself (on the most recent Talking Dead) is confirmation that they will introduce the Saviors in the later half and I'm excited to see what they'll do with it.

We have, yes, and there are many who agree with us. But I made my "minority" comment after seeing the results of polls taken here/elsewhere

 

I personally don't have too much of a concern for spoilers, because I do traverse the Spoiling Dead Page frequently, at most to see filming locations, I always skip past leaked info for the episodes. But it's pretty much impossible to stop it, seeing how big the walking dead is. It's kind of like the paparazzi: there gonna show up no matter what you do. But I do agree that the people who read the leaked episode scripts are killing the suspense for themselves.

 

I actually don't think it's impossible that he didn't get his guts ripped out then and there. Recall that Michonne got walker guts all over just her front in Season 3 and went unnoticed by the walkers for a little while at least. It's harder to suspend my belief that he didn't get bit AT ALL. What, do walkers have a smell thing like a bloodhound now and decided he had too much blood on him to be human?

 

Well those guts were walker guts. The other walkers were ripping out Nicholas' guts. Fresh meat always attracts walkers.

 

I am still baffled why they wasted an hour and comercials on Morgans show when the Mid Season Finale felt like it needed another 20 minutes to not end on a note where it felt like they cut material and had to rush it out. I rather see Morgans episode be a webisode or something for 5 minutes each sunday than it taking valueable resources and time from the main plotline. It took them 8 episodes to get exactly nowhere and then it all exploded in the mid season finale and it all felt rushed. Kick Morgans 1 hour episode out, make episode 7 what episde 8 was but 1 hour so it could end on a better note and then have episode 8 be when they kick out the walkers and end it with deaths and drama while the after the credit run shows Daryl, Abraham and Sasha being stopped by "Oh so spooky" biker gang from the Mad Max Universe.

Negan gonna suck anyway if he becomes the same nut job as in the comics.

 

It didn't take away from it, for me. My first question when they cast Negan was "who the heck is that guy?" cause I couldn't place the actor. I am not going to get excited over a casting or character until I see what they have in store for them and how it will play our because you know they never stick exactly to the script so you never really are 100% sure what is coming and getting TOO excited over it is only going to lead to disappointment if they don't put in the bits you think are coming. Honestly, though, this season has been weaker for me than all the seasons put together that came before it and I think that has to do with the change of pace and the idea that they dson't have a destination now, they juat are in this one place and it should be more terrifying that they are under this giant walker attack etc, but I am not feeling it because they spent far too many episodes on dumb shit like why Morgan is now a sad sack and whether glenn survived or not, when we all knew he would. The Glenn thing was honestly this seasons biggest mistake, followed by the waste 90 min morgan ep.

 

The whole bit with folks wanting to stick their hands in the cookie jar has bugged me for some time. So much so in ways I feel we'd be better off without 'comics,' it just spoils everything, I mean .... I can read the comics too, it's not hard, they're freely available online but I chose not to, I'd rather let the story develop itself, let it be at least a little bit of a surprise.

Now this jerk-off Negan BETTER be all the elohssa people have hyped him up to be.
See I already hate the punk, and not because he's "bad" or because he's going to do "bad" things.
I hate him because he's a punk, that's how I see this guy based on my perception.
A perception that would not have existed without all the foreshadowing.

 

I don't really think it took attention away rom the last episodes but I do think it did generate a lot of expectation for the second part of the season. Hopefully the episodes will live up to it!!

 

Someone else on here said the reason the Morgan episode was 90 minutes and the midseason finale wasn't is because AMC wanted to air "Into The Badlands" after the finale without having to make people wait until 11:30 to watch Talking Dead. That stupid show has been so much trouble..I can't believe they initially aired the Negan scene during it

 

Oh! Ergh that is so sad! Also what the hell is "Into The Badlands"? From whatI hear you guys do not really seem to like it much.

 

I haven't watched it yet but from what I gathered it's set in imperial China in the future. Guns are banned so everyone is now a samurai somehow. The main character is an Asian guy who works for a white guy with a hipster haircut. Ya..it's not going to be the next Breaking Bad no matter how much AMC tries to force it down our throats lol in fact I would consider watching it if didn't interfere with TWD