You’re a genius. It would really give the option he spoke of. Which would certainly turn the tone and course.
We don’t know what season 1 Negan would have been like. But for years we’ve had jokes about the “Ricktatorship,” and we just saw him convince his group to go on an expedition to murder people he didn’t even know while they slept. We have the context for what happened to Rick. Maybe Negan started out as an accountant or something in the old world, and when this started he ran into larger numbers of terrible people sooner than Rick did and came to the “pre-emptive” strike conclusion sooner, and was able to build a bigger following. Maybe there’s an incident (such as Darryl and Dwight) where he showed a group some mercy and they took advantage or it came back to bite him somehow, and so somehow the “kill one right off the bat” philosophy would seem justified, or for the greater good somehow. But at this point to think that Rick’s not himself doing things that make him a butcher, psycho, and manipulative/mind-controlling dictator seems kind of disingenuous in my opinion. He was practically Andy Taylor (though with a big-ass gun) at the beginning. From “we don’t kill people!” to “let’s sneak in while they’re asleep and knife 'em in the eyeball.” He doesn’t have a baseball bat gimmick, but the writers were making it pretty damn clear that Rick was starting to think he could do anything, and just go and take whatever he wanted. Negan was just a little faster to get there, and had bigger numbers. Maybe smarter too.
Well said. The moral tenets people think they believe in can’t really be applied to this world.
Some folks read the comic books.
I think he taught Middle School.
That would explain a lot.
Actually…
[spoiler]I did read them right up until Negan first appeared and clubbed Glenn. At that point, the series had reached a sufficient level of pointless brutality without the saving grace of black humour that I gave up on it, so I didn’t actually know that fate of comic-Negan. The mention of his imprisonment for life reminded me that TV-Morgan had been building a jail cell, as yet unused. I assume if the two end up connected, the last episode showing Negan as a free man will start with a “Previously on The Walking Dead” clip showing Morgan building the cell, just to remind the audience that they have a cell.
That said, the notion of jailing Negan for life strikes me as yet another colossally dumb idea, barring a convincing explanation that it was a necessary compromise to integrate his former followers into a new, larger, less brutal community.[/spoiler]
It would play to the adage that we have the morals we can afford. The richer the society, the more ‘moral’ it is.
Kirkman was referring to the real world. The world of the viewers/fans. Many shows come and go. Even the pros can’t tell which shows will catch on with the viewers. They can only hope it’s their show.
Kirkman seems to believe there would be a large fan base for a Negan-type anti-hero show. I’m sure some viewers will tune in to watch Negan and the Saviors kill one member of every new group they meet, steal their shit, and send them out to farm, build, claim, steal, or murder in the name of Negan. I don’t believe a show like that could be a major hit. just my 2 cents
I would whack him as quickly as possible lest he be rescued and start shit all over again.
It would be nice to see him as a quadruple amputee, crawling about begging for food, though.
I don’t think that’s what he was saying. I think he’s saying that if we’d followed Negan from the beginning as we did Rick, we would see how he got from his pre-ZA self to a bat-wielding warlord and fans would follow him the same as they follow Rick.
ETA: That was to doorhinge.
Yes, I believe that is exactly what Kirkman was implying.
Once the Negan character begins his murderous introductions to new groups and stealing their shit, I find it difficult to believe that such a show could hold a large enough audience to warrant renewal for another season.
There is always a newer and shinier show waiting to take the place of the shows which either don’t draw a minimum number of viewers and advertiser bucks, or lose too many viewers and advertiser bucks. Six seasons of How I Met Your Negan? I don’t think so. IMHO, of course.
Is there really though? TWD is by far the highest rated show on basic cable. Nothing else really comes close, currently.
If they began smashing brain matter out of living (at the moment) people every week, Mama Plant won’t let me watch it.
Coming very late to the conversation here, but I have to say the finale was utterly disappointing and frustrating. The previous episode ended with a very dramatic cliffhanger, and for the next week we all wondered “Who got shot? If it was Daryl, is he dead? What happened to Michonne? What did the burned face guy mean with those words right at the end?”
And then we get no payoff. Not until very late in a 90-minute episode do we learn that Daryl was shot in the shoulder and survived. Instead we watch people drive an RV around for a while.
It’s getting harder to suspend disbelief with this show. Why didn’t they shoot at the tightly grouped bad guys standing in the road with their weapons at ease? Why did the bad guys set fire to the log blockade that obviously required a great deal of time and effort to construct?
The long, long speech by Negan was unbearably boring and tedious. We got the idea after about two minutes.
And then it ends with essentially the same cliffhanger as the previous episode? Someone is hurt but we don’t know who and blood splatters on the camera. Really? You’re going to do exactly the same cliffhanger and blood effect two episodes in a row?
If it spatters, it matters…
I guess.
The Walking Dead combined production (actors, writers, directors, extras, special effects, makeup, etc) has become a hit show but would the Walkin’ With Negan Hour be a big hit? With a different cast? With different scripts?
OTOH, Fear The Walking Dead is drawing an audience but they’ve been riding the coattails of TWD. Personally, I’m not interested in any of the characters on FTWD. I’ve been hoping the show will provide some info about the beginning/cause of this particular ZA.
The burned guy is named Dwight, damn his eyes.
Suspend disbelief? It is a show about zombies.
They burned the blockade to show how manly they are.
Thank you, Johnny Cochrane.