The Walking Dead: 10 Best Episodes
9. Last Day On Earth (S6 E16)
The ending of this episode makes it the most divisive in Walking Dead history, but until the final shots this is a masterpiece in making an impact from Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan.
His introduction to the series is unfairly tarnished by season six’s controversial cliffhanger, because Negan is absolutely terrifying as the baseball-bat swinging, one-liner machine.
In familiar TWD style, much of the second half of the season is focussed on building to a violent and dramatic finale, which showrunner Scott Gimple definitely delivered on, albeit with the caveat of there not being a payoff because the reveal of Negan’s victim is held back.
Negan was very fresh at this point, so we were happy for him to dominate the screen in a way that became wearisome in season seven. His monologue in Last Day on Earth was pitched perfectly between monster and joker, a balance which has not always been struck since.
To complement the writing, the superbly edited Eeny Meeny Miny Moe sequence was sadistically playful as viewers begged for their favourite character to be spared.
The cliffhanger was initially very effective as over 17 million Americans tuned in for the season seven premiere, but the show soon lost the momentum this great episode gave it.