The Walking Dead Season 7 Premiere: 4 Ups & 6 Downs From 'The Day Will Come When You Won't Be'

2. Really Dragging It Out

The Walking Dead Negan Rick
Gene Page/AMC

When the episode started, a part of me honestly wondered whether something had gone wrong. Have I missed a bit? Has the broadcast f**ked up? What is this?

After the recap, the episode gets underway with Rick telling Negan he's going to kill him, and the big bad hauling the group's leader off into his van - a scene that was released in advance, although we didn't know its placement in the episode then.

After that, we've got Negan continuously telling Rick that he's in charge, the show trying to make us think that he might actually cut Rick's hand off, and montages of every character that isn't Rick to try and keep us on our toes about who died, as if they hadn't done enough of that already.

By the time we actually get to see the deaths take place, after replaying the whole 'eeny meeny miny mo' setup, we're a quarter of the way through the episode. After six months of waiting because of a ridiculous cliffhanger, for the show to open on anything that wasn't the death was stupid; for it to keep dragging it out so long was an insult.

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NCTJ-qualified journalist. Most definitely not a racing driver. Drink too much tea; eat too much peanut butter; watch too much TV. Sadly only the latter paying off so far. A mix of wise-old man in a young man's body with a child-like wonder about him and a great otherworldly sensibility.