The Walking Dead Season 8 Finale: Every Dumb Moment, Ranked Bad To Worst

7. The Conveniently Decorated Tree

This is more of an annoying little contrivance rather than a major character or story mistake, but what he hell was the deal with that tree emblazoned with stain-glass windows just hanging out in the middle of a field? Not only does its presence reduce the already-inane climactic fight between Rick and Negan to a game of peek-a-boo as the two chase each other round the stump, but the windows themselves are the most hamfisted way of giving Rick a one-up on his enemy.

With the two out of ammo and with Negan being the only person wielding a weapon, it looks as though all is lost for our hero, until Rick lures his enemy into a brief change of heart and slices his throat with a shard of the glass (which I'll get to in more detail later).

It sure is surprising, and the image of a devastated Rick lying bloody against a tree as the windows hang overhead does provide a surprisingly haunting image, but there's no reason at all for this weirdly-decorated tree to be there.

Without explanation, the prop just comes across like the most contrived way to give Rick a symbolically resonant weapon to take down his villain with, or something thrown in long before the writers had to worry about making it fit with the rest of the story.