Guest Blog by Robert Mills
The Walking Dead Season 7, Episode 15
"Something They Need"
FIVE Points from 7.15
**BEWARE Spoilers in our Discussion**
Follow @SUPERflixMoviesThe last episode before the season 7 finale was on Sunday night. The players are moving into their final positions before we see the outright war between Alexandria/Hilltop/Kingdom and The Saviors. This was a complex episode filled with betrayals and shifting alliances/allegiances as everybody tries to decide which side they want to be on when the bullets start to fly next Sunday night. Let’s look at 5 pivotal developments in “Something The Need” the penultimate episode in season 7.
Likeable Negan
Sure, Negan beat in Abraham and Glenn’s heads earlier this season. Sure, he’s an absolute dictator who demands total obedience. But, Negan is so darn likeable. Yet again, Negan shows that he has rules and there are things that are unacceptable this week. Sasha was about to get raped in her cell when Negan showed up to stop it. Not only did he stop it, but he killed the member of his group that broke the rules. His speech with Sasha about her ‘lady nuts’ and his pitch to get her on his side was one of the more likeable Negan moments of this season. What Negan doesn’t know is that he wasn’t successful in swaying Sasha to his side, but his charismatic nature continues to play well with viewers. So, are viewers starting to shift their allegiances away from wanting Negan to pay the ultimate price for his actions at the beginning of the season? Has Negan’s charisma started to sway viewers to his side? It worked on Eugene apparently, speaking of that…
The Coward Eugene
Eugene continues to give away more and more of his apparent true intentions as the season wears on. At first, nobody really believed that Eugene could really be interested in joining up with the Saviors. In this week’s events, we see him interacting with a captive Sasha. Sasha makes a plea to Eugene to get the knife so that she can kill herself in the cell instead of facing life with Negan in captivity. Instead of providing the knife, Eugene presents her with one of the ‘suicide pills’ from a few episodes ago. Eugene is no dummy, he knows that presenting her with a knife would a) show that someone is clearly working with Sasha inside and b) give Sasha a potential weapon with which to attack Negan. Eugene clearly gives away his position of wanting to protect Negan by not giving Sasha a weapon. Eugene knows that he’s a coward (much like Gregory...and more on THAT in a moment) so he has aligned himself with what he thinks is the powerful team that is going to survive the coming war. Is Eugene really in so deep with The Saviors that he’s not coming back around? Is he really so weak that he will default to whomever is the strongest? Was his ‘friendship’ with Abraham nothing more than a defense mechanism to make sure he was with someone who he felt could keep him safe?
Weasley Gregory
Boy, that Gregory...such a great guy. He’s out there trying to keep a lookout and protect Maggie. He’s out there offering an olive branch of peace and cooperation. That is, until he takes that knife out of it’s sheath. Gregory fidgets with the knife while standing behind a defenseless Maggie. If only he had some of Sasha’s “lady nuts”, he’d get the job done. But, Gregory is a total coward. You see him try to man up and kill a walker, but he almost gets taken down in the process. Maggie has to rush to save his life after killing her own walker. So, how has Gregory managed to stay alive for 2 plus years in the apocalypse without taking a life? Will Gregory ever take the action against Maggie? Can he psyche himself up enough to get it done?
Tara The Betrayer
Tara finally turns on the women’s colony at Oceanside by betraying their location and their supply of weaponry to Rick in order to complete the deal with the team at Jadis’ Junkyard. More and more, the theme of the season continues to be taking action and choosing a side. As we saw with Morgan and Carol a few weeks ago, there are no bystanders any more. Tara has decided that the alliance with a group willing to fight far outweighs the need to protect the privacy of Oceanside. Rick offers the opportunity to keep the guns and fight with the Alliance, but Oceanside ultimately rejects it. So, Rick and the Alexandrians leave with the guns on their way to seal the deal with Jadis. Does this mean the end for Oceanside? Is this another example of showing that standing by and not fighting will ultimately mean death?
Dwight The Turncoat
The episode closes with Rick and Co returning back to Alexandria after getting the guns. You can rest assured that they’re not going to take all those guns to the meeting with Jadis. Rick is hedging his bets after Jadis has shown to be someone who is willing to change the terms of the deal. Who’s waiting in the jail when they get back? It’s Dwight! (or Wight after Eugene took out the D) Dwight has finally had enough of Negan and pushed himself into position with who he thinks the winning side is going to be. The winds have shifted and lots of characters are being moved into new positions.
So, is all of this how it’s going to go down next week? Do you trust everybody’s motives?
Is Eugene really in tight with Negan or are the showrunners playing the viewers in order to make us believe it like Eugene is selling it to make Negan believe it? Can Dwight really be trusted? Have we seen the last of Oceanside? Will the Oceansiders end up being overrun by the zombies we saw by the tanker at the beginning of the episode?
Next week is the last Walking Dead until October. You can bet that there are going to be casualties next weekend. Who’s going to be showing up on Talking Dead after next week’s finale? Sasha? Dwight? Gregory? Maggie? Is there going to be a very unexpected death of a major character that we haven’t seen coming yet?