What I Saw: The Walking Dead Season 7 Finale

Busy couple of weeks! Lots of OT at work but things should be more relaxed (hopefully) these next couple of weeks. I will play the usual catch-up game as I have still kept up with some of the shows despite the radio silence of this blog. I saw a funny but slightly messed up meme (aren’t they all, though?) about the United Airlines incident which I shall share with you before continuing on:

What I Watched:

The Walking Dead Season 7 Finale “The First Day of the Rest of Your Life”
Things finally come to a head with this finale. Sasha is a prisoner of war and Negan takes the fight to the survivors in Alexandria. Sasha relives a memory with Abraham while she prepares a surprise for Negan. The survivors have everything prepped and ready for the Saviors after “acquiring” weapons from Oceanside and getting their reinforcements from the garbage collectors. From there on, it is all out war.

What I Saw:

First up is the storytelling element of the episode. The pacing in this episode was better than the beginning of the season, and really the pacing of the last half steadily improved as it went on. The scenes between Sasha and Abraham were a little difficult at first to figure out what/when they were, and at first I thought it was a sort of hallucination Sasha was having like she was meeting him in heaven or something. But right at the end they kind of cleared up that it was a memory right before they embarked on his yet unknown death march. The last 20 minutes were really well paced out, with a good build up but an albeit rather cliché climax with the Kingdom showing up at the exact right moment to save Carl.

As a side note, I really did like how Rick kept his badass persona even when Negan threatened to kill Carl. He knew no matter what happened, no matter who was lost in the fight, Negan needed to be stopped for the better of the whole.
Which actually brings me to the deeper meaning within the episode: it was all about what you are willing to sacrifice for those you care about. This may be a recurring theme, but it is an important one in the post-zompacalyptic world they live in. People have to make the choice everyday to not only look out for themselves, but also figure out exactly how much should one sacrifice for the good of the community. For the Saviors it is less about sacrifice and more about order and following the rules than caring about those in your community.
We see these two sides reflected in Sasha and Eugene. They both were given a choice about what exactly they should do to help Alexandria. First there is Eugene, who embraced the role Negan has given him and he decides to try and talk down Alexandria to prevent the war because, in his mind, that is the best solution. He is not willing to put himself at risk at all in order to save his friends or community. Rather he would rather stay safe and he tries to convince himself they will be safer if they surrender too. Then there is Sasha who reviewed her choice in the memory with Abraham. They talked about possibly going on of their own and letting the people of Alexandria take care of themselves now that there was relative peace at that time. By the end of those flashbacks she comes to the conclusion that she would never forgive herself for leaving Maggie by herself while she is pregnant. In the present she decides to make the ultimate sacrifice to get the jump on Negan:

In conclusion, the finale was a really enjoyable episode which finished up the March to War story arch in the comics and set us up with the beginning of the All Out War comic arch. I think most fans (myself included) would’ve rioted if they didn’t have at least some kind of action in the finale; especially if they left us with another cliffhanger like the last season. What did you guys think of the finale? What choice would you guys have made, Eugene’s, Sasha’s, or somewhere in between? Let me know in the comments!