We are marching toward the finale of The Walking Dead season six, and with only two episodes left, it seems pretty clear that we’re going to see Negan’s arrival at last, very soon.
Negan arrives with a bang in the comics, but in order to delve into that deeper, I’m going to need to throw up some old-fashioned spoiler warnings.
Alright? Okay.
All comic readers know that when Negan shows up, he’s in a murdering mood, and ends up beating Glenn to death with his barbed-wire wrapped baseball bat, Lucille. All season long, comic readers have been taking bets on whether Negan would show up and actually kill Glenn, or if another cast member might be on the chopping block instead. What’s clear is that someone is going to die in the finale (or maybe in next season’s premiere), but question is…who?
There have been many theories floating around all year, but last week something happened that really makes it seem like the showrunners are leaning in a particular direction. And it’s one I would have never predicted even a week ago, before the events of the last episode.
Last week was one of the strangest episodes of The Walking Dead yet, not because anything particularly outlandish happened, death, mayhem, the usual, but how it all went down was pretty unusual. It was one of the only times I can remember where there was a deliberate head fake with the set-up for a major death in the comics.
What I mean by that is that we have been approaching a point in the comics where Abraham meets his end. He and Eugene venture off on a scouting mission (to find a potential bullet-making factory) and in the middle of a conversation, *thwap* Abraham takes an arrow to the eye, finishes his thought, and falls down dead.
The show set up this situation to a tee, and as soon as I saw Abraham and Eugene walking out of Alexandria together, I turned to my wife and said “Welp, Abraham’s going to die,” (and she said “Which one is he again?”)
But as we all know, despite this purposeful mirroring of the comics, it was actuallyDenise who was killed exactly how Abraham was supposed to die. Talking in the open, arrow in the eye, dead within seconds.
Why they killed Denise is a different conversation. She’s not exactly a huge player in the comics, and has changed quite a bit from that version of her (she was dating Heath, not Tara, for one). But really, the question is why did they spare Abraham?
You’re all smart, so I’m sure you see where I’m going with this.
My new theory? Negan is going to kill Abraham instead of Glenn. Instead of Daryl. Instead of anyone else. This is why he was spared, and why his exact comic death was pawned off to a “lesser” character.
The groundwork for this has already been laid. Abraham was involved in the nuking of the motorcycle recon group, the assault on one of Negan’s bases, and the firefight that ensued in the woods after Denise’s death. That’s every major Savior confrontation so far. Granted, Negan has motive to kill lots of people (Daryl was also there for all three things), but Abraham seems to be making more of an impression than most.
And the show has been giving him a lot of screentime lately. Usually the TWD does that with second-string characters (ie, not the ultra-core group) when they’re setting them up to die. I thought Abraham would die last week, with the arrow, but now it seems it might be next week, with Negan.
In the comic, Negan ends up capturing a big chunk of the group, and lines up Maggie, Glenn, Sophia, Carl, Rick, Heath, Michonne and Carl. He announces he’ll kill one of them to make an example for the rest of the group.
He says he doesn’t want to be racist, ruling out Glenn, Michonne and Heath. He’s fascinated by Carl’s injury, and says he doesn’t want to make Rick a martyr, since he’s the leader. Maggie and Sophia (who might be Enid, if the show does this) are a “mother and child” he doesn’t want to kill. So eventually he literally goes “eenie-meenie-miney-moe” and lands on Glenn.
If they make this situation play out the same way, only now Abraham is in the mix, he is white, not the main leader, not a woman, and yet a dangerous soldier. Daryl would qualify in that role too, which is why I’ve been so scared for him, but now Abraham will still be alive when Negan gets there, so it could be him instead. Using Negan’s twisted logic, it very well could be Abraham who is the “right” person to kill, in his eyes.
Why do I describe this in my title as a “win-win” for the show?
It’s a win for comic readers, because Abraham dies within two episodes of when he was supposed to, yet they still get to be surprised by a turn that wasn’t in the comics.
It’s a win for show watchers, because they wouldn’t have to be yanked into another situation where Glenn dies, for real this time, after the shenanigans the show pulled in the first half of the season.
It’s a win for everyone, because even though Abraham has his admirers, he is not at the level of fan-favorites like Glenn, Carol or especially Daryl, who would have otherwise all been in serious danger if Abraham had died last week and was not an option to be offered up for execution.
The other reason I believe in my own Abraham theory is that fundamentally, The Walking Dead does want to please its audience. We talk all the time about how shows like The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones are willing to kill anyone and “no one is safe,” but that really isn’t true. There is a limit. If George RR Martin kills Daenerys or Tyrion, for example, before the very end of the series, I’ll eat the seventh book. It’s the same reason (GoT spoilers) Jon Snow can’t actually be dead, but it’s okay for Catelyn and Rob Stark to die. There are major character deaths, and there are “major” character deaths.
In The Walking Dead’s case, Rick and Carl are going to be off limits indefinitely, but I also do not believe that the show wants to kill off Glenn (as that would anger everyone after the dumpster fiasco) nor do they want to kill Carol or Daryl, two other “originals” where their death would create a massive hole in the show and cause at least some devoted fans to probably literally have breakdowns. And part of this is a branding thing on some level. I mean, Daryl’s face is the tile image for the damn Walking Dead mobile game, for crying out loud. He’s an icon, at this point.
Abraham isn’t necessarily the “safest” pick. He’s still a longtime character and a prominent cast member, and his death would carry more weight that relative cop-outs like Negan killing Heath or Aaron or Spencer or other third-string characters. Even Morgan would be a relatively lame pick at this point.
And yet, I’m not sure Abraham would go far enough either. Negan is the single most evil villain in the entire history of this series. By the end of his arc, he makes the Governor look like Eugene. When he showed up and killed Glenn, it was, and still is, the single most shocking moment of the comics. I would worry that if he kills Abraham and does not kill an ultra-fan favorite like Glenn, Carol or Daryl, some of that weight will be lost. Abraham ultimately would be a compromise pick. A sacrifice that would hurt, but not hurt too badly, given that the top five fan-favorite characters on the show would all remain alive and well. But if Negan showed up and killed say, Daryl, #1 on the list, thatwould make a statement and be one of the most memorable moments in TV history.
This is sort of fascinating turn if this is really what AMC has been planning. At this point, I’m convinced the Abraham theory is going to pan out, but the show has surprised me many times, so I obviously can’t say for sure. Otherwise, it seems very strange that Abraham dodged his own death for a reason that isn’t a set-up for this.
I’ll have more thoughts on the pending Negan execution next week, but for now, this is the theory I’m rolling with.
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