"You are so gonna regret crossing me in a few minutes."

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Man, after all that time waiting. Anticipating. Wondering if the show would stick to its comic book-based guns or not. And we get a very disappointing cliffhanger. After, like, 10 minutes of very taut emotional manipulation. Following an overlong episode designed to basically do nothing but build us up toward those final 10 minutes.Now, don't get me wrong. Jeffrey Dean Morgan's Negan did not disappoint. He was great. And the casual flippancy of his character felt really exciting, even adding a nerve-racking electricity to the show. His smirk and swagger were a wonderful sight to behold. In fact, early casting rumors about Negan also had Jon Hamm in the running and I could totally see him pulling off this role too. There was a confidence and overall reasonableness to Negan's madness that was really cool.But to have the audience on the edge of their seats for so long and then NOT give them an answer? Well, that sucked. And, unfortunately, it's almost become textbook Walking Dead at this point. Many of us wondered "Would Negan kill the same character that he kills in the comics? Or will it be someone new? Will the show change things up?" The show is very close to the source material, but it does deviate for sure. Well, this ending felt like the writers and producers decided not to make up their minds yet about Negan's first victim. They just couldn't close the deal creatively. They couldn't crack this particular code yet.And even if they did, even if they do know who's dying, it's still wrong to leave the fans in the lurch like this. It's just a very unsatisfying dangle. Especially coming at the end of a season that's been much maligned for cheap tricks and clumsy manipulation.Again though, the scene itself, with Negan, was great. Especially the look on Rick's face. That pale petrified glaze of terror after he realized that he had no recourse here. He was done for. He'd lost and now someone he loved was gong to die. He'd been so cocky up until this point. So much so that this cornering basically destroyed his entire world. It was kind of magnificent.The episode itself though was, for the most part, a trudge. Once again, it involved SO MANY people leaving Alexandria. More than last week even. Good, skilled people that the town needed for defense. I get that Maggie was ill and needed medical attention, but that in itself was just another device to get people outside the walls and into the clutches of the Saviors. And so our main players hit roadblock after roadblock on their way toward eventually failing, and falling, into a trap. It all grew a little tiresome.The Carol/Morgan stuff also didn't resonate that well. Especially Carol being shot and tortured by that one remaining Savior she failed to kill last week. He just didn't seem important enough to take down someone like Carol. Or meaningful enough to deliver that sort of punishment toward her. I'll begrudgingly accept Morgan killing the dude to save Carol, but overall this wasn't the greatest material. I did like Morgan riding that horse though, echoing back to Rick in the pilot episode.I'm not sure why the show started using that cheesy looking fake blood splatter on the screen effect (which began last week with the Daryl ending), but it really undercuts the drama. Or instantly sabotages the chance for drama. The cliffhanger was bad enough, but to also have it accompanied by that victim POV shot of Negan and the blood pouring down the screen just made everything land totally wrong at the end.