Season 7, Episode 4, ‘Service’

This week on “The Walking Dead,” Rick and the rest of the Alexandrians were forced to reckon with the reality that a crude brute they once underestimated was now in charge.

If the season premiere was about the shock of Negan’s arrival, Sunday was about the dawning awareness of what his dominion over the colony will look and feel like, day to day. It made for a mostly demoralizing hour, one packed with threats and bullying from goons like Dwight, back in full heel mode, as the Alexandrians came to grips with their new overlord.

“Let me put this as clearly as I can,” Rick told his people in his makeshift concession speech. “I’m not in charge anymore. Negan is.”

The episode also veered into accidental allegory, as the triumph of the swaggering Negan, shot months ago and based on comic issues from 2012, at times seemed to align with current events.