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Walking Dead 7 premiere: Yes, but was it art?

Written by Tashi from the blog Tashi's TV on 25 Oct 2016
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I survived!!! I can't believe I made it through the shocking, horrific, terrifying, offensive, insane MADNESS of Monday's Walking Dead 7 premiere but I did. I'm shaking just talking about it. Trembling. My feet and hands still sweaty.

Oh dearest reader - how does one possibly begin to explain the feelings that erupted through it? I was fuming with rage by the end of Negan's brutality and hated the show for putting me through it. I hated him, the series, the creators and even went so far as to say that I'll never watch again.

And then... Negan walked away, leaving our heroes battered, desperate and broken and there was no ways I could desert them. NOT after seven years. Not after knowing the sickening nightmare they've been through.

There were moments were I couldn't even conceptualise what they were feeling because it would have driven me out of my mind completely. Like Maggie's response to Glenn - it was too mentally dangerous to even begin to imagine how she felt.

"Why?!" I kept asking myself in my mind. "WHY am I putting myself through this?! Why is the show putting me through this??  "

Afterwards I realised it was to break me. Like Rick was broken.

Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman and series writer Scott M. Gimple were guests on the Talking Dead aftershow and revealed that this was part of the plan. That they had to make it convincing that Rick was utterly broken. They said that they started the process of writing the episode by asking: what would break him?

And then proceeded to destroy him and us. So heavy, so extreme, so pornographically horrific and such a commentary on the human condition. Negan's vile and utter evil, the psychological violence he inflicted before the slaughter, the gut wrenching dehumanisation of our heroes, the impact of absolute power in the hands of a madman. And it's not even fiction, it's real, it's happened with the Nazis.

While Negan had his guns pointed at everyone's heads with Rick clasping the axe over Carl's arm, I kept thinking: "It's happened before in real life and will happen again!". It's exactly the same type of violence that the Nazis inflicted on Jews people.

Ultimately the episode was the strongest, loudest, angriest statement about humanity and the world that I've seen on TV. Ever. In my life. Which makes it a work of art. I took hours to calm down but lying in bed I realised that art pushes the boundaries into the obscene to deliver an influential impact and this is exactly what Walking Dead did.

RIP Abraham and Glenn.
 

Shows in this post: The Walking Dead

Channels in this post: FOX Africa



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