11 Glorious Moments From 'The Walking Dead' Mid-Season Finale
Even by the standards of The Walking Dead, Season 7 has been rough. Ever since it kicked off with the long-awaited, horrifying deaths of Abraham and Glenn-a scene so divisive that even some long-time fans swore off the show-things have been enduringly bleak, with Rick and his group living a hollowed-out, numb kind of existence under the thumb of Negan and his Saviors.
A fandom can't live on grim tragedy alone, no matter how great the performances are, and after last night's mid-season finale, it seems reassuringly as though the writers know that. Despite its sizeable body count, "Hearts Still Beating" is overall a pretty glorious gift for long-suffering fans, packed with moments of character growth and emotional payoff we've been waiting weeks on end to see. Here are the 11 standout moments from a fine mid-season finale.
1) Carol's return.
At. Last. And it doesn't look as though she's shacked up with Ezekiel-instead, she's living that hermit life in her cozy little woodland house, until Richard from The Kingdom interrupts her with a war proposal. He wants Carol and Morgan to convince Ezekiel to attack the Saviors, but both of them refuse, determined not to get involved with any more killing. It's significant, though, that they still don't know about the deaths of Glenn and Abraham, which I have to assume would be a pretty major game-changer, at least for Carol.
The best moment from this whole saga? "Carol, I imagine that violence and fighting is something you haven't been a part of." Oh, Richard.
2). Negan shaves his beard and plays house.
I'm probably in the minority here, but I would watch several more episodes of this weird family drama in which Negan makes increasingly demented attempts to be a suburban dad. And from this we learn that Rick looks better clean-shaven (some stubble preferred), while Negan looks way, way better with a beard.
3) Spencer's gutsy ending.
Trust Negan to pull off a mind-bogglingly gruesome murder that is also an extended pun. Spencer remains the worst this week, his victory from last week giving him an inflated sense of confidence as he goes before Negan and tries to seize power from Rick. As it turns out, Negan is not even remotely impressed by Spencer spinelessly trying to usurp Rick in the latter's absence, and accuses him of "having no guts" before literally pulling out his guts. Of all the fallen favorites in this episode, Spencer, you will be missed least of all. Possibly even less than Fat Joey.
4) Maggie's ruthless pie-eating.
"Do you want a plate?" "No, I'm good." Pregnant Maggie is all of us.
5) Lucille takes a bullet for Negan.
Because when you spend seven episodes carrying around a penis metaphor that blatant, you're really just asking for a just-as-blatant emasculation metaphor. Sure, the cut-to-black as Rosita shoots at Negan was kind of a cop-out-and having the bullet miss him entirely is even more so. But there's no way Negan is getting killed off this early in the season, and having Rosita take a big chunk out of Lucille was almost as satisfying, hitting Negan right where it hurts (except not literally).
Unfortunately, poor Olivia paid the price, because as we know, a big part of what makes Negan's punishments terrifying is their randomness. RIP, Olivia-at least you got the slap the hell out of Negan before the end.
6) These boots are made for stalking.
Not so much a standout moment as a standout mystery: who was the mysterious booted figure watching Rick and Aaron raid supplies on the houseboat? In the post-credits scene, we see the same unidentified person watching Gabriel through binoculars as he keeps watching at the Alexandria gate.
7) Eugene's ending.
For once, Negan decides to actually kill the person responsible, as opposed to somebody near them at random. This was a pretty heartbreaking moment, but also a nice counterpoint to the scene from last week, where Rosita calls Eugene weak and cowardly. At least he got one final chance to prove her wrong.
8. Rick and Michonne's most romantic scene yet.
Yep, I'm going that far. This tops even the moment where they first got together last season, because of the desperate emotion underpinning every word Michonne says here. After returning to Alexandria, Michonne gives Rick an infinitely superior version of Aaron's "hearts still beating" speech from earlier in the episode (sorry, Aaron):
"We're still alive, Rick. So much has happened, so much that we shouldn't have lived through. But in spite of it, or maybe because of it, we did. We're still here. The two of us. We're still standing, and we're gonna keep standing, so what do we do with that? How do we make that mean something? We're the ones who get things done… We're the ones who live."
She knows that they're outnumbered, having staked out the Saviors' camp, and she tells Rick they have to fight anyway: "We can do this, but only if we do this." Rick, who was basically a human heart eyes emoji throughout the whole scene, tells her that he agrees. And then they share a deep, tearful kiss against the wall, and it. Is. Everything.
9) Rick and Daryl's reunion.
Just in case your heart wasn't already thoroughly wrung out by the above scene, this oughta do it. Daryl, who's finally escaped from his hellish captivity at the Sanctuary, makes it back to Alexandria, and Rick runs up to him and they both cry and hug for a really long time. I'm not even gonna call it a bro-hug, because there was hair-touching. (Side note: when I looked at Twitter trends around midnight last night, "Rick and Daryl" was the only Walking Dead-related trend still going strong.)
10) Rick gets his stolen gun back.
Another blatant masculinity metaphor, sure, but as a symbol of Rick taking his power back and preparing for war next season, this was pretty damn satisfying.
11) An actual happy ending.
Okay, admittedly, it was a happy ending tinged with the overwhelming feeling that war is coming soon, kind of like The King's Speech. But still, seeing everybody reunite at Alexandria after so many episodes of being scattered was so cathartic. After the grimness of this season, we were long overdue for a montage which is literally just everybody hugging and smiling. Let's all save GIFs of these moments for when the bleak bloodshed begins again next season.
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