are definitely in over their heads is the inconsistent depiction of the Saviors. There's even a bit of genuine, entertaining tension in seeing the group be herded toward their doom, but what trips up the slow realization that Rick and co. And while Maggie's plight is reason enough to get Rick and a handful of major characters to pile into the family RV and go on a road trip, it's still the characters doing what the plot needs them to in order to reach a prescribed and obvious ending. The scenario is repeated again in 'Last Day on Earth' (making the episode's title as dialogue the third-most repetitious element of the 90-minute journey), but this time there is a more legitimate reason for characters to leave the safety of Alexandria, instead of sheer hotheadedness or in response to a hasty character overhaul – the origins of which have yet to be fully explained.
As such, viewers were left with an episode like last week's ' East' that again toyed with those watching by teasing another "maybe" death after forcing half of Negan's potential victims to walk directly into harm's way. But once it was clear the season could (or would) only end with Negan's grand entrance, it also became clear everything leading up to that moment could only be of minimal importance, as whatever happened to these characters (beyond falling victim to a cheap, meaningless death), or what ever choices they made (no matter how foolish or out of character they were) absolutely had to result in them playing right into Negan's hands. And The Walking Dead succumbed to that pressure by going all-in on that one expectation weeks ago, basically losing sight of a very interesting thread that placed Rick and his cohort in the same murky moral waters as the Saviors. There was undoubtedly a lot of pressure surrounding the arrival of Negan and the question of who was going to fall victim to his gleeful wrath. So, although the Carol and Morgan interludes were plainly already filler, nearly every interaction between Rick and the rest of the group was also reduced to a deliberate attempt to delay for time and stretch things out until that moment when Negan takes his swing. Anyone watching knows nothing of real consequence will happen until the leather-clad, scarf-lover oozes his way onto the screen.
With all that going for it, and with all that expectation being built in, it's difficult to see how anyone would think 'Last Day on Earth' needed to be a circuitous 90-minute episode where Rick runs his group into slightly more impressive roadblocks, while a tangential narrative involving Morgan and Carol continually cuts the tension of the A-plot. Knowing someone was going to die at the end of the season was the worst-kept secret in television because of the immense benefit it was to the show and to AMC to all but ensure that Negan's arrival would become seared into the brains of those watching by doing the one thing that The Walking Dead can reliably fall back on in order to be memorable.
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