Much of the sixth season was all about teasing the audience, almost infamously so.  In many cases it was about setting up deaths that happened in the source material, then stringing the audience along by delaying those deaths or teasing at the possibility that characters would be taken out “ahead of schedule”.  Glenn’s apparent demise beside the dumpster is particularly egregious, and setting up the confrontation with Negan without a payoff (while also setting up emotional arcs for potential character deaths leading up to it) left many disillusioned.  How could the seventh season premiere possibly recreate that intensity?  As it turns out, that was an unnecessary question.  This premiere was intense enough on its own merits, thanks to a combination of delaying tactics and an entire act of unspeakable brutality.  Not since the slaughterhouse scene at Terminus has the show delivered a scenario and visuals so traumatizing and haunting.

The episode is technically all about Negan forcing Rick to recognize that he has no alternative but to bow down and comply in the wake of the “lesson” he provides via Lucille.  That’s part of the delaying tactic; the actual brutal killing of two members of Team Grimes is actually shown in a flashback, while Rick contemplates the consequences of his previous actions and Negan underscores how Rick now works for him.  Those looking for Rick to get taught a lesson after he allowed hubris to overcome caution in the sixth season got that in abundance.

The third act, the aforementioned flashback, will no doubt be one of the most debated sequences in the history of the series.  The show has done gratuitously gory and brutal things to characters before, but never in such a personal manner.  Negan beats Abraham to death first, who remains defiant to the last, but it’s ugly and horrifying.  I dare say that quite a few in the audience would have recoiled from those moments, but remained more or less detached from the enormity of it all, had it ended there.

But Daryl had to take a swing at Negan, and more than anything, this was the most efficient way for Negan to reinforce that he is a man of his word and enforces his rules.  And so there had to be another victim, and thus Glenn met his unfortunate end.  This was the death that they lingered on most, and as Negan kept beating Glenn’s head down to a total pulp, leaving nothing but a twitching body, at least some were left wondering if the show had finally gone too far.

It’s a fair point, though given Negan’s demented glee and twisted humor throughout the proceedings, it aptly underscores that this is not the kind of adversary that Team Grimes is used to overcoming.  Even the Governor, in all his madness, didn’t hit these heights of depravity.  And yet, at the same time, it’s hard not to remember that while Negan has a reputation for over-the-top violence when enforcing his rules, he has also seen dozens of his people slaughtered in the middle of the night by Rick and his people.  If the tables were turned, how much cruelty and cold-blooded vengeance would we be willing to accept out of Rick?

The difference, perhaps, is that Negan takes such apparent joy in it.  One has to wonder if he was always this unhinged, or if the long road to survival and establishing the Saviors broke him inside.  Regardless, it’s hard to sympathize with Negan when he seems to enjoy the brutality of it all with such levity.  But isn’t that the point?  Negan tells them flat out that he has sympathy for what they’re going through, but he still sees it as absolutely necessary and enjoys the hell out of it.  Rick isn’t going to be able to talk his way out of this one.  Negan is, as advertised, an endgame-level adversary, and overcoming him could very well take until the end of the series, if overcoming him is even a possibility.