There’s an old chestnut that goes that the best villains are the ones who believe they’re the heroes of their own stories. That’s the question I have for Negan after “Sing Me a Song,” an episode of The Walking Dead that spends more time acquainting us with him and his fiefdom. There are times when it seems like he believes he’s doing a good thing here, bringing civilization back to an untamed world. There are others when it feels like he’s just enjoying living in his own twisted version of Disneyland. It’s unclear which version of that he really believes, or is even aware of, but that ambiguity helps make him TWD’s most interesting villain yet.
“Sing Me a Song” reaffirms Negan as a fundamentally bad person, but also one who is full of contradictions, who seems to live by various principles (or at least rationalizes that he does), but whose actions often conflict with them.
For example, one of the things we learn about Negan here is that he has an almost fanatical devotion to the rules. Those rules conveniently never result in any harm to him, but he posits himself not as some sort of tyrannical dictator, but rather as a diligent steward, simply enforcing the previously established, well-understood rules of the road. Nevermind that Negan himself very likely created those rules, or that they’re inevitably tilted in his favor, the leader of The Saviors sees himself as merely dutifully abiding by the laws that are best for everyone.
There’s social commentary in that and the idea that people in power miss the underlying inequities of systems that just so happen to benefit them, while hiding behind the notion that they’re simply following the rules, regardless of whether those rules reinforce that system. But even taken purely as text and not subtext, it becomes unclear whether Negan truly believes what he spouts to his cowed masses or not.
Because there’s times when Negan seems to buy his own lines. We finally learn the origin of the term “Saviors” as used by his group. It’s founded on the idea that they are saving civilization through their intervention. It’s not hard to imagine Negan viewing himself as the embodiment of Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan, preventing anarchy and protecting the harshest realities of the state of nature by creating a threat of force to keep everyone following the law, for the benefit of all. He is, in some respects, a slanted realization of that view of the role of government, one where it holds a monopoly on the use of force, to keep people working for a collective good rather than an individual good, gone more than a little mad. That sunny side of that system is what Negan preaches to his people -- that the rules, which he is so committed to enforcing, make life better for everyone.
But it also works well as propaganda, perfectly tailored to keep people lower on the totem pole in line, either out of a fear of what happens when the rules are broken, or because they truly internalize the idea that this is the proper organization of people and civilization. So it’s hard to tell whether Negan genuinely sees himself as a benevolent leader doing what’s necessary to keep everyone safe, or if it’s a useful fiction that keeps the gravy train that works to his benefit in perpetual motion, if he even knows himself. Perhaps it’s even a little of each, with Negan believing the way of life he presents as what’s best for everyone on balance, while suitably content to gloss over the rougher edges of that philosophy to continue his life in the lap of relative luxury.
Part of what points the needle in the direction of propaganda, however, is the fact that the qualities he respects and admires run entirely contrary to his Hobbesian perspective. Negan positions himself as the ultimate enforcer, someone who represents the barbed-wire carrying arm of the law, but he has the most appreciation for and the most interest in the people who stand up to him, the ones who, in effect, break his rules.
That’s why he takes in Daryl after getting punched in the face by him, claiming that he’ll make a good soldier. And that’s why, in this episode, he starts trying to groom Carl rather than taking him out after he engineers a bold but somewhat cavalier assassination attempt against Negan. Negan respects people who aren’t afraid, who are badasses, who stand up in the face of pure, merciless force and are undeterred. He won’t tolerate it -- he can’t or, to his mind, in his rule-bound system the whole thing would fall apart -- but damnit if he doesn’t respect it.
So he is a man who both puts the rules above all else, or at least feigns that idea, whether with his rank-and-file workers or his “wives,” but gravitates toward the people who are not cowed by them, who stand up to the system he has so painstakingly and so brutally established out of the factory we see in gross for the first time.
That complexity comes through most clearly in Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s performance. I’ve talked about that aspect of Negan a bit already this season, but it bears repeating. The thing that elevates Negan from the other scores of mostly underwhelming antagonists this show has featured is not just the way the character and his dialogue are written. In other hands, Negan could easily be simply too much. (And, to be fair, sometimes he is.)
But Morgan brings a magnetism to the role, managing to cycle through what appears to be genuine joy, quickly rising anger, feigned benevolence, and slimy, chipper menace, oftentimes all within the same scene. Like the season premiere, “Sing Me a Song” frequently feels like a showcase for Morgan’s performance as Negan, letting his scenes breathe, not only to milk the tension as Negan shows Carl around, introducing him and the audience to The Savior’s headquarters, but to put the talents of the actor front and center.
Which is why, perhaps, every time we cut away from Savior HQ to check in on the other survivors out in the world, it’s not quite as compelling. But there’s a common thread the rest of those stories, something that unites the mini-plots for folks we haven’t seen in a little while thematically, even as they seem a little disjointed. They center on the people who are willing to act, the kind of people whom Negan seems to respect, even as he puts even more strictures and shows of force the tamp down on such things.
We see Michonne (in a delightful homage to The Wire) whistling as she constructs a roadblock, commandeers a car, and instructs her hostage to take her to Negan. We see Rosita browbeat Eugene into making her a bullet to the same end, arguing that he is weak and never really acts. While Rick’s and Spencer’s parts of the episode seem more like table-setting for events down the line, there’s a thematic throughline centering on the idea of who’s willing to stand up and do something, even in the face of Negan’s harshly-enforced strictures.
The result is an episode that sets up a “Who Shot Mr. Burns”-esque sort of tension around Negan. So many people have a reason and a plan to kill him. Michonne is on her way. Rosita has her bullet. Daryl is angry and now loose. Jesus has made his way into the Saviors’ compound. Carl already tried once and is at Negan’s side. Dwight is forced to watch Negan kiss his wife, and seems to be having second thoughts about this arrangement. And when the occasionally impulsive Rick returns to Alexandria, he will see this ghoul of a man holding his young daughter. There are enough folks out there ready to get revenge, ready to stop him and all of this, that there’s intrigue in what seems like an inevitable reckoning, and the question of who will make the attempt.
But before that happens, we have to spend a little more time getting to know this man, trying to understand how he thinks. Is he, at least in his own mind, a hero? At times, he seems to think so. He’s not shy about the fact that this new order has been good to him, but when he makes his little pitch to Carl, he talks about remaking the world, making it better. Negan is a man who takes what he wants, but who puts on the airs of respectability, who justifies his particular brand of feudalism as some kind of justice, some manner of improvement on the way things used to be.
Still he toys with people. It’s unclear whether what appear to be occasional moments of compassion or restraint from him are legitimate, calculated, manipulative, or self-delusions. We know this much about Negan -- he is a terrible person, who has managed to concoct a method of organizing and taking from people that manages to sustain a miniature empire and feather his own nest, at the cost of many other people’s hard work and a great deal of bloodshed.
But what we don’t know, and the question for which “Sing Me a Song” offers many conflicting indications, is whether he knows he’s a terrible person, baldly reveling in the unchecked power and unbounded hedonism he enjoys under the pretense of good governance, or if he truly believes that he is making this new world a better place, showing kindness and mercy where he can, and only reluctantly doling out punishments to preserve the system when he must. Negan may be the tyrant with no delusions about the fig leaf he uses to legitimize his rule, or he may be a different sort of villain, the kind who genuinely thinks they’re the moral champion of the story, as a day of reckoning grows nearer and nearer.
I loved this episode. Just disappointed by Negan not forcing Carl to cut his hair.
When Negan was with Judith I was very fearful
Still lovin' all Jesus' ninja tricks!
Jeffrey Dean Morgan is killing that role, just superb acting from his behalf. He has to get some big award nominations next year!
I'm tired of the haters comments, if you don't like the show why you keep watching and complaining every damn episode??
If Negan were killed or held hostage in some way I cant help but wonder who would come to his aide. The more we see the more his rule of fear seems to be the only thing keeping him around.
No one seems to really back him up in these scenes. The people have become sheep.
Totally agree with the other guy, it is hard to believe the story of that particular bad guy, I mean, I get the idea, dude is smart and he walks on the thin ice, but cmon! It is starting to get really unrealistic
Gonna have trauma from that song tbh
okay this episode wasn't as bad as a few previous ones, but it wasn't much either? i feel like i'm slowly getting stockholme syndrome, because at first i was like "well this wasn't that bad, i think i should be happy about it..." and then i stopped and reconsidered. this episode was growing some nice tension, but it never snapped? so it basically felt like jerking off without actually getting yourself off.
walking dead is getting worse and worse each season. maybe they should finish this show after this season before screw everything up
Really Carl? you go to Alexandria with negan and he is alone without zero protection inside the house and u're with him with that lady that I forgot her name? Couldn't you grab a knife or something and both of youteam up? No? Foh with that nonesense.
If I were him, I'd jump his bitch ass right when he got slapped or grabs sth and hit him with it. it's not realistic at all that he's alive all this time where there were so many opportunities to have him dead.
Well you could say that his group will take revenge after he dies, Simon leading them, But it's still worth it, and maybe Rick and his group would make plan or something to fight back or whatever, and I should stop talking because I know that this shit isn't going to ever happen.
Sorry to say that I'm losing interest in The Walking Dead once more, it's starting to feel like that damn farm all over again. Negan's cruel games are getting boring (except for the "fat lady" and tour scene, that was the right kind of Negan interaction for me) and the whole goal of banding together the different "tribes" for one final battle isn't really that exciting either. The show needs some more adventuring and building again. Like Rick his little boating challenge, I'd have preferred that to be a bit more detailed instead of Negan making Carl cry.
Meh, maybe next week.
Honestly? I laughed out with Negan after he insulted Olivia and she started crying. Maybe I'm degenerated already due to TWD. I'm fat, too, maybe that makes it better.
That was a long episode. The scenes with Carl and Negan feels a bit janky, especially in the start when Carl jumped out from the truck. It feels like Carl is holding something. One time he's so mad and furious, another time he stays silent letting all that chance slip when he actually have the chance to kill Negan.
As others have said, Negan really let himself on zero security. While there might be reasons he's doing that (seems like his over-confidence), the fact that Carl attempted to do nothing about it makes the whole scenes with Carl and Negan feel janky. All in all we are only presented Negan's interaction with Carl's hateful glare in the background. For someone who is badass enough to slip into the enemy's lair in earlier minutes, all the silent shots Carl is having is really dampening his earlier murderous rage. On the other hand, I understand that the episode attempts to portray Negan in more humanistic side, but the jankiness on his interaction with Carl makes this kinda difficult to watch.
"Screw you kid, screw you."
negan bores me. we get it, you're a bad, bad, bad, bad man. what else? nothing! one-trick pony. snore At this point I'm basically hate-watching.
The whole Neegan thing is just not believable, and this episode made that more clear. The amount of people that would view him with pure hatred would be off the charts, and unlike other fictional bad guys who act like this, he keeps no security around him 95% of the time. The guy would have been dead 1000 times over in a faithfully realized TWD universe. Hell, I've hardly got off my couch for the last 7 years and I could have killed him at least 20 times in this episode alone, not even counting the obviously missed opportunity by a battle hardened and hate filled teen in the early minutes. Also the Neegan performance was even more one-note-wondery than usual tonight. This show is really losing me now, I'm sad to say.
Terrible rating for Carl's terrible decision to kill random guy and not Negan. This show annoys me so much.
Edit: And cut your f hair!
I don't like Spencer, he doesn't have any guts.
Get you dirty hands out of Judith you evil bastard. In that last scene he showed up the little shit he is. Oh boy, Rick is gonna be so pissed off when he finds out it was Carl's fault that Negan found Judith. When Carl went to kill Negan the sentence, "I'm here to kick as and chew bubblegum" echoed in my head, although now, Carl had plenty of bubblegum. Seriously, how does not anyone even try to kill that bastard? I know there really others who will kill them but for a bd guy like Negan he has zilch in security. Anyone can kill him in a blink of an eye, although there will be consequences.
I get why, but I don't understand how could Carl keep his shirt all together when Negan was acting all uncle Negan with Judith. I get now that he wants to kill Rick and Carl so that he can adopt Judith. How sweet!
And Spencer is a tremendous shit! What an asshole. He really has no guts (no pun intended). And I'm starting to like Gabriel. Great character development! Spencer should know that he's just shit when a priest calls you out. Besides, his whole family died and his reaction was the same as when he runs out of cereals.
Now looking forward to the mid season finale. Wonder who will Negan kill to make Rick cry like that, or will he take Judith?
Carl just cut your fucking ugly ass hair!!! I hope he dies soon. I can't watch this anymore because of his hair...
You had one job Carl....one job!
Carl need just a slap on his face..
That scene of Negan "touring" around Carl's house was sooo bad. What was with that funny music in the background? He is a psycho, we're not supposed to like him, so why would you make such a cute scene? Is bad enough that we have stupid girls falling for Negan just because JDM is hot, but the show portraying him as likeable is a whole different matter.
There's also the issue, like some people have already pointed out, of the countless of chances Negan could've been taken out. I get it, I know there's no fun if they kill the bad guy in the middle of his bad guy speech, I never complain about this trope, but it was especially painful this episode, Negan was weaponless almost the entire run, and he even turned his back on Carl a couple of times. There's no problem with the trope as long as you don't abuse it, and play it smart, but that's not the case here.
Speaking of "no sense of humor", was that actress that played the girl Lori Beth Denberg from All That? It might be uncredited but I'm wondering because she looked familiar.
Shout by Mason1171VIP 4BlockedParent2016-12-06T20:37:23Z
I'm gonna laugh if Rick actually guts Spencer's bitch ass