Whereas The Strolling Useless: Useless Metropolis is a spin-off of The Strolling Useless, the collection has been charting its personal course. There are new characters, however the story largely facilities on two fan favorites from the unique collection, villain Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and hero Maggie (Lauren Cohan). The pair stay at odds with each other, the trauma of Negan’s brutal killing of Maggie’s husband Glenn (Steven Yeun) looming like a darkish cloud over any chance of the pair ever changing into something greater than compelled allies.
All through Season 2, as Maggie desperately tries to let go of her ache for Hershel’s sake (Logan Kim), Negan continues to point out indicators that the “outdated Negan” nonetheless lingers. Although he is undoubtedly a modified man, a specific scene within the Season 2 finale, Episode 8 titled “If Historical past Had been a Conflagration,” conjured up horrifying outdated recollections whereas additionally delighting followers.
Negan’s Nursery Rhyming Is Again
Following the large battle between Negan, the Burazi, and Bruegel (Kim Coates) within the Season 2 finale and his followers, a large hearth breaks out within the church, deliberately set by Negan and the Burazi. Bruegel manages to flee to the basement, the place Negan follows him, Perlie (Gaius Charles) not far behind.
Negan and Bruegel come head to head, however Negan additionally has others from the Burazi behind him. Bruegel is aware of he’s in hassle. There’s no means out. He begs Negan for mercy as Perlie arrives on the worst attainable time. Bruegel tries to pin the blame on Perlie, indicating that he was working with Perlie and New Babylon Federation all alongside, and it’s all Perlie’s fault that this occurred.
Now, Negan finds himself in a predicament as soon as once more, similar to he had so a few years in the past when Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and his group savagely attacked members of the Saviors. Negan has many individuals who should be taken down for what occurred. However who must be the sacrificial lamb? Selections, selections. Naturally, what Negan does when he has troublesome selections to make is recite a nursery rhyme. Negan orders each males to get down on their knees, giving followers a way of déjà vu as they recall essentially the most horrifying second in The Strolling Useless that marked Negan’s introduction.
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He holds out his bat, which followers have aptly named Lucille 2.0, and factors it backwards and forwards at their heads. “Eeenie, meenie, miney, mo,” Negan says as he tries to go away the choice about who must be the sufferer within the arms of destiny (and youngsters’s songs). He continues to the top of the nursery rhyme, stopping on Perlie. He hoists the bat over his head, about to convey it crashing down on Perlie’s head. However earlier than he follows by, Negan stops himself.
He wished to kill Bruegel, so he had determined that he was going to go along with his intuition as an alternative, nursery rhyme be damned. Bruegel has been a thorn in his aspect, a harmful enemy. Pleading for his life, Bruegel’s huge mouth received’t cease. He rambles on in regards to the methane and about how he and Negan can rule Manhattan and this valuable useful resource collectively. Negan’s not shopping for it. If Bruegel needs the methane so badly, Negan advises, he can have it.
Negan takes a gasoline tube and shoves it into Bruegel’s mouth, then lights his mouth on hearth, burning Bruegel slowly however painfully from the within out. As soon as Bruegel is useless, Negan thrusts the bat into the air and down onto the previous foe’s head anyway, precisely as he had completed to Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) and Glenn in The Strolling Useless.
The scene is sort of as horrifying as that game-changing scene in The Strolling Useless that noticed so many followers abandon the present. However it’s not practically as impactful. This time, Negan is killing somebody followers view as a transparent “unhealthy man,” not a hero. He was a personality we solely barely acquired to know. Nonetheless, the brutality of the scene is amplified from an emotional standpoint for one more very vital purpose.
The Scene Is Even Worse With One Extra Element
There’s one small however essential element about this scene that makes it particularly disturbing, even when followers predicted the sufferer would die by the top of the season. Unbeknownst to Negan, Maggie has secretly returned to meet her promise to Hershel, and she or he witnesses the entire thing.
The fear in her eyes as she noticed Negan do one thing she witnessed him do as soon as earlier than, and that led to the deaths of her husband and good buddy, is palpable. If different moments on the present triggered her PTSD, comparable to when Negan slit a person’s throat and threw him over the sting of a banister in Season 1, and even the primary time she noticed him holding the brand new bat, this scene sealed the deal. Maggie might notice at this second that even when Negan is completely different now, his outdated self nonetheless lingers inside.
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Perlie manages to flee, however Negan costs after him. However proper earlier than he’s capable of ship a devastating blow to Perlie like he did to Abraham and Glenn so a few years in the past, Maggie runs up behind and stabs Negan within the again. It seems that that is the long-awaited finish for the villain, however that isn’t the case.
What occurs subsequent suggests a really completely different Negan and stands out as the one second that convinces Maggie that the showmanship of all of it, the evil a part of Negan that seemingly took pleasure in killing in such a brutal means, is just not crucial a part of him anymore. It would solely ever have been a convincing façade.
In Ginny’s Demise, They May Discover Peace
This marks the primary main character dying of the collection following the fake-out dying of The Dama (Lisa Emery), and this second rapidly modifications tone. As Negan crawls alongside the basement ground to get to Ginny (Mahina Napoleon), Maggie slowly follows, wanting to observe Negan breathe his final breath and really feel the sense of closure she has desperately wanted for thus lengthy. However collectively, they see a small arm reaching out from behind the room the place Ginny was being saved with tubes and oxygen, whereas Negan hoped to nurse her again to well being from her extreme accidents. They hear the faint sound of grumbling, and actuality units in.
Each of them had been so involved about defending their pursuits, defending themselves, and eliminating enemies that they forgot about Ginny. And sadly, it’s too late. She has perished, and she or he has turned. For the primary time for the reason that flashback scenes of Negan and his spouse, the actual Lucille (Hilarie Burton), Negan is exhibiting real, unadulterated emotion and grief.
Maggie watches in disbelief as he weeps, calling Ginny’s identify, time and again. She acknowledges that Negan had real emotions of affection for this younger lady, whom he took in as if she had been his personal daughter. Regardless of Ginny eager to kill Negan for having killed her father, he felt a determined want to guard her, and now has an amazing weight of guilt for not succeeding.
Recognizing the primary time she’s seeing real emotions from Negan, Maggie slowly arms him her knife in order that he can put an finish to Ginny’s struggling. As he continues to sob, Maggie sees Negan, arguably for the primary time, as an actual human with emotions, feelings, and the capability for love.
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Sadly, the belief needed to come from such an emotional second, and after such a devastating scene the place Maggie possible felt like she was reliving the second her husband was brutally killed another time. However it makes for an fascinating full circle to the story.
On the coronary heart of the present has all the time been these two bitter foes, and it appears they could lastly have come to a stalemate, a truce with out vitriol and hatred behind it. Negan should be the kind of man who will drive individuals to their knees, torment and taunt them, and brutally homicide them with out blinking a watch. However he’s additionally a husband and a father now. He has made connections with individuals that really imply one thing to him. Not everyone seems to be dispensable. He has one thing to battle for and dwell for.
With Maggie now recognizing this, she might come to phrases with the truth that killing Negan received’t convey Glenn again. And now, she is aware of it received’t get her son again both. Negan is healthier to Maggie as an ally than he’s as an enemy, and even useless. Little pig, little pig, Maggie would possibly lastly be able to let Negan in. Stream The Strolling Useless: Useless Metropolis on AMC+.