The Walking Dead 7×07 Review: “Sing Me a Song”

While last week’s episode was decent in that it at least told a coherent story, “Sing Me a Song” was all over the place and therefore sadly not enjoyable.

Somehow “Sing Me a Song” managed to span an hour and a half (including commercial breaks, of course), and while it did get a lot of the Negan/Carl story out of the way, that’s probably the best thing I can say about the episode as a whole. In fact, even the scenes between Carl and Negan were burdened by horrible pacing, so while I wasn’t wondering what the heck was going on with everyone else who showed up in “Sing Me a Song”, I was yawning through those drawn-out Carl and Negan scenes.

Yes, in the end all those little plot strings that they dangled throughout the episodes were on their way to being woven back together, but they took such backwards ways to get there that I just can’t get over how much they threw off the episode as a whole. While the single story line episodes focusing on fewer characters carry their own frustrations, even if they had nailed the pacing with Negan and Carl, I probably still wouldn’t have been able to pay attention to what was going on with them. I simply spent too much time wondering what the heck Michonne and Spencer were doing and what Rick and Aaron found.

Now, at first I was very pleased with how Negan was being portrayed, and perhaps I’m questioning him more now because of how boring I found him in “Sing Me a Song”…but at the same time I can’t help but feel like something’s not right. The writers are clearly doing everything they can to show how very bad Negan is, but the problem is that they aren’t allowing for enough nuance in his character, nuance that I believe the show could have depicted better than the comic books would ever be able to.

As much as I hate to admit it, because I don’t at all care for seeing Eugene get hurt, at least his scenes with Rosita added a few shining moments to “Sing Me a Song”. Listen, I know Eugene screwed up a lot at first but he, like Gabriel, is one of those characters who has shown true growth and is, you know, also still alive. So yeah, I didn’t like hearing Rosita say what she said, but the two of them felt more real than almost anything else in the episode.

One thing I’m honestly worried about is that even with the horribly slow pacing in “Sing Me a Song” (which yes, I know I keep mentioning – and why not, it was horrible), the show still seems to be rushing toward something in the Negan plot line. I’m not quite sure yet, but I think the options are either going to be a breath of fresh air after a kind of crappy start to season seven…or it’s going to disappoint me even further. However, while I’m sure next week’s midseason finale will pack a punch or two, they’re definitely holding a good bit back for the second half of the season.

What are your predictions for next week’s episode? Do you think they’ll be able to salvage this season before it ends, or have you been enjoying it in a way that I obviously can’t right now?

Author: Tara Lynne

Tara Lynne is an author, fandom and geek culture expert, and public speaker. She founded Ice & Fire Con, the first ever Game of Thrones convention in the US, and now runs its parent company Saga Event Planning.

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