The Walking Dead: The Audible Sigh Heard ‘Round The Fandom

***Spoilers Ahead*** Season: 7 / Episode: 1 / AMC I have this friend, let’s call him Audible Sigh, because that’s the sound I make whenever he begins recounting the latest variation of a mistake he’s been making for as long as I’ve known him. Audible Sigh is also the sound I make at myself when I realize that I’m going down this same road with him again, knowing that I know better and doing it anyway. Me pretending to be listening and/or emotionally invested in Audible Sigh’s newest bullshit. [divider type=”space_thin”] On Sunday, when I was watching the season premier of The Walking Dead, I couldn’t get Audible Sigh out of my head because I looked around and realized that I might as well have been listening to variation 23,879 of Audible Sigh’s cyclical trek. Here we go again, TWD, both of us making the same mistake over and over. So spoiler alert (in case this visit to BNP is the first internet foray you’ve had since Sunday), we got the big who-did-Negan-bash-to-death-with-Lucille reveal. And it wasn’t surprising. Not even Reveal: The Sequel. For the past few seasons, the showrunners have avoided killing off any of the core group by introducing a character, giving them a backstory (thereby elevating their prominence in the narrative), and then killing them. It’s cheap. It’s a loophole. Remember Jessie (and her whole family)? Remember Denise? Remember king of the Wolves that a few too many lines to survive more than a short arc? Hell, remember Eastman? Remember Bob? Remember…