Well, I had three days to prepare for it and it was still almost unbearable to watch. #$%^&* Dumbass Daryl. Way to control your emotions dude.
I truly enjoyed the first six seasons of this show. Great stuff. I think that show is over though. Dalrymple even said as much on TD. This is a different show now. A bleak, humorless, soul-crushing cavalcade of human misery. Glenn wasn't just the heart and soul of this show, as Hardwick pointed out afterwards, he singlehandedly represented HOPE above all else. He was the one dude who grew and changed for the better, never got warped or lost his way like the others. Hell, he had never even killed anyone until a few episodes ago.
Without Glenn, there is no semblance of family on this show anymore. They broke that down completely. Glenn and Maggie and baby represented something triumphant and beautiful and now that dream is shattered and everyone left is just a twisted, broken shell of a person. You cant help but walk away from that thinking they are all just going to be miserable until they eventually get murdered or eaten.
There is just no possible happy ending here anymore. Kirkman seems hell bent on just abusing these people over and over until he dies. (I say that because it seems clear he never had any clue how to end this story properly and was never even planning on making it this long) I get a real treading water feeling from the comic now, and am starting to wish they would go all Game of Thrones and just start charting their own new territory. Comics have a petty short shelf life creatively speaking anyway.
I'm not trying to bash the show, I think they did a terrific job with the premier, given the direction they had to go. Andy Lincoln was amazing. JDM was enthrallingly despicable. It's just the creative choices I take issue with. With so many other key divergences (Rick's hand, Michonne's rape) there is no reason they could not have changed this up and still had the same impact. But Glenn, there was nobody on the show like him. That's a loss you can't replace. TV Glenn wasn't like comic Glenn, he was a man who had so much more to offer. I understand the logic, the need to move the story forward. I just think it's a dark turn that you can't pivot away from. You can't make me laugh next week so matter what kind of goofy Kingdom crap you throw out there.
I know, it's not like the show was a laugh riot or anything before, But at least it had elements of warmth and humanity that you're not going to get from Rick/Michonne, Rosita/Alexandria guy, etc. The loss ultimately isn't just a character, for me, it is a loss of something they can't get back on this show. And that is a real bummer.
Oh yeah, Abraham. Sorry to see you go too Big Guy. They should have stopped there.