8x05 The Big Scary U

[9.1/10] “A war of all against all.” That is how political philosopher Thomas Hobbes described the “state of nature” of man without government, without rule. He imagined a life that was “nasty, brutish, and short” and posited that people needed a Leviathan, the force of the government, to enforce laws, and have people give up certain freedoms as the price for avoiding such an unenviable way to live.

In Negan’s mind, he is that Leviathan. The last time The Walking Dead interrogated Negan’s moral philosophy, it left it somewhat ambiguous how Negan saw himself, whether he really believed that his brutal ways were for the greater good, or whether he was just spinning propaganda to justify the comparatively lavish and carefree lifestyle he gets to enjoy while others toil.

“The Big Scary U” is much less ambiguous. There is a certain sense that Negan may be deluding himself, offering rationalizations and eliding the darker or more self-serving side of the choices he’s made, but it becomes clear that he is a true believer, someone who thinks that he’s doing what needs to be done.

The episode explores that with one of the oldest tropes in the book -- two characters, trapped in a room together, deciding to find common ground and reflect on their lives, shared enmity, and personal truths. (Think “Fly” from fellow AMC stablemate Breaking Bad.) “The Big Scary U” catches up with Negan and Father Gabriel, trapped in a temporary building and surrounded by walkers after the events of the premiere.

In those close, perilous quarters, Gabriel asks for Negan’s confession. A brief flashback signifies (in TWD’s typically lofty tones) that Gabriel no longer fears death; he just fears a meaningless death. And in the present, he reasons that maybe the reason he’s survived this long, the purpose he’s been in search of, is hear Negan confess and give him absolution.

But Negan declares he has nothing to attone for. He uses the confinement to lay out his philosophy -- that however bad things may seem under his watch, that it’s better than the alternative, and that what came before, and what would come after him, would be much much worse.

“The Big Scary U” seems to suggest that Negan’s right, at least within his own fiefdom. When the episode isn’t centered on Negan and Gabriel’s heart-to-heart, it’s in the heart of The Sanctuary, where all of Negan’s lieutenants are scrambling to figure out what to do in the absence and possible demise of their leader, and backbiting, disagreement, and recriminations come to a head.

Regina wants to sacrifice the workers to make an escape. Eugene declares that it will never work. Gavin declares that somebody must be collaborating with Rick & Co. given how things went down. Dwight deflects and is ready to read the riot act to whomever needs to hear it. And Simon, who seems to be the closest thing to a second-in-command ready to take over, tries to hold court.

It’s fascinating watching the various forces that Negan has amassed slowly turn on one another, ally with one another, and generally seem lost without him there to guide them. Negan has inculcated a need for a dictator, for an unquestioned leader who can whip people into shape. As soon as the man and his baseball bat are gone, things start deteriorating, with workers staging the beginnings of a revolt, the remaining leaders not knowing what to do, and the situation getting volatile quickly.

But The Walking Dead plays at least a little coy about whether this really is the better alternative, or whether this is simply the world Negan created. It’s easy for Negan to pontificate and preen with Gabriel about how things would fall apart without him, that his presence is necessary to bring order and security, but what if that’s just true for the little ecosystem that Negan has overseen? What if he’s built things to be that way, rather than that things have to be that way.

Rick certainly seems to think there’s another way, even if Daryl remains skeptical and more Negan-like himself by the minute. “The Big Scary U” comes down to, as so many TWD episodes do, to the question of whether it’s okay to kill someone, “the right person,” in order to achieve some sort of greater good. And it positions all its major characters on different sides of the question.

Daryl has turned single-minded and unbothered by the potential loss of life in taking out The Saviors, even if it means that the innocent workers at The Sanctuary perish in the process. Rick pushes back against him, wanting to stick to the plan, even if the fighters from The Kingdom are killed, because he doesn’t want to take innocent lives. Negan believes in killing people, even innocent people, if it serves a greater cause, while Gabriel believes in saving people, even bad people like Gregory, if it serves a higher power. And Gregory himself has no scruples, no principles, one way or another, only caring to keep himself alive whatever that may require.

Negan and Gabriel also have to keep themselves alive, as the walkers slowly but surely start to break through the meager walls and barriers separating them and the two morsels inside. That’s mainly a plot device to ensure that Negan and Gabriel can’t just keep talking forever (thank heaven) but it at least creates some urgency and sense of place in the midst of what is basically a miniature stage show starring these two men.

It’s a real showcase for Jeffrey Dean Morgan in particular. Let’s face it; Negan is a pretty ridiculous character. Some of that is intentional, with the persona being meant to project a certain amount of intimidating bombast. But some of it is just an inherent part of putting such an outsized figure into a nominally down-to-earth take on the zombie genre. Nevertheless, Morgan has the chops to go big and go small as the situation requires, and make it convincing in either guise.

That’s why his pronouncements about “saving” people, his pretzel logic about the difference between “killing the right people” and “letting your people get killed” (blame-shifting logic which Daryl starts to share), don’t sound as insane as they might here. There is a conviction in Morgan’s voice when he delivers those lines, a certainty in the truth of them that informs the character’s perspective and makes it feel true to who Negan is, even if the audience isn’t supposed to take it as true generally.

But we also winces just enough when confronted about his “wives” and grimaces through his excuse that they “made a choice.” His deflection about the state of his “workers” functions as an internalized dismissal of any economy having “winners and loser.” And he even breaks down, such as a proud guy like Negan can, and admits the only time he was “weak” was when he could not put his “real wife” down after she turned. Like much of the show, it’s a little too neat as informative backstory, but the actor makes it work.

It works because Negan believes it. He believes that killing people to create order, that harshness can make people and civilizations stronger, that engendering submission, even in lethal terms, can save lives. There’s a twisted worldview at the heart of Negan’s philosophies on governance and leadership, ones with antecedents across history, but for all the metaphysical and ethical conversations at play here, it’s the truth of this view in his eyes, the palpable sense of belief from Negan as he champions the need for that Leviathan, that makes the villain more than a bunch of cruel deaths and priapic boasts. He represents the worse angels of our nature, the ones that say we need to be cowed less we tear one another apart, and the hints that he may be right, at least for the part of this world he’s overseen, makes him all the more terrifying.