"The Walking Dead" season 7 faced a lot of criticism from fans and critics alike. Whether it be for its slow pace, or because we were seeing our favorite characters such as Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) basically become Negan’s (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) slaves. We also saw beloved and major characters such as Glenn (Steven Yeun,) Abraham Ford (Michael Cudlitz,) Spencer (Austin Nichols,) and Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) killed off, three of which were in brutal ways. This is what may have lead to the decrease in viewers and why fans were not as happy, but one has to remember that this is "The Walking Dead." Our fan favorites are bound to be killed off at some point and yes, no one wants it to happen, but shows like “The Walking Dead” and “Game Of Thrones” always kill off characters.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD FOR SEASON 7 OF THE WALKING DEAD

Fans were very excited for Negan’s appearance in Season 6, Episode 16, “Last Day On Earth,” but that excitement quickly turned to anger when just as Negan was about to kill someone, the screen goes black and you have to wait till Season 7 to find out who it was he killed. The theories as to who got “Lucilled” were endless and fans once again got hyped up for Season 7, Episode 1, “The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be." There were theories that were circulating for who Negan killed and there was even a clip that leaked the night before the premiere of Maggie Greene (Lauren Cohan) being Negan’s victim. But, when the episode aired, it turned out that Abraham was the one who was killed, but then another character was killed. That character was Glenn, a character that had been in the series since the very first episode “Days Gone Bye," which brings me to why Season 7 was so good.

“The Walking Dead” has occasionally faced criticism for not killing off a main character, mainly a member of the “Atlanta Five," as fans call it. Sure, the show has done it before with characters such as Beth, Bob, and Tyresse, just to name a few of the more recent ones. But a member of the Atlanta Five hadn’t been killed off since Andrea (Laurie Holden) in Season 3, Episode 16, “Welcome To The Tombs.” Glenn’s death was unexpected, scary and horrifying. Which was great and sad all at the same time. People had sort of predicted it was Abraham that was going to die, but no one expected Glenn. And that was what “The Walking Dead” needed, that it hadn’t done since season 5 when Beth and Tyresse died two episodes apart.

To be clear, I don’t like when characters are killed off. I hate it actually, but what Glenn and Abraham’s deaths set up, put Season 7 on a path to greatness. One of the great reasons being is that it is different. We see Rick beat down and broken, which is something that we hadn’t seen in a long, long time. He usually dealt with a threat and moved on, but with Negan, it's different. He has a small army of about 200-300 people, and a lot of outposts scattered all over the Virginia and Maryland areas. The last villain we saw like this was The Governor, A.K.A Phillip Blake, he was cunning and strategic.

But Negan makes The Governor look like Santa Clause. Negan wields a barb wire baseball bat he calls "Lucille," which he named after his late wife, and threatens and kills his victims with it and he also takes half of what the communities under his thumb produce. In Season 7, Episode 4 “Service” we see Negan make his first trip to the Alexandria Safe Zone, where he takes his first offering from Rick, and we see Rick just accept everything that was happening, because he knows that this man has an army and he is severely outnumbered and could be killed several times over. This is different from what we usually see from Rick. We usually see him confront the threat and the arc is complete within a season, or sometimes a few episodes. It was moments like this that made Season 7 great. Seeing a helpless side of Rick that we haven’t seen since the first season. It makes Rick rising up against Negan a lot more satisfying.

We also got some really good character development. I will admit, the season could have been told in about 12 episodes. Episodes such as “The Cell” and “The Well” could have been combined into one episode, but I digress. We saw great character development from Tara, Daryl, Morgan, and many other characters that sometimes don’t see the spotlight as much. Morgan met huge growth this season, when he murdered Richard because he inadvertently got Morgan’s apprentice, Benjamin (Logan Miller,) killed.

The final reason why season 7 is so great is because of the last 8 episodes, which we see Rick rise up against Negan and start to get people on his side such as The Hilltop and The Kingdom. These episodes were great, as they were nothing that we had ever seen before. We always saw Rick prepare for a fight, but this time he was starting from the bottom since Negan took all the weapons from Alexandria. We also see Eugene (Josh McDermitt) betray the group and start to help the Saviors prepare for the fight with Rick and the communities. He may have a plan, but that is to be seen in Season 8.

The back half of the season had one of the best episodes of the series as well. “The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Life” was a tremendous episode which saw Negan come to Alexandria, A firefight break out between the communities and The Scavengers and Saviors. Which was the beginning of the “All Out War” arc which comic book readers were very excited for. While season 7 wasn’t popular among fans, it was in my opinion one of the greatest seasons of the show and it introduced one of my favorite characters on the show to date, Negan. Season 7 stands behind Season 2, Season 5, and Season 3. Season 8 of “The Walking Dead” premieres October 2017 on AMC.