Seven ways to fix "The Walking Dead"

2. Relax, Negan.

Morgan’s delivery of Negan’s “pee-pee pants city” monologue, just before unleashing his wrath, was the nadir of The Walking Dead’s uneven sixth season. (At the time I called it “risible,” “a leather-clad lesson in overplaying your hand.”) It’s one thing for the leader of the Saviors, having built a slavish cult of personality, to evince excessive lust for power; it’s quite another, knowing that he’ll play a major role in the upcoming season, for Negan to be a one-note baddie worthy of a Saturday morning cartoon. Morgan and the writers will have to find more layers in the character’s villainy to make him watchable on a weekly basis. His maniacal laughter in the trailer unveiled at Comic-Con doesn’t offer much hope on this front, unfortunately.

3. Show Rick humbled.

It was our hero’s arrogance, in the aftermath of the confrontation at the Hilltop, that led the Alexandrians into the mess they’re in, overestimating his own posse’s capabilities and underestimating the manpower at Negan’s disposal. AMC’s sneak peek at the seventh season hints at one of the comics’ defining moments, in which The Governor severs Rick’s hand, but even if Negan chooses not to bring down the ax, it’s high time Rick grappled with the consequences of his own comfort with violence. There’s a war coming, or so it seems. In the meantime, though, the Alexandrians’ abrupt change of circumstances offers an opportunity to recapture the more reflective Rick of earlier seasons, and to remind us that he’s not “the good guy” in this equation simply because he’s the series’ protagonist.