To their credit, the Negan scenes with Carl were pretty much verbatim. Overall, I have been pretty pleased with this season so far.
As to the foot shooting, the real problem is that the Walking Dead is
not a story about people finding humanity and dignity during the trials of surviving the end of the world (AMC has been trying to inject that into the series from the beginning, and its a square peg problem).
The Walking Dead is a story about people being more monstrous than the apparent monsters - the undead -- who are, in the end, really no different than wild animals roaming around looking for food.
The Walking Dead is just not a warm and fuzzy kind of story. Then again, why would a zombie apocalypse story lift our spirits? That's not really what they're typically written to do.
They're supposed to make us feel claustrophobic and uneasy, apprehensive about what's around the next corner or lurking in the shadows creeping slowly up on you (well, overly fast zombies notwithstanding...)
If things continue, after the Negan story it will begin to get very, very good in terms of really complex ideas about what it means to live as a human being in a dead and desolate world... we're not quite there yet.
In any case, Jeffrey Dean Morgan is fantastic as Negan. If people turn away from the Negan/Savior "All Out War" story arc, they will never be able to endure the next one...
Anyway, I'm looking forward to Negan's conversation with Spencer next week
