Last week’s long-awaited seventh season premiere of The Walking Dead may have gone too far in some viewers’ estimations. While I thought the violence of the episode was more or less consistent with what we have seen from the series over the last six seasons (as well as the graphic novels), others had the perfectly valid response to the brutality of the episode was to quit the series. No one should continue watching any show that they no longer enjoy, be it for any reason.
With that said, people who bailed over the violence of last week’s episode missed out on the introduction of one of the most colorful, fun, and humane characters in all of The Walking Dead history in tonight’s episode, “The Well.” King Ezekiel represents everything about this series that Negan is not: He’s personable, he’s kind, he’s funny, eccentric and real. Khary Payton’s Ezekiel is exactly what this series needed after last week’s brutal season premiere: A heavy dose of levity. He brings lightness to a series shrouded in darkness.
I wasn’t sure what to make of King Ezekiel in his opening scene. Rocking dreadlocks, a scepter, and a tiger, Ezekiel introduces himself to Carol as leader of his realm, ruler of The Kingdom. “You have been addressed by the King, yet you remain silent,” Ezekiel says to Carol. “Do I detect skepticism, do you think me mad?” The attire, the manner of speech, and the tiger might have suggested to anyone that Ezekiel was indeed mad. Carol is rightfully skeptical of Ezekiel, though Morgan remains pleasantly bemused by this man.
Over the course of the episode, we learn that Ezekiel — his eccentricities notwithstanding — is a good leader: Fair, trustworthy, and protective. He, too, is in a forced arrangement with The Saviors, although King Ezekiel wisely handles the colony’s affairs with Negan’s crew away from the rest of The Kingdom, so as not to alarm them. More importantly, he keeps his people from entering into a battle that they cannot win.
However, it’s when Carol decides to leave The Kingdom that we find out who Ezekiel really is: A good guy. A former zookeeper and a man with some community theater experience, he plays the part of King Ezekiel in part to feed his own ego, but mostly because it’s what his people want: A larger than life leader with whom they can follow. Ezekiel is indeed larger than life, but in trying to convince Carol to stay, he drops the facade and reveals himself to be maybe the most genuine, decent, and lovely character in seven seasons of the series.
Khary Payton, known mostly for his voice work in animated television shows, is absolutely perfect in the role: Kind, good, and charming. Ezekiel may be the first major character on the series who seems to have no ulterior motive. He wants to keep his people safe, and he values the intelligence, fighting abilities, and savviness of Carol and Morgan.
The death of Abraham was a big blow to a show that needs a few strange, offbeat characters to keep the series from getting too mired in grimness. Ezekiel has quickly filled that hole and then some. More importantly, he’s brought some goodness back to a series that had bottomed out last week in the dread department. The losses of Glenn and Abraham were hard, but I’m personally looking forward to the new dynamic that Ezekiel and Negan bring to the series.
I don’t begrudge any of those viewers who decided to bail on the series last week, but it just might be worth checking back in once more, because Ezekiel may just balance the scales of the series back in your favor. He brings what so few characters have brought to the series in recent years: Hope.
