Just as it went for its crazy premiere, The Walking Dead's Season 7 finale was filled with big emotional surprises, and I think we can all agree that Sasha's vengeance-minded suicide was the biggest kicker. Making her decision all the more heartbreaking were Sasha's quasi-memories where Michael Cudlitz's Abraham unexpectedly returned to the show. CinemaBlend spoke with with actor ahead of The Walking Dead's Season 7 Blu-ray release on August 22, and when I asked if he approached the scenes as if they'd definitely happened in the past, here's what he told me:
For us, they weren't dream sequences. For us, they were in the moment. That moment happened before we got into the motor home when we told Rick that we were coming with him when he was delivering Maggie to the Hilltop. So the playing of [those scenes] has to be in the moment. Things we remember in playing them, though, is that it is her memory. So it's all told from her perspective. . . . This is what she's remembering. But what she's remembering is what she believes exactly what went down. So from my perspective, it's real. There's nothing that gets colored into it, no shading, no leaning on one emotion or away from another. I need to just play those scenes realistically as it would have happened at that time, if this is what exactly happened.
That certainly makes a lot of sense as far as handling those performances, since Sasha and Abraham's finale scenes weren't introduced to viewers as truly objective flashbacks. For example, the way that Season 6 went back and forth in its timeline, flipping from black-and-white to color, was clearly meant to show audiences exactly how events played out, as it incorporated the entire population of survivors, rather than just being tethered to a select few. Those scenes in the Season 7 finale, on the other hand, were purposefully experienced through Sasha's point of view as she took her coffin-bound journey back to Alexandria, thus making their legitimacy all the more mysterious.
Especially considering those scenes showcased moments that were seemingly "just right" for where Sasha's headspace was during that journey. She's pulling up romance moments, where she and Abraham are lip-locked and embracing, and she's hearing Abraham talk about why they do the things they do to help others out. Basically, she's justifying her self-sabotaging actions, and in times of need like that, a touched-up memory can obviously be more effective than the real thing. Not that I'm saying The Walking Dead was purposefully having Sasha misremember things to match up with her thought processes, since any detail changes could have obviously been explained away by the fallacy of human recollection.
So while Sasha and Abraham possibly didn't experience every single thing that happened during her memory jaunts in The Walking Dead's finale, at least we now know (maybe) that we weren't watching Sasha completely fabricating past moments for any reason.
While we're waiting for Season 8 to get here, The Walking Dead Season 7 still has much to offer fans through the feature-filled Blu-ray and DVD sets that are releasing on Tuesday, August 22. Viewers will get to see more from the season through deleted scenes and alternate takes, as well as a treasure trove of features that delve into the making of Season 7, Negan's impact on the narrative, the ass-kicking female characters, the bucket-kicking dead characters and a lot more. As always, some of the most interesting info comes from the episode commentaries from the cast and crew, where we learned the meaning behind Daryl's Sanctuary jumpsuit, as well as a fun fact about Rick's fantasy flash-forward in the premiere.
Check out an exclusive clip from that Season 7 Blu-ray, and then set your calendars for Sunday, October 22, as that's when The Walking Dead will hit AMC in its usual 9:00 p.m. ET time slot. For everything else hitting the small screen soon, head to our summer premiere schedule and our fall TV schedule.
The last season of The Walking Dead continues to up the intensity. If you are looking to add season seven to your dvd or blu-ray collection, you can check that out here.
