If you haven’t watched the Season 7 Premiere (Which I don’t know if that’s even possible at this point, yet in still, if you haven’t, stop reading now! Spoiler alerts!)

Last nights’ premiere sent many of us reeling. We are in total shock, we’re all still trying to find our bearings, today we had to try and muddle through our Mondays’ as if one of the most traumatic episodes in the history of TWD didn’t just happen. The season 7 opener of The Walking Dead was everything I had hoped it would be, there was blood, there was drama, there were walkers galore, Rick found himself in a usual tough situation or two, but for me there was so much more.

As devastated as I am at the death of two of my favorite characters, Glenn and Abraham (R.I.P. Big Red) I’ve fallen in love with the most unlikely of men.

Negan.

Negan. With his gloriously perfect set of teeth and his barbed wire wrapped baseball bat, Lucille, he has come in and stolen not only lives, but my heart as well.

Now wait a minute, before you call me a plethora of horrific names and throw your phone across the room, hear me out.

How long could the euphoria of Alexandria really have lasted? I was getting bored! Things were going too good! We needed something to shake the new world up and what better way than to completely deconstruct everything we once knew and held dear?

Negan, with his pearly white smile, leather jacket, impeccable one liners and sarcasm are just what we need to make it interesting again!

There is no way in hell I would’ve continued to tune in week after week if life was all hunky dory for the crew.

Maggie’s a single mom now, if she survives. Two women lost their big hunk of burning ginger love. Rick nearly had to chop off Carl’s arm!

Negan is the bringer of chaos that we need to keep it interesting and shake things up! Sure I guess he’s a bad guy. My training in psychology tells me he’s a narcissistic sociopath, but he’s got a damned good sense of humor!

His response to Glenn’s poor eye bulging out of his socket was “gross!”

He is my bad guy spirit animal! In the end, I’m really just thankful Michonne is alive, because without her the show would be NOTHING!

When Rick was having those tricky flashbacks atop the RV I got nervous, I know you did too. I thought Negan had gone too far and off’d the whole lot of them, but realistically, that would be a ratings suicide and it would venture way too far from the comic story line.

So let’s all try to see Negan as the glorious breath of fresh air into this cast that we truly need! Rick will find a way to overcome and conquer, he always does. What good is a hero without a sexy, sarcastic, downright diabolical villain?!

Plus he took Daryl; we can’t kill him until we get Daryl.