He never saw her coming !
The producers still had a few tricks up their sleeves as The Walking Dead draw to a bloody climax tonight.
With the ambiguities very clear of who are the goodguys and who are the bad guys , " Team Family" is effectively double crossed by the ill conceived junk yard group and find themselves again at the mercy of Negan and his band cut throats.
Nothing New there, especially as the audience could see Sasha's self sacrifice coming a mile away, but the real satisfaction of this last episode comes from the sight of Carol leading the Kingdom's small band of knights alongside Maggie and a rag tag band of brothers from Hilltop. Who turn up at the eleventh hour to save the day.
In actual fact, it is the remarkable CGI of Shiva, who steals the show, as she interrupts Carl's murder with a murderous attack of her own, dispatching Negan's men with a crowd cheering munch!
In the end no more of the now united team family are killed, and Negan is driven off alongside Dwight who is clearly Rick's new cuckoo -in-the-nest .
Maggie's final voice over, as the leaders of the communities unite, is strangely rather moving and underlines the equalities of the sexes and just how far many of the characters have now come.
" People that once would pass each other in the street" are now family. she muses in her southern drawl.
I do hope baby Hershel survives in season 8!