The Walking Dead has been the number one watched show in America ever since it debuted on AMC back in October 2010. Since then, the show has battled budget constraints and changed showrunners multiple times, but the quality of the show began to increase. When season six returned from their mid-season break on February 14, 2016, The Walking Dead had one of their highest rated episodes in the history of the show. Season six continued to be one of the show’s most successful season, until the finale, which caused a major uproar on the internet.
The season six finale promised fans of The Walking Dead comic book, the first, onscreen appearance of Negan, the ruler of a dangerous group known as the Saviors. Negan immediately becomes a threat to our group of survivors when he bashes in the skull of one of our favorite characters. In the comics, the victim of this brutal bashing is known right away; however, in the show, we don’t know who gets the bat because the season ended on a cliffhanger. This spawned the #WhoIsIt hashtag moments after the episode was over.
After the episode was over, I was upset. As a fan of the graphic novel, I was anticipating this scene since the beginning of the season. When I saw the #WhoIsIt hashtag, which was started by AMC, I thought this was a cheap trick to get more viewers to watch the season seven premiere. Why would they do that though? They have the viewership and dedicated fan base already. They did not need to pull off a trick like this.
The Walking Dead has made a lot of bad decisions during its runtime. Such as, killing of important comic book characters’ way too early, e.g. Andrea and Dale and most recently, the dumpster incident (you know what I’m talking about). But this is by far the show’s biggest mistake. The finale had great performances by Andrew Lincoln as Rick, the main protagonist, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who was fantastic as the menacing but charismatic Negan. It is bad storytelling to build up a scene throughout the entire episode to not have a decent payoff by the end.
Hopefully the show can redeem itself when it premieres again this month on October 23, 2016. The showrunner, creator, and actors promise a premiere that will shock and satisfy audiences. I am just excited that Negan is on the show, but I am also sadden that we may lose a beloved character or two.
Caesar Torres
Features Editor