There are massive spoilers ahead for last night’s sixth season finale of The Walking Dead. If for some reason you haven’t seen the episode yet…then what the hell are you reading this post for?! Come back when you’re current with the show!
On the season finale of The Walking Dead, Jeffrey Dean Morgan made his debut as Negan. And much as he did in the comics, Negan took a barbwire bat to the head of one of the main characters from The Walking Dead. However, we’ll have to wait until season 7 to see who died, because the TV series didn’t reveal that information to the viewers. And it really pissed off a large segment of the fanbase.
In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Walking Dead co-creator Robert Kirkman and showrunner Scott M. Gimple professed surprise over the outrage that’s emerged since last night’s finale.
“I would say, when they opened up the hatch [on Lost], we had to wait and see who was in the hatch,” explained Gimple. “I liked thinking about that. I liked talking about it. … We have to do an episode that justifies it to you. We have to do something so great and so intense that you’re like ‘Okay, all right, fair play.’ That’s the challenge we have and we’re going to do it. We’re going to deliver you something fantastic. … We want you to be one of those people in that lineup. We want you to feel that suspense and that terror and that pain, and were going to deliver you a story next season that justifies it.”
Wait…Gimple is using Lost’s mediocre season 1 finale as a justification? Gotta call bullshit on that one. Even at the time, Lost fans weren’t having it with the non-reveal of the hatch. And the refusal to reveal Negan’s victim is being compared to the lackluster first season finale of The Killing.
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Kirkman had a better explanation for the ending, even if I don’t personally agree with it.
“First of all, as a fan, I love cliffhangers. I love that tension. I love the anticipation of finding out what it is. If you read the comic book series, I think pretty much every issue ends with a big cliffhanger… And I think that’s a lot of fun. But this story, the cliffhanger isn’t the story. The story of the episode, and Scott and Matt Negrete did such a great of setting up how confident Rick was going into this. This episode is about the loss of that confidence. It’s about changing that mindset. It’s about tearing Rick Grimes down and that’s the conclusion of this story. So while it does seem like a cliffhanger, that’s the conclusion. And the story of who died, the story of what comes next, of who Negan killed, of what comes after that, that’s really the story of season 7.”
Fans will find out who died when The Walking Dead returns to AMC in October.
What do you think about The Walking Dead’s Negan cliffhanger? Let us know in the comment section below!
