Good news for fans of The Walking Dead. TWD creator Robert Kirkman has announced the seventh season of the series will not end with a cliffhanger that infuriates virtually of its viewers. Probably a good decision, guys!
For those who think that the aggravation of the season six cliffhanger has been blown out of proportion, the problem isn’t really the “cliffhanger” aspect of it. TWD episodes end with cliffhangers all the time, to virtually no complaint. It’s that Negan’s debut has always been defined by his murder of one of the main characters. They aren’t parts of a scene, they are the same scene. And the entirety of season six was devoted to building up to Negan’s debut.
This is why the cast and crew promoted Negan’s arrival as the biggest moment of the series for the entire season, never once indicating that the scene would be… incomplete. Sure, they may never have overtly promised we’d get to see who Negan killed on-screen, but they talked up the moment where Negan would beat one of the series’ most beloved characters to death with a bat up so much and so often that of course fans felt ripped off when the finale ended and they discovered they’d only get the rest of the scene this October, seven months after the scene technically “began”.
If nothing else, it’s July and not only is the cliffhanger the only thing fans and journalists want to talk to the cast and crew of the show about, but they also feel like they have to promise they won’t use a cliffhanger in the season seven finale. If only a “small group of fans” were upset, it’s strange that it’s all everyone wants to talk about when the show is brought up.
Entertainment Weekly asked Kirkman this question, which isn’t really a question:
I remember going into this big event thinking that it was a bit of a no-win situation in terms of adapting it for TV because if you kill the same person that died in the comic there were going to be some people saying, “Ah, that’s predictable. That’s what happened in the comic.” But if you didn’t kill that person there were going to be those that said, “That’s a copout.”
And that’s what we’re up against.
Nope. Not really. In the comics, Negan kills Glenn, but whether TV show Negan killed Glenn or another character is not the issue. There was only one way to cop-out, and the show took it. The decision not only ruined the finale but made most of the entire season an enormous letdown.
[EW]