Fade To Black

As promised, the sixth season of The Walking Dead concluded with the introduction of bad guy Negan, but left many viewers feeling a bit played. The Atlantic’s Lenika Cruz found the episode of beyond frustrating:

“I’m sure when the network gleefully announces its ratings for this finale, the numbers will be astronomical. Good for AMC, I guess. But more than just being a not-so-great show, The Walking Dead has turned into an aggressively cynical series that seems to care far, far less about giving viewers a good story than it does about getting them to watch at all costs. And if that means pretending to kill a major character and then playing coy for four episodes, or advertising a supposedly wild 90-minute finale that’s largely fluff plus commercials, or killing a mystery character onscreen but making fans wait half a year to find out who (while hyping the hashtag #WhoIsIt?)—then that’s fine by the showrunner Scott Gimple and co. But it’s not fine by me.”

Zack Handlen echoes the sentiment:

“When you’re telling a story, you want your audience to keep watching, so sometimes you use tricks to keep them watching. But the promise between you and your viewers is that those tricks will never get in the way of the story itself. The tricks will never become the point. But for The Walking Dead, the tricks are all that’s left.”

Showrunner Scott Gimple commented on the negative response to the episode:

“I ask that people give us the benefit of the doubt that it’s part of a plan, all part of a story. I trully hope that people see [the season seven premiere] and they feel it justifies that way we’ve decided to tell the story.”

(Image: Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) knows something you don’t know, AMC)