Warning: Spoilers for the season six finale of The Walking Dead follow. You have been warned…
It’s not very often that The Walking Dead misfires, but for many fans it did so in a big way last night with its season six finale, as Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s villain Negan made his hotly-anticipated debut. Bringing one of the comic book’s most iconic scenes to life, Negan raised Lucille, his barbed-wire coated baseball bat, using it to bludgeon to death… the poor cameraman?
Yes, in a move that angered many, the producers opted to switch to a first person view as Negan swung his bat, leaving the audience waiting until October’s season seven premiere to find out which of their beloved characters has met a bloody end.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, showrunner Scott M. Gimple has discussed the reason for the cliffhanger, as well as confirming that we’ll see the events unfold in “full force” in the season seven premiere:
“The reasoning behind this was… In many ways what we saw last night was the end of the story of [episode] 16. Where Rick winds up is completely different from where he started in 1 and where he started in 9. I know obviously what it is in 701. And presenting what occurs, to show what happened in full-force, is the beginning of the next story.”
Gimple was also asked whether he has any concerns about testing the audience’s patience with cliffhangers, responding that:
“I think if you approach it from a place of skepticism or with the idea that there is some sort of negative motivation behind it or cynical motivation behind it — if you come at it that way it’s difficult to convince you otherwise. I do think we’ve done enough on the show and we’ve delivered a story that people have enjoyed and I guess asking people to give us the benefit of the doubt that it is all part of a plan and is all part of a story. And I truly hope that people see 701 and they feel that it justifies the way we decided to tell the story. That is the way that it is in our minds. I know what 701 is and I feel that it delivers on what 616 sets up.”
How do you feel about the cliffhanger? Are you satisfied with Gimple’s reasoning? Let us know in the comments below…
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Originally published April 4, 2016. Updated April 15, 2018.
