Warning! Spoilers for The Walking Dead‘s season six finale follow!
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To cap off the sixth season of The Walking Dead, the showrunners decided to leave fans with the biggest cliffhanger, possibly ever. For the next eight months, fans everywhere will be asking one another, “Who do you think Negan killed?”
It’s comparable to, “What was in the hatch?” from LOST‘s 2005 finale or “Is Jon Snow dead?” from the most recent season of Game of Thrones.
Many fans of The Walking Dead are frustrated with the cliffhanger. It’s understandable. They read the comics, they know Negan killed Glenn, and the moment stayed with them and they wanted to see it, shot for shot, replicated on television.
If Glenn’s death by Negan’s bat came and went in one moment, it would have been epic, but it would have been singular. Instead, the moment has exploded on an exponential level throughout the worlds of social media and real-life interactions, which believe it or not, are still a thing. Everyone you know will be made aware of The Walking Dead‘s big cliffhanger. You can stand in line at Starbucks and ask someone, “Who do you think Negan killed?” and make a new friend. You can debate over whether it was Glenn or Daryl while walking into Captain America: Civil War next month. It’s an instant pop culture phenomenon.
Yes, a lot of people will hate the cliffhanger, but don’t we feel that way year after year with all of our favorite shows? As a LOST fan, I’ll never forget wondering what was in the hatch or if the bomb actually went off. Hell, even Entourage threw cliffhangers at its audience to cap seasons. It’s how TV works. It’s what keeps us coming back. And in this case, it’s gigantic and should be celebrated.
If that’s not enough reason, The Walking Dead showrunner Scott Gimple’s answer for those angry about the cliffhanger promises great things ahead.
“I would say, when they opened up the hatch, we had to wait and see who was in the hatch,” Gimple said in reference to ABC’s first season finale of LOST while appearing on Talking Dead after show. “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, alright, 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.”
The Walking Dead will return for its seventh season in October. We can expect the next footage to roll out of San Diego Comic Con in July. I’ll be there and I’ll make sure to bring you every bit of news in the mean time as our walker withdrawals set in.
