‘The Walking Dead’ season 7: Did Robert Kirkman expect reaction from finale cliffhanger?

“The Walking Dead” season 6 was definitely an uneven year for the show, given that there were ultimately two separate moments that may go down as the most polarizing in the history of the show. First, there was the “death” of Glenn and the long wait the producers put you through before revealing that he was in fact alive. Then, there was also the cliffhanger at the end of the finale. We knew that Negan was going to kill someone based on the events of the comics, but we definitely expected to see the moment play out. Creating a cliffhanger around it feels almost entirely unnecessarily, since we imagine that every person would have watched season 7 regardless.

Comic creator Robert Kirkman has said previously said a few times over that he understands some fan frustrations with the cliffhanger, but did he anticipate such a strong reaction? That’s something that he recently elaborated on to Entertainment Weekly:

“We knew that there would be a reaction … We probably didn’t anticipate it would be so big, but cliffhangers are supposed to elicit a reaction. I mean, that’s what they’re designed to do. So, to a certain extent, it did its job. It maybe did its job a little too well, but I think people that have invested in six years of the show may not be happy about that cliffhanger, and I think that’s a completely valid response, and I completely respect their opinion.”

Really, the fine line that the show has to continue to watching is teasing its viewers versus toying with its viewers. Hyping up the appearance of Negan throughout the sixth season was more of the former; however, pushing back a moment than many fans were expecting feels like more of the latter, since there was an expectation by many that we would see it.

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