‘The Walking Dead’ season 7: Glenn – Abraham shocker leads to ratings boost

When “The Walking Dead” aired their latest cliffhanger ending this past spring, the sentiment among many in the internet was that the show had signed its own death warrant by asking a little too much of some of its viewers. In some ways, we understood that there would be some frustration over the idea of the show making you wait for such an incredibly long period of time simply to learn something that already happened in the comics.

If there is one thing we’ll give the show some credit for at present, it’s managing to stir things up and kill both Glenn and Abraham in a single episode; even if they had just killed Glenn, though, we still would’ve been wrong with our premise that viewers were going to tune out because of their frustrations with the season 6 finale.

The premiere on Sunday averaged an enormous 8.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic; while this is not a series high for the show, it is the best rating for the show since it posted a record 8.7 rating for its season 5 premiere two years ago. The biggest test from here will be seeing how much of this rating the show routinely keeps, given that there were some out there threatening to not watch once again after the incredibly-violent, brutal episode we just experienced.

While we may not have loved seeing these characters go, at the same time this could be the one move that generates consistent interest in the show like never before. Prior to the finale, our major fear was that “The Walking Dead” really was not really being bold enough when it comes to its moves. It may be sad to kill off a recurring player, but sometimes you need to make big moves to remind everyone that in this world, truly no one is safe.