Will Into the Badlands season 2 fall without The Walking Dead?

Sunday night on AMC, Into the Badlands season 2 is going to continue with all-new episodes. What makes this airing especially important is the fact that this is the first for the show without the luxury of The Walking Dead airing before it.

Typically, when you look at the history of enormous lead-ins, it is pretty typical for shows to suffer an enormous drop when that lead-in goes away. Over the first three episodes, Into the Badlands averaged a 1.4 in the 18-49 demographic, with the most surprising thing being that it held that rating steady over the first three ratings. There was no drop in the middle. That does suggest that there are viewers who were watching this show specifically because they liked it, and not Walking Dead viewers experimenting with whether or not they wanted to give the series a shot.

By all of our personal inclinations, that does bode well for the remainder of the season. We do expect the numbers to trickle down slightly as we get into the final episodes, but we’re thinking here mostly in terms of the show going to perhaps a 1.0 or 1.2 rating. We don’t envision that we’re going to see it lose half of its viewership by any means. Typically, by season 2 you’ve got a committed audience, and we could even see some fans galvanized to prove that people are watching this show because they love it.

Let’s put this way — for the past three weeks, Into the Badlands fans have had to put up with a lot of negativity / unnecessary garbage from fans of The Walking Dead who are acting fairly bitter about the fact that this show is airing after their own, therefore forcing them to have to wait an extra hour in order to see Talking Dead. The show getting these sort of ratings tomorrow would prove that those people claiming that the ratings are due only to the lead-in need to sit down and shut up. This is a great, action-packed series, and there’s no other like it. It’s also unfortunately the most unfairly-attacked show out of any that is out there.

In the end, we’ll see how the show fares — it’ll probably be Tuesday before we get the numbers, but it’s something that we’re watching to go along with the show’s season 3 renewal odds.

Do you think Into the Badlands can keep up the momentum that it has right now? Share in the comments!