Want to know how to disappoint and enrage your audience? The Walking Dead just gave a master class in just how to accomplish this.
I’ll be talking about the latest season finale of show. Technically, this calls for spoiler alerts. But it also doesn’t. The reason for this is that the makers of the show have been flat out lying to the audience all season.
Here’s the thing. We were told that a new villain would be introduced. Negan (played by the always cool Jeffrey Dean Morgan).
To fans of just the show, this wasn’t much in the way of news. To fans of the comics, this was huge.
Negan’s introduction in the comics was brutal. He had the protagonists captured, and the very first thing he does is savagely beat Glenn to death with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire. It’s sudden. It’s horrifying. And it solidifies Negan as a force to be reckoned with.
We were teased all season long that this is exactly the introduction Negan will get in the show. We were told that his arrival will result in the immediate death of a major character. Glenn? Not necessarily. The writers said they were taking a “hard turn” from the comics, heavily implying that ANY character was up for grabs on the chopping block.
As the season chugged along, it was apparent that they were planning to hold back this potentially iconic moment for the show until the very end. Hit the audience with a gut punch and then make them wait for season 7.
So the day finally arrives. The Last Day On Earth is the season finale, and the main characters are put through the ringer (in which each series of setbacks seems more implausible than the last the more you think on it, but that’s beside the point).
