*WARNING MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD*

On Sunday April 3rd, fans of the hit show, The Walking Dead, endured the most sickening cliffhanger in the show’s six season history. The Walking Dead introduced its most renowned villain to date: Negan, a psychotic and blood-thirsty sociopath played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan. In retaliation for killing his men, Negan decides to take the life of one of Rick’s crew; the only problem being who will he kill? In order to decide who gets the “honor”, Negan flaunts Lucille, his baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire and begins to play a painstaking game of  “eenie, meenie, minie, moe”.  Going from person to person, the camera pans to each one of Rick’s crew members in a slow and calculated manner until finally the camera cuts to first-person and we see Negan approach us, the audience. As the audience experiences the last moments of this character’s life, viewers are left wondering, “Who was killed?!”

Myself, along with many viewers, are infuriated that the producers would decide on this age-old tactic of the cliffhanger. Negan’s arrival is an iconic moment from the comic book series and with this cliffhanger, the impact of that moment is completely nullified. If the producers wanted to induce shock and fear into the viewers, the correct way to go about it would have been to show who was the victim. One cannot help but wonder what affect this will have on viewership: The Walking Dead has a passionate, and somewhat notorious fan-base. The extended wait for the Season 7 premier in October of 2016 will likely put viewership into a tailspin and cause spoilers to leak. 

Producer Scott M. Gimple defended his decision to end on a cliffhanger saying, “In many ways what we saw last night was the end of the story of episode 16…. And presenting what occurs, to show what happened in full-force, is the beginning of the next story.” Ultimately, I just think this is an attempt by the producers to get themselves out of a sticky situation. A prominent theme of the finale was to be grateful for what and who you have in your life because you never quite know when they could be taken from you. Revealing Negan’s victim would have ultimately brought Rick’s crew closer together and this theme to its climax.

At the end of the day, there is nothing left for the viewers to do but speculate…