Sometimes gimmicks pay off.
The creators of AMC’s “The Walking Dead” riled some fans in April by ending the show’s sixth season with a cliffhanger. Those viewers apparently came back in droves for the Season 7 premiere on Sunday: The episode was one of the most watched in series history.
An estimated 17 million people tuned in to find out which of the core characters the new villain, Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), killed off the show, according to Nielsen. That total made the episode No. 1 in the ratings on Sunday, topping even the perennial heavyweight “Sunday Night Football” on NBC.
It was the second-highest-rated episode of “The Walking Dead,” trailing only the Season 5 premiere of October 2014. The zombie apocalypse drama is the top-rated show on television, broadcast or cable, among adults ages 18 to 49, the most coveted demographic for advertisers. (“Talking Dead,” the popular weekly post-episode chat show hosted by Chris Hardwick, drew 7.6 million viewers on Sunday, the highest total in its history.)
Ten outta Ten!
While I was right that the showrunners decided to kill off Abraham, I didn’t see Glenn’s death coming. I didn’t think they’d go that far after toying with our emotions in the Glenn fake-out death last season.
I still think killing Daryl would have been the better move, but there’s no doubt that killing off Glenn was bloody, bold and resolute. On the other hand, killing Glenn just pours salt on the wound AMC left us with in Season 6.:
All told, it was a tense, upsetting season premiere. As much as I hate the long cliff-hanger, and as much as I hate to see Glenn go, I can’t deny that this is the most intense, insane and emotionally powerful episode The Walking Dead has given us in years. I’m still not sure how to feel about Negan. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is so flippant, so casual in his villainy, he almost seems out of place. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing remains to be seen. Whether this is merely Governor 2.0 remains to be seen.
Still, I’m experiencing something that was in short supply by the end of Season 6: Excitement.