5 Takes About "The Walking Dead" Season 6 Finale

Seth Opeil
Apr 6, 2016
4 min read

Our society has always seemed fascinated by post apocalyptic stories, but this fascination has grown within the past decade as seen by a flurry of movies and television shows set in this environment. Mad Max, I Am Legend, Book of Eli, 28 Days Later, are just a few that have been released in the past couple years... If the list continued, it could fill out this entire blog entry. The Walking Dead has represented this generation’s poster child for this post-apocalyptic mania. As the show entered it’s 6th season, it was breaking ratings records for a cable show, even beating out Sunday Night Football. Actors like Norman Reedus, Andrew Lincoln, and Lauren Cohan have become household names. This week The Walking Dead aired the season 6 finale on a massive cliffhanger, which certainly caused a reaction amongst fans and viewers. Here are five takes on The Walking Dead season finale.

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t seen The Walking Dead season finale, spoilers are ahead!

It’s surprising that this season Scott Gimple, lead show writer of The Walking Dead, has overly utilized the cliffhanger element. It was already poorly executed earlier this season with the Glenn “death episode”, which fans and critics panned. They also tried the same strategy in the previous episode with Daryl being shot but not knowing his fate. This pattern of implementing this same strategy continued for the Negan baseball bat scene, a defining moment in the comics. This time, the show runners chose to leave the identity of the character who Negan beat to death in question. Why has the most popular show on cable become so dependent on the cliffhanger strategy in its 6th and most popular season? Are Gimple and company concerned viewers aren’t going to tune in the following week or season? If that’s the case, it is an error in judgment by the show runners, because not only is the way they’ve executed the cliffhangers weakening their episodes and the flow of the season, but the cliffhanger endings are frustrating fans and in-turn hurting the show.
When Rick and the group are hitting Savior roadblock after Savior roadblock while taking Maggie to the Hilltop community, the writers use these slowly escalating scenes to build tension, slowly reveal the Saviors as a massive calculated group, and to show viewers the fear slowly mounting in Rick. Rather than dragging this build-up out for 5 roadblocks and 45 minutes, the writers could have cut the roadblock amount down to 3 and the run-time of those combined scenes down to 15 minutes to keep the plot moving and keep audience interest.
The most intriguing parts of the finale were the Carol and Morgan scenes, which bring the debate between these two characters of violent versus peaceful tactics to a boiling point. The dialogue where Carol explains her need to kill to preserve those you love is The Walking Dead at it’s best. It also reminds the viewer how well the show can build dynamic and emotionally complex characters as seen by Carol over the past few seasons, who has transformed from a boring one-dimensional character to one of the most interesting characters on The Walking Dead.
The Walking Dead has trouble successfully landing a season finale. When looking back at the finales of the first 6 seasons, the writers only succeeded on two, the season 2 finale, where the group was driven out of Hershal’s farm by a heard of walkers, and the previous season finale in Alexandria. After viewers dedicated hours to watching a season, the writers have to provide more closure to the current story saga, while setting-up and building excitement for what’s to come. Seasons 1, 3, 4, and 6 have failed to accomplish those basic goals. The fact that this show cannot successfully finish seasons has not hurt its ratings yet, but if the frustration from fans keeps up, this problem could hurt and eventually end The Walking Dead mania.
Jeffery Dean Morgan does a great job portraying Negan. The biggest strength of his portrayal is the charisma he displays. Gimple and the rest of The Walking Dead crew did an outstanding job setting up the Negan character for the up-coming season. Expect Morgan to play a big role in season 7, possible even having a multi-episode arc addressing his character’s journey, similar to the Governor in season 4 or Morgan in this past season.

As this most recent chapter of The Walking Dead ends, it’s hard not to be frustrated with the state of the series. Yet this seems to be the growing trend with The Walking Dead finales, so fans' patience will be tested once again. Fans might start asking themselves whether they will want to turn the television back to AMC in October for season 7. Besides the cliff hanger, one aspect that should draw fans back in will be Jeffery Dean Morgan’s portray of Negan, the most anticipated villain in The Walking Dead comics.