The Historic Downfall of The Walking Dead

fridge [Music] [Music] it's weird to think there used to be a time where The Walking Dead was my favorite show on television it feels very distant now but I used to be a massive fan of this show I started watching it around 2013 I think when season three was airing and I was just obsessed like a lot of people it's easy to forget but in 2013 The Walking Dead was one of the biggest phenomenons in pop culture like this show was a big deal at that time you either watch The Walking Dead Or Game of Thrones or both and that's what everybody was talking about even in my own Circle it was the biggest thing we would do giant watch parties every single week reuniting friends family members from different Generations parents brothers sisters uncles aunts nephews cousins you name it it was an event every Sunday night and around season 5 The Walking Dead was the most watched television series in the world the audience numbers it would pull every week were astronomical and the show's success seemed impossible to slow down it was a hit unlike anything we'd seen before until it wasn't in my opinion and in the opinion of many The Walking Dead is the perfect a great example of a show that widely overstayed its welcome it's a show that gambled a little too much with its audience and refused to quit while it was ahead and now the entirety of The Walking Dead as a franchise feels like a pale shadow of its former self and more importantly it feels like a pale Shadow at what it could have been because yeah when you really take a look at it it's hard to deny that this show had somewhat of a historical downfall I've been wanting to talk about The Walking Dead on the channel for a very long time but I always wanted to wait for the show to be over which is something that felt impossible a couple years ago oh when when will it end The Walking Dead was known for its tendency to endlessly stretch things out but last November after 11 very long Seasons it did in fact end and I've been sitting with some thoughts ever since I watch this series finale and I want to talk about it because I think the end of The Walking Dead illustrates an issue that has been bugging a lot of people as of late even internet idiots like me and I think it's interesting to try and examine what is probably considered to be the greatest Fall From Grace in television history but before we do that I think it's important to take a look back at the earlier years of The Walking Dead on television The Walking Dead premiered on Halloween night of 2010 and for the uninitiated the show tells the story of Rick Grimes I'm Andrew Lincoln AKA Ricky Dicky Doo Dog Rhymes a sheriff's deputy from Georgia who gets shot on duty and wakes up from a coma about a month later but when he wakes up he finds out that the world has been destroyed and Society has collapsed to a Brutal Zombie Apocalypse completely disoriented terrified and very much still impaired by the fact that he got bodied by a shotgun Rick Ventures out of the hospital and attempts to navigate the city to try and find his wife Laurie and his son Carl and so the series essentially follows Rick and a group of survivors as they try to stay alive in the apocalypse facing off against the undead or Worse other groups of survivors the show goes through many many different incarnations over its run most seasons have a total of 16 episodes split into two storylines of 8 episodes each and the writers tried to softly reinvent the show in every half and that capacity to constantly redefine itself was one of the Walking Dead's biggest strengths but It ultimately also became one of its biggest problems see the one thing I find interesting about the fall of The Walking Dead is that fans have different Notions of when the show was officially dead that's probably because it has a number of low points narratively but also because it often managed to pick itself up in some capacity and despite its unimaginably massive downfall the show show did keep somewhat of a cult following until the very end with most people keeping a very strong attachment to the early days of the series season 1 is largely regarded as a fantastic season of television and I think it holds up pretty well it has an insanely strong pilot great characters great pacing mostly because season one is the shortest season of the show with only six episodes it does an amazing job at setting up the rules of the world and introducing the characters and their different Dynamics aside from Rick his wife Lori and his son Carl we meet a larger cast that becomes integral parts of the show Glenn Carol Shane Morgan and of course the Ultimate Fan Favorite Daryl Dixon the season is short but packed with solid writing and great directing which makes it thrilling and extremely memorable season 2 however is a bit more of a mixed bag for people while many appreciate its character work and its very skilled displays of tension the season also faced a lot of criticism for its slow pace and lack of action and really it's understandable after the fast moving season one most of season 2 takes place on a farm and deals with the characters trying to find a little girl that went missing it's a very different Dynamic than what season one gave us and a lot of people describe season 2 as mainly being boring and uneventful it's also often pointed out that season 2 might have had a dip in quality due to the departure of the original showrunner at the end of season 1. I personally fall somewhere in the middle but I think it can mostly be chucked up to people needing to get used to the show's tradition of Reinventing itself in every new arc but for me this season is flawed but still pretty solid the tension of the show comes from the character's interpersonal relationships and their conflicts hold a lot of weight especially when it comes to Rick and Shane Shane slow descent into madness in season 2 is still one of my favorite storylines on the show and the overall character developed meant of the entire cast is just amazing long story short season 2 has some low points but when it works it really works season 3 is considered by a number of fans to simply be the best season of The Walking Dead and it's not difficult to see why season 1 and 2 were very different and when it came to their individual qualities season 3 was The Best of Both Worlds while it managed to improve on its already amazing character work this season also allowed itself to move a bit more its action-packed fast-paced the stakes are much higher it introduces new characters that for the most part are awesome and of course this is the season that also introduces the Show's first real villain the governor he was an insanely menacing psychopath with an eye patch and people loved him season 3 also got praise for the way it explored the psychological aspects of its characters it's the point where the story shows how this zombie apocalypse is a affecting the character's mental health and the writers handle it in a way that was incredibly intriguing and at times emotional it's probably not the most realistic depiction of mental health but to this day the telephone twist in season 3 still gives me goosebumps I'll always remember the first time I saw it for those who don't know it's a storyline where Rick gets a phone call from people who are willing to help the group he talks to them several times trying to find a way to meet with them he spends entire days waiting by the phone for them to call until he realizes in a gut punch of a Twist that these people do not exist that the phone he's using doesn't even work and that he hallucinated the entire thing it's an insanely well executed bait and switch that not only crushes the hope of the audience and the characters but also comes as a crushing Revelation to the audience that they really just spent this whole season watching the hero of the show slowly losing his sanity long story short season 3 is the season that really the conquered audiences and catapulted the show at the top of the pop culture pyramid this is the season when The Walking Dead really became the must-watch television show The Internet could not get enough of ah okay this is where things get a bit tricky so bear with me I think the first signs of trouble for The Walking Dead really started to show in season four more specifically in the second half of season four while the first half served as a final chapter to the very popular Governor Arc the rest of the season is the beginning of the Terminus Arc and this is where the show experiences a massive shift in its storytelling that became one of the primary reasons for its eventual downfall and that is because the Terminus Arc marks the beginning of what I like to call The Walking Dead's Boomerang storytelling let me explain what I mean by that the second half of season 4 sees the aftermath of Rick and his group's final showdown against the governor and his forces their Sanctuary was destroyed as a result of the battle and the entire group was separated in the process of escaping the chaos so the show now had to follow micro groups of characters scattered around different parts of the map up trying to find their friends and family members and attempting to survive in the wild now in theory that's totally fine you can easily make that work by separating your episodes in two or three plot lines we can jump from plot a to plot B to maybe plot C and everything would be okay that's what most TV shows do but instead of doing that producer Scott gimple hooped was also the showrunner at the time opted to do things differently this is where he started experimenting with Boomerang storytelling aka the idea of dedicating an entire episode to a single character or a single group of characters basically this narrative structure consists of one storyline being the focus of one episode and having a sort of rotation through the season to simplify it means episode 1 would focus on storyline 1 episode 2 would focus on storyline 2 episode 3 on storyline 3 episode 4 on storyline 4 and then episode 5 would then Circle go back around and go back to storyline one and then that same cycle would continue until all the storylines converge into one for the finale so do I need to explain why that model sucks this narrative structure was incredibly irritating because it made the continuity of the show become a drag it undid the momentum of virtually every single storyline in the season which is only made worse by the fact that it would feature plot threads people would be invested in but then it would consistently be ruined because basically you would watch an episode about Rick and it would follow him through a storyline that was thrilling and exciting and full of tension and it would end on a strong Cliffhanger and people would be buzzing about it and talking about it online and everybody would be excited about the next episode but then you tune in the following week and the next episode is about another character elsewhere doing other things so you would wait for the week after but the next episode would be about yet another secondary character in their own corner of the show doing other things and so on and so on so you would watch the very cool episode with Rick and his awesome Cliffhanger but then you would have to wait like a month to see where that goes because the show then gave you three weeks of filler storylines that could have easily been combined into one episode you basically just had to wait for the main storyline to come back around like a boomerang yeah it's a terrible narrative choice that slowed the show down and created a really really frustrating experience for viewers people hoped it would be short-lived but it wasn't because this storytelling model turned out to be a flaw that dragged the show down all the way through the end of season eight but to backtrack while these issues started to appear in season 4 people still absolutely adored the show during that time it's something that people noticed but it wasn't a problem yet I mentioned it earlier but season 5 is the point where the Walking Dead peaked as a show the ratings for season 5 were insane it was the biggest TV show in the world an absolute pop culture phenomenon like we'd never seen before and again every single episode was a massive event the show seemed Unstoppable and then came season six season six was a defining point for The Walking Dead a definitive entry that saw a major and extremely important shift happen not only because of some narrative choices that didn't quite go right but also because season 6 is the point where the fandom started to have some real issues with the show for the very first time issues they had a difficult time ignoring it was the point where the audience was starting to voice their problems with the show very openly Looking Back Now I think season 6 can reasonably be reframed as the beginning of the end for The Walking Dead because while seasons 4 and 5 made some wonky decisions and experiments that didn't quite line with fans season 6 was the definitive point where the show started to make fatal mistakes it would never recover from for one by that point Scott gimple seemed to be set on the idea of boomerang storytelling becoming the primary narrative structure for the show he was using it constantly and audiences were really starting to feel the effects of it the show was becoming dull at points it took forever to get to the point if it ever did and the exciting and thrilling nature of the story became a rare occurrence usually kept for premieres and finales as the rest of the season felt like it was purposefully wasting your time over the course of season 6 from the first few episodes there was a certain frustration that started to grow among the fandom at first it was kind of tame because it seemed to be the only major problem people had with the show but that quickly changed for the worst to make it short Scott gimple and the writers were starting to rely on sheep tricks to mess with the audience and to carry the plot of the show these cheap tricks came in different forms that seemed to annoy different fans but it was only a matter of time before they pulled the one cheap trick that would make everybody angry and turn that frustration into real backlash against the show at the rate they were going it was only a matter of time before the show made its first fatal mistake and that fatal mistake inevitably arrived in episode 7 of season six where the writers pulled a card that forever changed the audience's perception of the show and that now Infamous fatal mistake was the Glenn fake out death now it's important to point out for anyone watching this who hasn't seen The Walking Dead that in its early years one of the biggest elements that made the show so incredibly thrilling is the fact that it established very early on that this was a story where nobody was safe The Walking Dead was a show where anybody could die anybody they knew that if they wanted the sticks of show to feel real the audience needed to feel and see that constant danger that could only be achieved effectively by killing off main characters in the most brutal and shocking ways and they succeeded at that they actually pulled that off really well it was a big thing every time something would go down in the show the audience would be tense you would be on the edge of your seat holding your breath and clenching your butt cheeks because any action sequence meant you were probably about to watch your favorite character get eaten by zombies or get their head chopped off it was really stressful and they didn't even keep the big character debts for big moments like a season finale or something like that no sometimes a major character would just die in the middle of a random episode in a gruesome and brutal Manner and then the show had to move on immediately because urgency we have to move we have to survive and that was an element of the story that truly contributed to its high States however over time this aspect of the the show became less of a necessary narrative device and instead it slowly turned into a weird and cheap gimmick primarily used for shock value character that started to feel like they didn't really have a point anymore and most of the main casts started to develop some pretty thick plot armor meaning most of the brutal Death Scenes were given to Side characters people didn't really care about it all became White Noise and five or six seasons in the show's extreme Gore had lost its impact people were used to it now so the gimmick was reduced to shock value that wasn't shocking so the try and muster up some emotion out of the fans Scott gimple and the writers made a very very bad decision a bad decision that was a huge mix of bad writing cheap shock value and a lethal dose of boomerang's Storytelling huh what the f let me walk you through it in episode 3 of season 6 there is a scene featuring fan favorite Glenn ree facing off against a herd of zombies with another character long story short they have to retreat into an Alleyway where they get completely surrounded and have for only protection their ability to climb on top of a dumpster where they find themselves completely stuck at this point Nicholas the other character with Glenn is completely overwhelmed by the situation and it seems like there is no immediate solution for them to be saved so Nicholas completely panics and almost seems to dissociate for a short but tense moment after which he turns around to faze Glenn and thanks him he then grabs his gun and shoots himself in the head in his fall to the ground he accidentally takes Glenn down with him and they both fall from the dumpster the scene is then overtaken by sad music as we watch Glenn being brutally ripped apart by the zombies and then cut to Black immediately after that scene aired the audience erupted on social media it was an absolute Whirlwind but not in the way you'd expect where Scott gimple and the people behind the show expected the scene to be met with the same sense of shock and horror as previous big character that's this time they were instead met with a surprising amount of frustration it turns out that most of the audience could immediately tell that something about Glenn's death scene was off and it didn't take long for everyone to believe he didn't actually die this has got to be a fake out now that's not Glenn that can't be Glenn it was faking the [Music] it's necklace on top of them it's not Glenn English they've got to be eating Nicholas right that really made people mad because resorting to fake out debts like this to try and get excitement out of the audience was solidifying for a lot of fans that the show was losing Steam and they were angry at the writers for doing something so manipulative and lame in such a big way which is something they never really had to do before but despite the frustration at the time there was no confirmation of anything yet so people decided to give the show the benefit of the doubt and everybody agreed to wait for episode 4 to come out the following week to see what happens with Glenn the problem is remember the show was now operating with Boomerang storytelling and that really didn't help anything the following week episode 4 came out and no mention of Glenn people were really annoyed by that episode 5 came out the week after that still no Glenn now people were getting really pissed off but another week after that episode 6 came out and still no mention of Glenn I wish I was kidding but I'm not it's not until episode 7 a full month later that the show finally circled back around to Glenn and we got to find out his fate one episode before the mid-season finale and so after all of this I will let you imagine the Uproar that came from the audience when they found out that all those theories about the fake death scene were right Glenn didn't die he was not ripped apart by the Walkers that was the body of Nicholas on top of him Glenn actually survived by sliding under the dumpster and waiting for 24 hours for the zombies to just leave and then he got up and just walked away rendering the entire thing a giant waste of time this was a very specific turning point for the show one that fundamentally broke the trust between the audience and the writers and that was the first fatal mistake the show made people felt betrayed they felt like their time was being wasted the boomerang storytelling was now an unavoidable problem everyone was way too aware of and the writers beginning to rely on outlandish fake outs for a manufactured drama made people instantly worried about the future of the show especially because spoiler alert Glenn would end up dying for real just Nine episodes later but we'll get to that in a minute after that hold debacle the show moved on and the rest of season six served as a big piece of narrative build up for the highly anticipated arrival of the Walking Dead's most notorious big bad Negan Negan is introduced in the season 6 finale as he shows up in one of my favorite scenes in the entire show he spent the entire second half of the season in the shadows tricking Rick and his group into being at his Mercy as Revenge after they killed some of his people and he came completely overpowers them after the audience heard his name in almost every episode of the Season he finally reveals himself in the last third of the finale his introduction scene is incredibly tense and he addresses the group for the first time in an 11 minute monologue that is performed brilliantly by Jeffrey Dean Morgan you're right I'm Negan and I do not appreciate you killing my men also when I sent my people to kill your people for killing my people you killed more my people not cool I don't want to kill you people just want to make that clear from the get-go I want you to work for me you can't do that if you're dead now can you all right listen don't any of you do that again I will shut that [ __ ] down no exceptions first one's free it's an emotional moment I get it honestly this scene is so good sometimes I just go on YouTube to watch it randomly it's a master class of tension it's incredibly well acted but while negan's arrival is hands down one of my favorite scenes in the entire show it is also the scene that made millions of people rage quit on The Walking Dead because the ending of the Season turned out to be the show's second fatal mistake now whether you've seen the show or not you've probably heard about the absolute [ __ ] Scandal created by what is essentially considered to be the worst Cliffhanger in television history it made people so mad that it literally broke the internet it was completely insane seriously the backlash got so bad that like Scott gimple had to address it to the Press actors tried to defend the decision in interviews people were screaming for Scott gimbal to be fired they denounced the show's manipulative Antics it was a [ __ ] [ __ ] show so what was the Cliffhanger well after Negan finishes his incredible monologue he lets Rick and the Gang know that he will punish their arrogance by brutally murdering one person in the group with his baseball bat he wants to make everybody watch as he bashes someone's head in as violently as he can now it's a very famous scene from the comics the show is adapted from and people were really looking forward to seeing it adapted because there were a lot of questions about whether the show was going to pick the same victim as the comics or instead opt for killing off another character to keep the surprise as the finale approached the people behind the show promised a major death they told people they would be shocked when they see who dies so everybody tuned in Scott gimple was hyping the ending so much everyone was completely intrigued by the arrival of this Negan guy the excitement was at a peak and then Negan shows up he announces he's gonna kill someone he lifts his Bat and smashes it down you hear people screaming and then it cuts to Black yeah that's not a joke after all this build up after all the promise and the hype the season six finale ends without actually showing you who Negan kills he hits the camera and then it cuts to Black it's a cheap and infuriating Cliffhanger that made people [ __ ] furious and understandably so because people now had to wait almost seven months just to see who died the backlash the show got was so loud it was honestly impressive it proved to be a breaking point for many viewers though and this is the first big moment that became a last straw for a huge part of the fandom that quit the show right then and there and then came season 7. the first episode of season seven is considered by many to be one of the best episodes of the show if not the best episode which obviously after all the backlash of the season 6 finale during its entire Hiatus they knew this Premiere had to be a [ __ ] Banger and as promised we do end up finding out in this Premiere who Negan killed it was Abraham and Glenn by the way the episode is thrilling brutal emotional it makes Negan even more terrifying than he was in the season 6 finale and honestly aside from some criticism over how graphic this episode was the season 7 premiere was so good and got so many people talking about it some people were convinced the show would succeed at getting the fans trust back and these people were wrong I'm gonna make this short season 7 and 8 ruin the show plain and simple after the first episode of season 7 The Show just crashes in terms of quality it's an absolute Free Fall that today this day I do not understand it's almost hard to believe the nose dive the show goes on during this time I still have trouble believing it's real even though I watched all of it basically to give you a brief overview season 7 and 8 are just 31 episodes of boomerang storytelling where nothing happens it is all about the war against Negan which should have been the most Bonker storyline in the entire show especially after that crazy setup but it is just so dull it's an endless back and forth of useless [ __ ] and Filler episodes that go on and on and on and the show just never gets to the point it seemed like the writer's plan with the story just became how do we waste as much time as possible to keep dragging this on so we can milk more seasons out of the show it's uninteresting it's boring as [ __ ] it feels tight weird as hell and in the process of ruining the story they also ruin all of the characters one by one Negan is given one of the most badass introductions in the history of Television but despite Jeffrey Dean Morgan never giving a bad performance in this role the character ends up becoming an annoying villain that feels boring and mishandled because he just never gets to the point I'm naked and I've had him spaghetti Rick is completely directionless as a character now Daryl hoop is by far the most popular character on the show becomes a background character that hardly ever speaks he'd literally spends two seasons just grunting at people and barely says anything and that's not just me saying it by the way Norman Reedus himself acknowledged it afterwards and for the last couple Seasons Daryl has been speaking in a series of Grunts and snarls in this episode I'm not you're right basically over the last few seasons the show had just become a repetitive drag that kept itself going by taking a couple of major storylines and recycling them over and over and over again and season seven and eight were the worst of it it was a disaster these two seasons are just shameful they're so bad it's almost insulting and enough was enough for the audience because season 7 is the point where the Walking Dead started losing viewers for the first time and it was noticeable because they were losing viewers fast the ratings were dropping at an alarming rate and that continued through season eight that rhymes fan communities online just dwindled away some of them got really angry and started to just rant about the show every week until they just stopped covering it it was just really sad the show that at one point easily got between 13 and 17 million live viewers every single week which was just Gigantic by the way was now dropping below the 10 million line regularly and that drop showed no sign of stopping and it never did stop by the way the show never recovered from season seven and eight especially not after they made their third and final fatal mistake because in the mid-season finale of season eight the writers randomly decided to kill off Carl Grimes Rick's son oh no there was a whole lot of drama around it behind the scenes because allegedly Chandler Riggs who played Carl was told that he was gonna stay on the show for a really long time and he was planning a lot of stuff in his life to go according to that and then they just kind of killed him off randomly very fast after he renewed his contract but before people even found out about that there was already just outrage everywhere okay no after 23 episodes of complete boredom and mediocrity Carl's death comes out of nowhere and in a way that feels incredibly unearned and it was just the ultimate breaking point for the show Carl's death proved to be the last straw for a lot of people everyone was so done with The Walking Dead's [ __ ] Scott gimple's name became synonymous with the show's downfall everybody accepted that the show's Glory days were long gone and so fans quit on the show by the millions it literally got to the point where the cast of the show was sent on a whole press tour early in season 9 to literally beg people not to give up on the show season 9 also saw Scott gimple stepping down as showrunner to handle larger projects within the franchise and longtime writer of the series Angela Kang coming into take over as the new boss after the complete disasters that were the last two seasons AMC and literally everyone involved in the show knew there needed to be a change and Angela was determined to bring the show back to its former glory and you know what Against All Odds she succeeded Angela Kang actually fixed the show season 9 is one of the best seasons of The Walking Dead it is one of the best return to forms I've ever seen on television and Angela takes 100 of the credit for that and she had to work with a lot of [ __ ] to manage to make it this good she had to deal with the aftermath of the worst two seasons and she also had to deal with Andrew Lincoln leaving the show we'll talk about his departure more in a little bit but him leaving meant Angela was now tasked with Reinventing the show without its protagonist it should have been a losing battle from the get-go but she somehow managed to do it she made The Walking Dead great again but it didn't matter the show actually got better yes but it was too little too late despite remaining fans and critics being back on the show's side and praising it again Walking Dead spent the entirety of season 9 bleeding viewers left and right despite the grand return to form they just couldn't make the show recover from the major mistakes of the last three seasons every single week saw new ratings low for the show up until its eventual finale and it continued in the seasons that followed people just left the show in droves and for the record I was one of those people too despite the fact that I loved season 9 and was super impressed by how Angela King reinvented the show I somehow couldn't find the motivation to watch season 10. I did start the season when it came out but two episodes in literally I'm the second week something in my brain just went I'm tired of this and I just never went back to the show I officially gave up on The Walking Dead Two episodes into season 10. and I think it's because yes like I said it was too little too late but it's also because the sense of community around the show was completely gone by that point it was true for the fandom as a whole and it was also true for me individually at the beginning of the video I mentioned how my people and I used to watch the show in massive groups and we had a watch party every week with friends and family members around some good food and then whoever wasn't able to make it would call after the episode and we would all talk about it and stuff and it was a hype that felt amazing and fun fresh but by the time season 10 rolled around I was the only person in my entire extended Circle that was still watching the show and that's not hyper Believe by the way when I tell you I was the only one I mean that I did not know a single person who was still watching the show all of my friends had stopped watching my friend's friends stopped watching my girlfriend had grown to hate the show my brother quit when Carl died in season eight and that was his favorite show of all time so you can imagine there wasn't a single soul left in my life that was still watching the show and watching by myself just did not hit the same and so the mix of all these elements made me get bored of the show in a way that made it unwatchable for me and I don't think I was the only one in that boat because the Walking Dead's rapid decline never really slowed down remember when I said that at its peak The Walking Dead could pull up to 17 million live viewers yeah well by season 11 the show was only pulling about 1 million viewers per episode ouch I don't know if you realize how insane that is that's not a small little drop that you can't ignore by season 11 the show had lost about 94 of its viewership much 94 that is just brutal there's no way you can look at that and go oh that's fine no that's catastrophic when I told you the show had a historical downfall I wasn't exaggerating the series finale the end of this 12-year Journey that meant so much to so many people only pulled about 2 million viewers and to this day almost six months after the finale some old fans of the show are not even aware that the Walking Dead ended last year and oh speaking of the devil let's talk about the very reason I made this video let's talk about the ending I hate the ending of The Walking Dead I can't stand it watching it made me so frustrated and so sad at the same time now to reiterate yes I did stop watching the show two episodes into season 10 and I never finished that season and I never watched the first half of season 11. although from what I've seen online the general consensus is that season 10 starts really strong and gets really dull especially with a handful of episodes that were shot during covid that were not initially planned so make of that what you will I eventually returned to the show to watch the last four episodes and the finale left me incredibly irritated but why why is the ending of The Walking Dead so frustrating why is it so bad after all it's not an ending that is as outwardly insulting and soul-shattering as other shows it's not the finale of Game of Thrones or lost Pretty Little Liars How I Met Your Mother Dexter or hell even The Sopranos but while it's easy to understand why the finales of these shows created such a massive shitstorm in pop culture I think the ending of The Walking Dead is a failure for a reason that is very different from all the other ones at least to me because sure the finale itself as an episode is not as bad as all the other ones I just mentioned if anything it's just very underwhelming but I somehow found it to be way more frustrating and the reason for that is very simple the ending of The Walking Dead is not a real ending the show ends yes but the story doesn't The Walking Dead finale is not a true swan song it's a jumping pad used to expand on the franchise in AMC's continual and desperate attempts at creating their Walking Dead Universe the characters that we loved and cherished don't actually complete arcs that come full circle or allows them to find closure no they're just being sent off to different spin-off Series in different parts of the world Daryl Dixon who essentially became the protagonist after Rick's departure will somehow find himself in Paris in a new show of his own that is currently shooting Maggie and Negan are apparently getting a spin-off titled The Walking Dead dead City that's a terrible Title by the way that will be set in New York and there are like three or four other Series in the works Rick Grimes comes back in the finale for the first time since his departure at the beginning of season 9 but he's not really coming back back for the finale it's just a teaser for his spin-off with Michonne that's coming out later next year and even that is an example of how shady and disrespectful of the audience AMC can be in case you don't know for the quick backstory Andrew Lincoln who plays Rick Grimes wanted to leave the show at the end of season 8. he wasn't enjoying it as much which is understandable because season 7 and 8 were a very low point for the show his contract was up at the end of season 8 and he also got tired of living so far away from his wife and kids the show shot in Georgia but Andrew Lincoln is British and his family lived in England so at the end of season 8 he was gonna leave there was a whole setup for his exit with the now Infamous Flash Forward from the beginning of season 8 showing Rick appearing to be dying next to a tree which was confirmed by Andrew Lincoln himself to be a setup for the end of Rick's story because he initially asked for the writers to kill him off except AMC somehow convinced him to stay for another 5 episodes in season 9 so they can give him a proper send-off so the Flash Forward was later retcon and turned out to be somewhat of a fake out and now the end of Rick's story was the primary focus of the first part of The Following season it's important to know that the whole marketing campaign for season 9 was about Rick's final episodes that's all they talked about it was in trailers it was on the posters Andrew Lincoln did a bunch of events and interviews saying goodbye to the fans and talking about how much this character and this show meant to him and people were really sad to see him go me included this was kind of a big deal I mean since day one The Walking Dead had been the story of Rick Grimes so people were sad to know the story was going to be moving past him but were still curious to see how things would end for him especially after all the public farewells they'd seen from Andrew and AMC it was difficult to accept but everyone came to terms with it and was ready to say goodbye but then his final episode came out and Rick's exit turned out to be another bizarre fake out death ending with a cliffhanger that left everybody really confused only for Scott gimple to immediately announce on the Talking Dead after show that this entire thing was essentially another big trick this wasn't the big farewell we had been conditioned to accept Rick wasn't actually going away forever he was just being sent off to a spin-off Rick Grimes movie trilogy and the first five episodes of season 9 were essentially a build up to that announcement this reveal was met with a lot of backlash frustration and a lack of excitement that took Scott gimple and AMC a bit by surprise this was one too many times that the audience had been tricked by the people behind the show in a very unpleasant way they tried to build some hype for the Rick Grimes movies but they never really got the excitement they were looking for I think this might have caused them to panic a bit behind the scenes because then those freak Grimes movies got stuck in development hell for like four years a period that was only made worse by the pandemic they never really figured out what they wanted those movies to be which was very apparent when interviews of Scott or Creator Robert Kirkman led to questions about the project when asked about updates on the Rick films years after their announcement they still seemed to be in early stages of the process with no sign of a production start and they always gave very vague and Confused answers that brought nothing concrete to the table long story short the movies never got off the ground for the entire four years that followed their announcement four years after which these movies were scrapped and reworked into a Rick and Michonne TV spin-off that's now slated to come out in 2024 and that's the only reason why Rick and Michonne reappear in the series finale of the original show not to actually have anything to do with the story ending because it's not ending but just to remind the audience that their spin-off is on the way and that's what frustrates me so much The Walking Dead finale is not a finale it's just a transition point it's a scam it makes you feel like the show tricked you for 12 years people invested so much into this show The Walking Dead had a very loyal audience but Scott gimple and AMC always chose to take advantage of that with little to no shame they never tried to do anything for the audience they only ever tried to manipulate them or trick them into watching more they're so desperate to make this franchise a thing they're ready to pull anything to achieve it and it's really unfortunate to see and it's also not like it's really been working AMC has been trying to Kickstart a Walking Dead Universe for the better part of a decade now and it's never truly worked out for them fear The Walking Dead the first spin-off the show ever had is the most successful Venture the franchise has had aside from the original show it's about to end with its seventh season I think and everything I hear about it is negative it seems like people have not liked this show in a really long time and people who watch it seem to be just as annoyed with it as people were with the original show in season 7 and 8. I personally gave up on Fear The Walking Dead about halfway through its second season so I'm not really concerned here but I don't know anyone who watches this show anymore and maybe that's why it's ending then there is The Walking Dead World Beyond a teen drama take on the zombie apocalypse that was just really really bad nobody really watched it it ended after two seasons and the only relevant moments it had were one scene that vaguely mentioned Rick Grimes and the post-credits scene of the series finale that teases a theory that the apocalypse might have started in France and it also shows the possibility of more variant zombies that are more aggressive and that can run and hit which is something that probably will play out in some way in the Daryl show because it takes place in Paris but all in all World Beyond was an insanely forgettable show that never really found an audience it disappeared as quickly as it arrived and finally last year we had tales of the Walking Dead an anthology spin-off series that came and went so fast that most people are not aware that this show even exists it was an underwhelming mess that didn't really know what to do with its vast realm of possibilities it went largely unnoticed and the few people who did watch it didn't like it all that much and I think this show especially is a great vision of the state of the franchise right now for what seems like an entire decade The Walking Dead franchise has been in this Perpetual state of throwing everything at the wall as it desperately hopes that something sticks and unfortunately for them none of it has really been working out the way they want I mean excuse the shitty pun but The Walking Dead has been in a state of decay for like five or six years now actually I don't apologize for that pun I stand by it and it looks like AMC is just reaching and reaching to try and bring the franchise back to its 2015-ish Glory but man that's long gone the fact that they're ready to ruin all of their iconic characters for the sake of milking this franchise with no end in sight is really sad I'm sure I'll get curious and check out the Daryl show and the Rick and Michonne show I don't know if I'm gonna stick with them but right now I don't see any hype for any of those spin-offs and some of them are coming out this year that's kind of crazy when you think about it I don't know it just feels so disappointing to invest over a decade into a show that never wanted to end only to then bait the small amount of people that remain faithful to the show into watching other stuff if they want a definitive ending that is not even guaranteed I really wanted the final season and to prove me wrong for quitting on the show in season 10 to prove to everyone who quit on the show along the way that sticking with it would have been worth it but I feel like it achieved the opposite it proved everyone right it proved to me and to the 94 of the Colossal audience that quit that being so invested into this story and these characters is not worth it I've talked about it at the length on the channel but I'm always wary of stories that make it very clear they have no end in sight and that's what the Walking Dead is now it's a story that keeps going just for the sake of it and more often than not these stories keep going until nobody wants to watch them anymore and then it ends in a bit of a dud that by default cannot be satisfying to anyone and it's a sad fate for a show that once was a cultural phenomenon of a scale we had never really seen before in a meta way you could say that the franchise itself is the real Walking Dead it okay that wasn't my best joke but please subscribe there's almost 500 000 of us in here look I don't know what the Walking Dead will evolve into I genuinely don't but I doubt this franchise will ever become the popular Cinematic Universe the creators desperately wanted to be if it ever had the potential to I think that [ __ ] sailed like seven or eight years ago at the very least at the end of the day it's a show that was ruined by the greed of the people making it people who chose a corporate route of banking on never-ending build up to milk this franchise for everything it has they turned it into this long overly dragged out story that feels like it's constantly building towards something that never happens I will always remember the early Seasons fondly not only for what they were but for all the moments it brought me and my friends and family as we all experienced it together but every time I look at it just like a lot of people out there I cannot help but see what the walk Dead really is the greatest Fall From Grace in television history [Music] excuse me

Channel: Friendly Space Ninja

Views: 4,883,344

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Id: dkiLC5hvpiU

Length: 52min 40sec (3160 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 15 2023