If there’s one thing The Walking Dead is known for, it’s shocking, gut-wrenching deaths, and yet, some of the show’s best characters didn’t get the send-offs they deserved. You know that moment when a character you love meets their end, and you’re like, “Wait… that’s it?” Yeah, that happened several times in the popular zombie series.
There’s nothing worse than rooting for someone through endless hordes of walkers, watching them fight, laugh, and occasionally steal the spotlight, only to have their story cut short in a way that feels almost casual. You’re left mourning not just the loss of a survivor, but the missed opportunity for a truly epic farewell.
There’s one particular character that comes to mind right now who perfectly embodies this frustration. That would be Abraham Ford (Michael Cudlitz). Widely considered one of the more underrated characters on The Walking Dead, Abraham meets his end in the season 7 premiere when Negan uses his barbed-wire-wrapped baseball bat to brutally beat him to death as a way to assert dominance over Rick’s group and instill fear.
The TV adaptation kept Abraham alive longer than the comics did, and changed both the method of his death and the character responsible for it. Some fans might argue that Abraham's demise in the show was more gruesome than in the comic book series. In Robert Kirkman's comics, Abraham dies after being shot through the eye with an arrow by Dwight, a member of the Saviors.
But in my opinion, the TV version, while undeniably brutal and drawn out, still robbed Abraham of the epic send-off he truly deserved. Abraham was more than just the muscle in Rick's group. He was fearless, quick-witted, and heroic, a character whose bravery and no-nonsense attitude demanded a farewell that matched his impact. Fans couldn't even really mourn his death because moments later in the same scene, Glenn is murdered the exact same way.
When people think back to that scene, they don't think about Abraham's death. No, his death was overshadowed by Glenn's. And that’s what makes it even more frustrating. The writers just had to know that was a bad idea. Glenn had been on the show much longer than Abraham, building years of character development and emotional investment with the audience. It was pretty much a given that Glenn’s death would dominate the scene, so it makes no sense why Abraham's exit wasn’t given its own spotlight.
I'm not saying that the show had to wait until much later to kill him off. They could've even done it a couple of episodes later. But it was just important to give Abraham a moment that felt earned. He deserved a moment of his own, a heroic, unforgettable exit fit for the M16-slinging, red-haired badass we all came to love.