It's been a few years since The Walking Dead killed its last zombie, but as Fear The Walking Dead's Madison Clark likes to say: "No one's gone until they're gone". The franchise has lived on beyond the original TWD show's series finale, producing multiple new spinoffs focusing on veteran characters and ultimately continuing their stories in ways that the original show couldn't.
It's the never-ending beauty of the TWD Universe, as it simply never dies. And that is clearer than ever in this era, as shows like The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, The Walking Dead: Dead City and The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live have carried that legacy on for a new chapter of this never-ending story. As they say in the movies: Life goes on... even after the apocalypse.
But with all those highs for the franchise, there have been some lows too. Ironically, most of them came on the original series, as The Walking Dead is pretty notorious for making a host of bad decisions throughout its run. With that in mind, let's dive back into the TWD archives and see if we can deduce the very worst decisions of them all.
Ending the show without Rick (and starting the spinoff era too late)
The idea that ultimately became The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live has been in development since Rick Grimes left the original show. That episode, coming early on in season 9, aired in 2017. And yet, the show continued on without the character for two and a half more seasons, concluding in 2022. That's a little baffling.
Of course, the franchise remained successful for AMC and longtime fans continued to watch, but interest in the show was waning (as we usually see with all veteran shows at some point or another) and some viewers just didn't think TWD needed to carry on without Rick - especially when plans were already in his place for his and Michonne's eventual comeback to our screens. If that wasn't going to happen on the original series, then the original series probably should have ended.
Look, I'll be the first to admit that I love The Walking Dead season 9. It's one of the show's stronger seasons and the refresh that the show so desperately needed at that point. But the subsequent seasons weren't quite as strong and, again, interest was waning. This in and of itself did a disservice to the spinoffs that came after it did conclude with its eleventh season.
If fans felt that the show ran on for too long - and did so without its main character - it was going to be a hard sell to convince them to stick around for three new spinoffs after the original series concluded. And believe us, the new spinoffs have been very successful for AMC and AMC+. But imagine how much more buzz there would have been if the network had ended TWD with season 9 and set the stage for the characters' eventual comebacks.
Had The Walking Dead ended with a bigger, more invested audience, there would have been a lot more buzz around this new TWD Universe era. It would have ensured that Rick Grimes' story never left the focus of the shared universe's central narrative while also making spinoffs focused on Daryl and Carol as well as Maggie and Negan seem like such a novelty. Instead, we already saw those characters lead the final two seasons of the show... making the need for their own spinoffs seem a little less necessary in a lot of fans' eyes.
Had the TWD Universe expanded in 2019, it would likely have reached far greater audiences.
Killing off Carl Grimes
The Walking Dead is a show that is built on legacy. Everything that the core group of survivors do, they do to preserve the lives of the people they love and hopefully find a way to live in a world dominated by death. It's about finding their way back to what's next and leaving something better behind for who's next. And the next generation is obviously at the heart of that.
So please explain to us why - after eight seasons of fighting to keep Carl Grimes alive - The Walking Dead suddenly turned around and decided to kill the character off? Carl was the future that Rick was fighting for; he was the character who, after years of struggle, finally figured out the importance of his father's mission to survive and rebuild. He was what it was all about.
The decision to kill him off was widely reviled by audiences - even those who weren't major Carl fans - because of how it desecrated the purpose of the show. Lori died so that her children could live, Rick sacrificed so much to keep fighting for them and preserve their futures. And just like that, some bad creative decisions and a bunch of shock value decided to take it all away.
It didn't even serve much purpose for the show either. A few episodes later, Rick had left the show - after a multi-year time-jump robbed the series of a chance to explore much of the aftermath of the poor decision - and the character who Carl sacrificed himself to save ended up dying in season 10 anyway. Although the show did try to place the focus on Rick's daughter Judith shortly after that, audiences just didn't know the character like they knew Carl. It was clear that they were attempting to course-correct and, as great as Judith is, her eventual reunion with Rick in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live just didn't carry the same emotional weight that a reunion with Carl would have.
Simply put: Chandler Riggs deserved better, Carl Grimes deserved better, and the fans who invested in this long-running story deserved better.
The infamous season 6 cliffhanger
Nothing will turn a devoted fan of a TV show or movie off quicker than squandering their good will. If that fan feels like that their trust has been wasted or misused, they will often decide that it's time to move on... or at the very least complain about the show that they once loved misunderstanding that. It taints the experience for them somewhat and it's understandable, to say the least. Especially as this is exactly what happened with The Walking Dead in its season 6 finale.
The show was finally laying the groundwork for Negan's arrival and it was doing so convincingly. It was clear that it was building towards Jeffrey Dean Morgan's arrival as the villain in the season 6 finale, and that was exactly what fans were hoping to see. They were also on edge as they knew that the show would adapt the infamous scene in which the new villain heinously bludgeoned a member of Rick Grimes' group of survivors to death with his bat Lucille. But that didn't exactly happen... as the season 6 finale saw Negan bludgeon... the camera??
+The episode built up to the moment, having Negan start what would be the first of several monologues on the show before finally bringing to life the moment we didn't want to see (and yet secretly needed to see because we needed it to be over with). Instead, the show had Negan assault the camera instead, having the viewers have the POV of whoever it was he was truly attacking. But we didn't see who he was attacking; instead, we just got the bloodsoaked POV... and then had to wait a long, gruelling summer to see who Negan's victim actually was.
The show had successfully made viewers wait for Negan's arrival (as well as that infamous moment), toying with their emotions and keeping them on the edges of their seats, but it failed to follow through on its promise and the ultimate payoff that should have come with it. There was nothing good-natured about this; it was simply an attempt to increase viewership for the season 7 finale and, although it instantly worked, it set the stage for the sharp drop-off that came after that.
Fans weren't happy and rightfully so!
Killing off Glenn Rhee
If there was ever moment where The Walking Dead reached the point of no return, it has to be the season 7 premiere. A widely-criticized episode, it followed the even more notorious season 6 premiere in which Negan bludgeoned a mystery member of the show's core group of survivors to death. The decision to keep us waiting for a finale that ultimately refused to give us any payoff, but the reveal in the subsequent episode - the violent, heinous reveal - in which Negan killed Glenn... that was unforgivable.
Glenn was widely considered one of the best characters in The Walking Dead. An all-around, genuinely good guy who would have done anything for his beloved Maggie and their unborn son, he deserved far better than the cruel death that the TWD writers forced upon him. It was sickening, both visually and symbolically, and the fact that it happened just episodes after the show previously manipulated us into believing Glenn had died (only to reveal that he survived a bunch of hungry walkers by climbing under a nearby dumpster) was just too much for long-time viewers.
The seventh season of TWD is arguably the worst in the entire show's run and the decision to kill off Glenn in such a violent, unnecessary way was just the end of the line for some people. And given that the show's ratings began to plummet throughout this season, it's pretty clear that those viewers were making their voices heard.
Dropping the ball with Morgan
Morgan Jones was, by far, one of the most interesting aspects of The Walking Dead in its early days. No matter how bad or good the current storylines were at the time, whenever Morgan made a cameo appearance, we all sat up in our chairs. It was a truly thrilling experience to see little tidbits and teases throughout those first few seasons as it slowly built towards his eventual arrival as a full-time character. When he did show up in the season 5 finale, we all cheered.
Unfortunately, that was where the cheering for the character began to stop. Throughout his remaining time on The Walking Dead (before his eventual move to spinoff Fear The Walking Dead), Morgan would become a walking monologue machine, judging those who used lethal force to stop the threats and save lives (even though he once did the same) before eventually spiralling and killing more convincingly than anyone else. It was a rinse and repeat storyline that he unfortunately carried over to Fear with him and it became exhausting very, very quickly.
Lennie James delivered an epic performance through and through, highlighting the nuances and the struggles of Morgan's character. But the writing did not serve him well, offering up the same old repetitive storylines for the character, and often resulting in eyerolls instead of the once-excited expressions from viewers around the world.
Morgan was a mysterious part of the show's early days that we longed to see, but once the series introduced him full-time, it very quickly made us wish he had remained the mysterious entity in the background that he was. That would have been more interesting.
The war that never came (but they talked about plenty!)
Negan's arrival in The Walking Dead switched things up something serious, but it also resulted in the show falling back into some of its worst habits. Rick and his gang of not-so-merry survivors decided that it was time to take the fight to the new big bad, but every time that they did, plot armor allowed the bat-wielding baddie to survive and return with monologues and threats aplenty (not the monologues Negan, please not the monologues!). It unfortunately made what should have been an exciting, edge-of-seat storyline predictably cyclical.
At some point along the line, Rick finally decided it was time for war. He gathered his fellow survivors, teamed with fellow badass Daryl Dixon, and the gang laid traps for The Saviors, hunted Negan, and went to war. Or at least that's what it said in the script. The execution, however, left a lot to be desired.
Although season 8 was considerably more entertaining that the long and repetitive season 7 (which dragged out The Saviors storyline and didn't offer much reason for that), it too struggled with those same issues. What's worse is that Rick and the gang managed to get us all excited with all this talk of war as it looked like the face of The Walking Dead was finally ready to take his franchise back from Negan. And then they spent all season talking about going to war without actually going to war.
Sure enough, Rick and Daryl were tracking the bad guy down and there was plenty of entertaining action within. But the season simply had one purpose: Drag the War out until the final episode so that the final battle could be, well, final. Fine on paper, sure, but it would have worked a lot better if they set this in motion in season 7 instead. Season 8 may have been more entertaining, but it was simply a second attempt at what its predecessor should have been, but the story had gone around in circles far too many times at that point.
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