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The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman says not to expect a season 7 cliffhanger

BY DALTON ROSS • @DALTONROSS


(Gene Page/AMC )

The Walking Dead

Fans upset about the six-month wait to learn the identity of who died at the hands of Negan and Lucille on The Walking Dead can at least rest easy that they most likely won’t have a similar situation to deal with next year. That’s according to Robert Kirkman himself.

The creator of The Walking Dead comic and executive producer of the TV adaptation said that and more while discussing fan reaction to the current cliffhanger. Read on as he discusses his reaction to the reaction generated by that controversial cliffhanger.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So what was your reaction to the negative reaction many fans had to the cliffhanger?
ROBERT KIRKMAN: Look, I think as a creative person I have to acknowledge that all responses are valid, so I definitely have to take note that there’s a seemingly significant portion of the audience that wasn’t happy with that direction, so in that respect I think everyone on The Walking Dead creative team has taken note of that, and I don’t know that I would expect a similar cliffhanger at the end of season 7.

At the same time, I know it’s just a small portion of the audience, and a lot of people actually like the mystery and are enjoying the guessing game that they’re playing over the summer so I don’t know. But you get to season 6 on a show and you try new things and sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t, but I would hope that after enjoying six seasons of the show people would recognize that, everything that [showrunner] Scott Gimple is putting together is an effort to keep the show exciting, and engaging, and keeping everybody excited about it.

A lot of the responses were like, “Ah, these jerks trying to pull one over on us,” and it’s like, “No. It’s all done in an effort to keep you entertained.” We love the fan base, we love the audience and so if you didn’t like this one you’ll like the next one. We hopefully have many more seasons to go.

I remember going into this big event thinking that it was a bit of a no-win situation in terms of adapting it for TV because if you kill the same person that died in the comic there were going to be some people saying, “Ah, that’s predictable. That’s what happened in the comic.” But if you didn’t kill that person there were going to be those that said, “That’s a copout.”
And that’s what we’re up against. I mean, we have to look at those kind of options, and to be honest, that’s kind of when you throw it all out the window and just do what you think is the coolest and best for the story. Gauging fan reaction while you’re writing a story is a progress killer, and an enthusiasm killer, because you can never anticipate… I mean, we could’ve never anticipated the uproar that happened on the internet over the cliffhanger. We’re always just sitting down and trying to tell the best stories and do the best job of adapting my material from the comic.