Season 6 Finale Draws Social-Media Hate 

Spoiler warning: Do not read on unless you’ve seen “

The Walking Dead” Season 6 finale, titled “Last Day on Earth.”

If you sensed some animosity toward “The Walking Dead” on Twitter on Sunday night, you weren’t imagining it.

Social-media analytics company Canvs found that the final scene of the show’s season 6 finale drew overwhelmingly negative reactions from viewers on Twitter. According to the company, which analyzes the emotional content of social-media messages, more than 70% of all reactions on Twitter during the closing moments of the episode expressed feelings such as “crazy,” “dislike,” “hate” and “upset.” “Love” accounted for only 15.2% of all reactions, “good” for only 6.4%.

Fans of the zombie-apocalypse drama had been bracing for a principal character to die with the introduction in the finale Negan, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, a major villain from the comic book on which the AMC series is based. But when said death arrived, it was unclear which character was on the receiving end of a fatal beating from Negan’s barbed-wire-wrapped baseball bat. The scene was shot from the character’s POV, leaving his or her identity a mystery.

Fans were less than thrilled. In contrast, a majority of responses to the previous season finale’s last moments included emotions such as “love,” “excited,” “good” and “happy,” with “hate” accounting for only 10.4% of reactions.

Speaking to reporters Monday morning, executive producer and showrunner Scott M. Gimple addressed fan backlash to the finale.

“I ask people to give us the benefit of the doubt that it’s all part of a plan, all part of a story,” he said. “I truly hope that people see [the season 7 premiere] and they feel it justifies the way we’ve decided to tell the story. That is the way it is in our minds. I know what [the season 7 premiere] is and I feel that it delivers on what [the season 6 finale] sets up.”

The finale came months after the show appeared to kill the character of Glenn, played by Steven Yeun, then revealed him weeks later to be alive — a move that angered many fans.

Prior to the closing moments of Sunday night’s episode, reactions to the episode on Twitter had skewed positive. For the entire 90-minute finale, the most common emotion expressed on Twitter was “love” at 18.2%, followed by “crazy” (17.7%), “excited” (9.0%), and “afraid” (8.3%). Those emotions were also the most dominant that Canvs measured over the course of season 6.

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Okay seriously, all the episode long I was like what the fuck ?!!

“okay so Rick & Co killed many saviors like maybe 40, maybe more”.

In the finale, we see like 150 men again. First of: how did they even possibly know that they were coming? they magically guessed that Maggie was sick, seriously ?? Second, they really waited all day long on the route like scarecrows ?? Thats not even credible !

Last but not least, you are really telling that 200 men (virtually no women) can live easily alltogether, whereas during the entire show from season 1 to season 6 we learned that in a post apocalyptic world, you can only survive in small community, otherwise they are too many disagreements on the way to survive and the community will inevitably get divided.

Actually the cliffhanger is easy and so expected, it’s a intern job and i’m not really that surprised considering the poor choices he has already performed, but the credibility of the story is soooo low and opposite from the rest of what we have learnt in this show !

In other words, he’s going to milk this even more after the premiere. ‘Before we delve in to who died, let’s examine the history of the saviors, following that up with a re-examination of the history of Rick’s group. Then when we come back from the mid-season break, we’ll delve in to what Carol and Morgan had to go through. By the time we hit season 9, we should be ready to tell you that Eugene is dead.”

Scott Gimple’s family should be sterilized just in case making,stupid season finales is a genetic condition.

How come nobody is talking about the fact that the episode began and ended with the same storytelling device? A first-person POV shot. The episode began with a shot of several lights pouring in through holes and it periodically cuts back to the same shot throughout the episode. It’s “Last Day on Earth” which is precisely what we’re watching. A character’s last day on earth through THEIR eyes, most of which is spent bound in the back of a vehicle looking at the light pouring in through bulletholes.

Which means Negan’s victim was either Glenn, Daryl or Michonne. It has to be one of those three.

zExactly Halapeno! Now that you mention it, the box with the rays of light through the holes has to be the key. Damn, one of the real core members; not Eugene or Abraham imo whose deaths would be easier to take than Glenn Darrel or Michonne. If it had to be one of the real core group, better Glen since we’ve at least partially digested that possibility already.

come on it was a great ending its called a CLIFFHANGER!!!! i miss the days of good ones like WHO SHOT JR ? ” aka back in the 80’s it was great tv cant wait for october!!!!

Aw man… its like, “Who Shot J.R.?” all over again!

its not rick or carol if your listen to the speach he said if anyone screemed cut out carol’s eye and feed it to rick so there both safe

The season was not interesting including Carol’s descent to the sob side until this finale which kept me glued and biting my nails in anticipation as we watched the group slowly being herded towards Negan. And Dean Morgan was perfect for that role. While the last 20,mins was hard to watch, it was also brutally thrilling and I look forward to the next season. But I disagree with the show keeping the identity a secret (will they be sticking to the comics and its Glen?) Because it would’ve been more powerful had we known, rather than leaving us in angst over the unknown.

When you built a momentum during an entire season to reach an inevitable outcome we are ALL awaiting for … and to have it end like this ? This was just a cheap thrill and a greedy “commercial” tease. Either way … we’ve been had and it is flat out insulting. I thought they had learn their lessons when they pissed off half of their fan base with the “Glenn under a dumpster” arc. And so far, JDM as Negan … mehhhhh! Not convincing, but then again he was on screen for only a few minutes. Wooohooo !

Don’t get me wrong, I love TWD and will continue to follow the show, but tonight’s cliffhanger and the inevitable loooooong wait to find out who got their skull crushed next season is extremely BORING at best … I will tune in for Season 7’s opening, of course … but to tell you the truth, I do not care anymore who got killed or not. I will find out like the rest of everyone else in October, but the excitement will be long gone; Gimple over thought this out and the result is very mediocre!

I completely agree. I feel emotionally manipulated. I will also watch in October but the intensity of emotion will be gone. Today I don’t care who died. I just want to move on now. Gimple’s justification that the death isn’t the end of the story that they were telling doesn’t ring true. The death is the culmination of the story and the bridge to the after. So disappointing.

Probably was Rick who was picked out. Cripple the leadership. Negan didn’t say he was killing somebody, just busting them up real bad. So people will be disappointed when Rick is still alive?

What is wrong with people?!! It’s a TV show!! The producers can do whatever they want. If it bothers some of you so much that you have to send angry tweets and try to spoil the show for everyone else who is normal, maybe you should stop watching it and make an appointment to see a shrink instead. Geez Louise.

What is with wrong you? It’s a TV show! Why would you bother getting upset enough to comment on it and attack total strangers?! Maybe you should stop watching it and make an appointment to see a shrink instead. Geez Louise.

well i am now going from praising walking dead to those who had not seen it to why bother you have gone from showing the bad sides of humanity eg the govener to the weaker sides the reverand who has now had a total turnabout ,then theres all the characters who yes you do beleive in how if you have to behave you do now the ultimate evel negan says it all if this person is not sorted in the first 1 or 2 episodes of season 7 then it just shows how the writers/producers picture humanity and the worst behaviour is the promunant one i would suggest that if the show does not go back to people uniting for the better then the writers should nuke the show out of existance

What a cliffhanger ! Finally rick meets his match : Negan . Totally outnumbered and payback for killing his men . Someone has to pay . But who ? I don’t really understand the social media backlash by so called fans etc, pathetic , What do they want , because the whole series was meandering along anyway and needed a ” real nasty” and a strong story line to keep us on the edge of our seats . This episode has delivered . Negan is a real force and the following series 8 will make ” all you moaners ” watch what happens next … and i for one can’t wait ! Remember , Rick never lets us down or the group .

The show was a paean to sadism. It was without merit. The executive producer on “Talking Dead” says that people “loved” the Negan character. Maybe Satanists and S&M addicts did; but, no one with any sense of humanity could find anything remotely praiseworthy about this episode and the inevitable direction it is taking this show. I haven’t missed an episode thus far. That streak is now at an end.

We’ll miss you Larry. I thought being offended by everything was going to be a forgotten fad of 2015. I guess I was wrong. When we’re enjoying the season 7 premiere, enjoy getting your va-jay-jay waxed.

Fans are angry because we don’t want another long drawn out wait. We had it with Sophia, then with Beth, and then Glenn. We also endured the long stretch before the survivors met up at Terminus. After a while it gets annoying. Plus a lot of people don’t like that Carol is now a sobbing, whimpering former shell of the awesome person that she’d become.

It’s not about being scared of fan opinions…. What enjoyment will any fan get watching overwhelming struggle and pain for any of the group members. I simply do not care to watch beloved characters get pummeled week after week… only to get to another mid-season cliffhanger and then watch them suddenly regain “who” they were years earlier when they had no houses, prison, farm, rv or cars… just each other to fight for. Clearly, the message from Carol is that they aren’t even worth fighting for, so why should we?

Creative writing aside…. there were small glimmers of it at the beginning, but the writers wrote like fans were not intelligent enough to expect our experienced survivors to not talk loud out in the woods with unfriendlees after them. Another point someone else brought up… where the heck was the rocket launcher and WTH didn’t they use it to clear the road. —->It’s a show and the writers think viewers can be bamboozled!

IIRC the RPG Daryl used previously was a single shot disposable one, but even if that’s wrong they have used all the rockets, and you can’t exactly make them from Cocacola bottles and string.

What an awful way to end an otherwise great season. Awful. Offensively awful. Insultingly awful – and, worst of all, boringly awful. I had to pinch myself to stay awake. And for what? To watch Alicia Florrick’s new boyfriend talk too much about his bat and spill colored corn syrup on a perfectly good camera lens? Zombie please. Really? Seriously? Shame on me, though. This isn’t my first time at the rodeo. I’ve been thrown for a loop by Lost and Jon Snowed by Game of Thrones. But I thought it was different this time. I thought you got me, TWD. I never thought you’d do me this way. Never, never, never. Oh the humanity!

You are so correct!! They played US for 90 mins. (45 mins. of misguided road travel & 45 mins. of commercials). I am just disgusted by Scott Gimple and the writing! I was grabbing my stomach and cringing like Maggie at how this was so badly written. Thinking back on Rick’s expression at the end, it was like he was saying “I can’t believe I have to perform this rubbish!!” Oh the inhumanity of it all!!

Will I return, probably… but not the same viewer=fan….. jaded and TWD-shy

the show would not be what it is if they start being scared by public opinion and start being scared to kill of its characters this allows new characters to come in and may well be the secret to keeping a series alive for a long period of time.