Why The Walking Dead season 6 ended how it did, as told by the man responsible

First off, in case the headline wasn't obvious: There are spoilers ahead for the season 6 finale of The Walking Dead. This is your spoiler warning. Spoilers are a thing that is about to happen. Okay, now that we've got that out of the way, let's talk about what happened to hapless sheriff Rick Grimes and his friends at the end of The Walking Dead season 6.

After building up to his introduction all season, the final episode of season 6 introduced villain Negan. In the comics, Negan kills longtime zombie apocalypse survivor Glenn with a baseball bat. In the show however, the beating is treated as a mystery, where we don't know who Negan bludgeons to death. Vox reports that during a conference call discussing the episode, showrunner Scott Gimple tried to explain why we won't know the victim's identity until season 7.

"In many ways, what we saw last night was the end of the story of season 6. Where Rick winds up is completely different from where he started out in [episode] one and where he started out in [episode] nine," Gimple explained. On The Talking Dead, AMC's after-show where fans and cast can further break down the survival drama, Gimple said that the ending is not meant to be interpreted as a "who got killed" mystery, and insisted that it's really about Rick.

Personally, I'm not sure I bite (and it doesn't seem like fans do either). I'm no Hollywood filmmaker, but I would think that if the moment was about Rick, the camera would've focused on him and not given us a POV shot of the beating. If it was about Rick, why not focus on him for the final shot? Unfortunately, I doubt we'll get answers in the months before season 7 starts. Hey, not every story has a happy ending, least of all those tied to The Walking Dead.

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Images: AMC