How The Walking Dead abuses its fans

The Walking Dead's problem isn't how violent it is, but why it's so violent

The premiere of The Walking Dead devastated many fans.
(Image credit: Gene Page/AMC)

In its season 7 premiere, AMC's prodigiously popular The Walking Dead made good on its promise to treat its fans like garbage.

After last season's notorious cliffhanger, during which mustachioed madman Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, spewing hackneyed Big Bad dialogue and chewing scenery with relish) teased the show's heroes, and its fans, with a baseball bat prettified with barbed wire and the threat of — what else? — murder, the show pinned itself in a corner. How do you make a tease that severe worth the wait?

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Greg Cwik

Greg Cwik is a writer and editor. His work appears at Vulture, Playboy, Entertainment Weekly, The Believer, The AV Club, and other good places.