Sad news for “Walking Dead” fans, 3.5 readers.
My thoughts:
#1 – My initial hot take is you suck, Andrew Lincoln. I hope this isn’t a ploy where you want more time to do movies because seriously, there is no movie that you could be in that people want to see more than a kick ass series finale to the show that made you a star. Bryan Cranston realized that he had to juggle movies around his main bread and butter, namely sticking with “Breaking Bad” until the end.
#2 – But after calming down for a minute, maybe he doesn’t suck. Lincoln is from England and he points out that the show has kept him from seeing his family for a long time. AMC may be the network that a show about a meth cooking teacher built, but it is also the network that zombies kept afloat and in sticky cash. AMC does not want to ditch those zombies any time soon. It’s a great formula. Hire dummies to run around the woods pretending to fight zombies. Plot = humans need something in a place where zombies are. Fight zombies. Get sad a human dies. Occasionally move to a new place that seems like it is run by nice people at first but then the people are bad. Cut. Print. Repeat.
In that case, you can’t blame Andrew Lincoln for not wanting to stay FOREVER. If AMC is going to keep the zombies coming until the end of time, then I suppose we can’t begrudge Andrew for not wanting to fight the zombies for the rest of his life.
“Law and Order” for example, found a winning formula and it has been on for decades now. Sure, Mariska Hargitay stuck with it but that’s her choice. Other actors haven’t stuck around. I’m not even sure all the actors that were on it in the beginning are still alive.
I think we all have been waiting for that epic series finale that explains all but I have a feeling that AMC will keep “Walking Dead” and “Fear the Walking Dead” and possible other spin offs going forever, just bands of humans fighting zombies until the end of time.
If they pull it off, more power to them. My gut tells me they won’t and once Rick Grimes leaves, that will be it for the viewership. Maybe not. Maybe they’ll pull it off but that rarely happens when the main star leaves.
Examples I can think of – “That 70s Show” kept going without Topher Grace as his movie career kicked off. I don’t blame the cast and crew for wanting to keep it going but I stopped watching after that and I think most people did because it was cancelled not long after Grace left. Replacing him with a cousin didn’t help.
It’s not impossible to keep a show running without the main character, just unlikely.
#3 – So if Andrew doesn’t want to be Rick until the end of time and AMC wants the zombies forever, I can understand why he wants to exit but even so, we at least need a kickass ending arc to Rick’s character. That will be like a finale for those of us who have stuck with the show from the beginning. Maybe we’ll dump the show after Rick leaves. Maybe we’ll stick around if the writers figure out a great Rick replacement. But at least give us some closure with Rick. I fear that won’t happen but we’ll see.
#4 – Andrew leaving should have been kept quiet. We are now going into the new season with a spoiler. We know Rick will either die or go off on his own or something. If they could have kept Andrew’s leaving quiet, then an unexpected Rick death would have suprised the shit out of all of us.
#5 – We’ll see how it goes but I think Andrew and AMC owed us viewers a good resolution to Rick’s character and to the show itself, because I do have a hard time believing the show can carry on without Rick but we’ll see. We viewers built your network with our support for your show, AMC. We didn’t let you down when “Walking Dead” needed word of mouth and people hyping the show up on social media, so don’t let us down by giving us a lame ending to a show we’ve been watching nearly a decade now.
Bookshelf Battle 