Summary
- Glenn’s death in The Walking Dead was a major turning point for long-term viewers due to its brutality.
- Ross Marquand believes Glenn’s death played a role in the show’s decline in viewership.
- The extreme gore and intensity of Glenn’s death scene may have led many viewers to stop watching the series.
The Walking Dead was filled with brutal and heartbreaking scenes throughout its 12 years on AMC, and even though it remained fairly popular, especially so in its earlier seasons, Glenn’s death was a pivotal turning point for many long-term viewers. It’s not hard to imagine why Glenn’s passing was met with such controversy, as not only was he a beloved character on The Walking Dead that had been there since season 1, but it was the brutal way in which he was killed by Negan, with many fans believing he deserved better.
Even though Glenn’s death wasn’t entirely to blame for the show’s decline in viewership in its latter seasons, for many fans, it became a notable downturn in the usual quality the long-running series produced and a huge turning point in the show’s history. The Walking Dead‘s Universe has since expanded with multiple spinoff shows like Daryl Dixon, Dead City, The Ones Who Live, and more, but the memory of Glenn has never been forgotten in the hearts of its loyal fanbase. However, it seems as though it’s not just the fans who thought Glenn’s death was brutal and one of the reasons why people may have turned their backs on the series as one actor from the show opens up about his opinions on it.
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Ross Marquand Believes That Glenn’s Death Hurt the Show’s Viewership
At the Ross Marquand Spotlight Panel at AwesomeCon, in which ScreenRant‘s Joe Deckelmeier served as the moderator, Marquand was asked what he thought about Glenn’s brutal death in season 7 of The Walking Dead. Marquand, who played the role of Aaron for seven seasons, from season 4 until season 10, appearing in a total of 113 episodes, revealed that he thought Glenn’s death had a lot to do with why the show’s fanbase grew much smaller. “I will say that was the episode that we lost a lot of fans, I think, just from the sheer gore,” expressed Marquand.
“It’s a real credit to those craftsmen for making it so believable, but truly it wasn’t as effective for us as actors until we watched it on the screen. We’re like, “Oh, my God…” I think all of us, audience members and cast alike, were just blown away by how sad it was.”
The actor went on to state that because the scene was so extreme with how it captured Glenn’s bloody death, a lot of viewers couldn’t handle what they saw and ultimately left the show, not willing to stick it out to the end. He also touched upon how sad he was at not only losing Steven Yeun but also Michael Cudlitz, who played Abraham Ford. “It was so visceral and so intense that I think a lot of people were like, “I’m out. I can’t do it anymore.” I was very sad, because I love working with Steve Yeun, and I loved working with Michael [Cudlitz].
Talking about how he felt watching Glenn’s death scene play out in real life and then afterward while Yeun had just performed that gruesome scene with Negan, Marquand didn’t hold back on his disdain about how Yeun appeared. “His eyeball was bouncing around as he was talking. It was like, “What are you going to do after this?” “I’ve got a role on Voltron, I think I’m gonna do some voiceover work…” And I was like, “Oh, cool. Can you just stop moving your head for a second? I’m going to throw up.” It looked so disgusting, and that’s a credit to the special effects team.”
The Walking Dead‘s season 7 premiere brought in 17 million viewers, but the same couldn’t be said for the remaining seasons of the series as its viewership numbers notably slipped downwards. Although some fans would state that the lack of a compelling narrative towards the end left them switching their TVs off, many will say that Glenn’s death firmly put the nail in the post-apocalyptic series’ coffin for good. Regardless of the reason, The Walking Dead’s season 11 only drew in 2 million viewers, which is likely a factor in why the series never received a season 12.
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- Release Date
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2010 – 2022
- Network
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AMC
- Showrunner
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Frank Darabont, Angela Kang, Scott M. Gimple, Glen Mazzara
Source: ScreenRant