The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead

        The Walking Dead is a TV show that is going into its eighth season at the end of October. It is known for its violence towards humans and zombies but one episode in particular has really brought up some controversy among fans and non-fans. This episode what the first episode in season seven which has been put on Netflix back in the beginning of September. This specific scene is where Negan (Jeffery Dean Morgan) brutally bashed in the heads of two main characters Glenn (Steven Yeun) and Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) with a baseball bat wrapped in barb wire he calls Lucille. There are specific scenes in the premier episode of season seven that brought up a lot of controversy from people who watched the show. I will be explaining about those scenes and how they affected the viewers and what they said about the images that they saw.

The whole episode is gruesome, and it starts out with Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and his group are kneeling in a line in front of Negan (Jeffery Dean Morgan) and his group of saviors. Then it goes to Negan (Jeffery Dean Morgan) pulling Rick (Andrew Lincoln) into an RV and driving off. They appear in a field of walkers or zombies and they talk. Then Rick (Andrew Lincoln) gets thrown out of the RV and Negan (Jeffery Dean Morgan) tells him to go find his ax. Rick (Andrew Lincoln) climbs to the top of the RV and then a flash back shows of again Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and his crew and Negan (Jeffery Dean Morgan) walks around singing eenie meenie miney mo. And chooses Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) and bashes his head in with a baseball bat wrapped in steal barbed wire he calls Lucille. He then walks around and talks to the group ecstatic about what he did. Negan (Jeffery Dean Morgan) talks about how there was a reason for him brutally bashing in the head of Abraham (Michael Cudlitz). While waving around Lucille while blood and brain matter fling onto the people around, Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) jumps up and punches Negan (Jeffery Dean Morgan) and it really upsets him so he walks around to punish another person in Rick’s (Andrew Lincoln) group and just immediately without thought and hits Glenn Rhee (Steven Yeun) over the head with Lucille. And the image of mumbling Glen (Steven Yeun) with one eye popped out of its socket and blood dripping from his forehead. And the rest of the show is viewed of Negan (Jeffery Dean Morgan) beating Glen’s (Steven Yeun) head to a bloody pulp. With leaving the rest of the group star struck about what Negan (Jeffery Dean Morgan) is really capable of. And the rest of the episode is of the rest of the group recovering from the loss of two major people in their group to such horrible violence and are wondering what will come next from Negan (Jeffery Dean Morgan) and his gang of saviors and of course the infamous Lucille. [pic 1][pic 2]

This episode of The Walking Dead has brought a lot of controversy for the good and for the worst among the fans. Longtime fans on Twitter complained about the episode, that it was too violent with Glen’s and Abraham’s death. Even some fans were stating after seven seasons, they were ready to walk away from the show in general because of the premier. “I’ve been a fan of @The Walking Dead since the beginning but tonight’s episode was TOO violent, TOO gratuitous, and TOO punishing. I’m out,” Said Brad Alexander from Twitter. Christine Champagne, another fan from twitter stated, “I have never felt guilty about watching an episode of TV before, but I feel bad about watching @The Walking Dead’s torture porn episode.” These statements from true fans go to show that it has hit people hard with how much violence was in the premier episode. The Walking Dead even lost this fan after the premier of season seven. Vicky Vander Woude expressed “@Walking Dead season premier was way too violent. @The Walking Dead you lost me as a fan. What happened to the zombies?!?” Many critics said that the combination of audio elements and the visuals in the show veered too far into gratuitous territory, even giving the show’s history of presenting shocking material. And with statements like this from real people who watched the season premier have seriously hurt The Walking Dead reputation.

The Executive Producer Gale Anne Hurd of The Walking Dead stated during a panel session at the NATPE conference “We were able to look at the feedback on the level of violence and we did tone it down for episodes we were still filming for later on in the season.” Even though the producers of the show are going to tone down the violence for future episodes of The Walking Dead, the nature of the premier episode has lost some die-hard fans and put a negative impact on the show its self. Hurd made it clear that the response of the fans made an impact on the production team. “This is not a show that is torture porn,” Hurd stated, “After the response to the finale, we gave a strong consideration to making sure we don’t cross that line.” AMC Networks President-CEO Josh Sapan also spoke with Gale Anne Hurd about the premier and noted that the extreme reaction to the episode underscored how deeply fans care about the show. “When something matters a lot it has a university, then you’re bothered by it and you care about it,” Sapan stated. And even with them stating this it still effected the whole population of The Walking Dead and the series has lost some dear fans. And there is quite nothing to get them back even if you reduce the amount of violence. Even with the producers changing some things in the way violence is portrayed in the rest of season seven it is still more violent towards living people than in the past seasons where most of the violence was shot toward the walker’s aka zombies.