The Walking Dead season 7 premiere: “The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be” is terminally stupid television. The Walking Dead Season 7, Episode 1 Recap: Swing and a Miss. Now that we all know who Negan killed, can we move on to an actual story?
Spoilers for The Walking Dead Season 7 premiere below. Even in its lightest moments, The Walking Dead isn't exactly the cheeriest show on television. But if the average episode is as much fun as a punch to the jaw, the season 7 premiere was—well—a barbed-wire baseball bat to the skull. Let's get the big question out of the way up front. Remember last season's cliffhanger, when Negan bashed in the brains of an unidentified character? So now that we've settled the what, let's move into the why.
‘The Walking Dead’ Just Isn’t Fun Anymore. The Season 7 premiere featured the identity of Negan’s victim and plenty of icky grief porn.
[Warning: Spoilers] Torture porn is what most people call bloody, meaningless images of sadistic cruelty on a TV screen. The Walking Dead, unsurprisingly, calls it prime-time entertainment. Me, I call it exhausting. When real life already seems a few calamitous steps away from dystopia, surviving an hour of pure, relentless misery isn’t entertainment—it’s a chore. The AMC zombie drama aired its all-time most unwatchable hour Sunday night in a mind-numbingly brutal Season 7 opener that finally, after some ballsy meandering, revealed the identity of Negan’s victim, who was clubbed to death with a barbed-wire baseball bat in last season’s much-maligned cliffhanger.
It was Abraham, the delightfully profane former Army sergeant who’d evolved into Rick’s right-hand man, who endured the first bone-crushing blow “like a champ,” to mimic Negan’s praise. But wait, there’s more! And about that violence. Has 'The Walking Dead' finally gone too far for fans? Here's who died on The Walking Dead season 7 premiere.
Time Spoiler alert! The following contains details from the Season 7 premiere of The Walking Dead. Even a zombie apocalypse show can cross the line. Sunday's season premiere of The Walking Dead was one of the show's most highly anticipated episodes, as fans have been waiting for months to find out who was killed in the Season 6 finale by new villain Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). In a moment of extreme graphic violence (even for a routinely violent show), two fan-favorite cast members, Glenn (Steven Yeun) and Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) , were brutally beaten to death by Negan with a baseball bat covered in barbed wire.
I might quit walking dead for good.....it's an emotional train of death.— ☠┼ Ash Costello ┼☠ (@Ash_Costello) October 24, 2016 I've officially quit watching the walking dead after today— samantha (@samm_ferguson_) October 24, 2016 Will people truly tune out of one of TV's top-rated shows? 1 of 16 Autoplay Show Thumbnails. ‘Walking Dead’ Season 7 Premiere Tops 20 Million Viewers. With another three days of viewing taken into account, “The Walking Dead” has shown it’s still the biggest thing on TV any way you slice (or bash) the numbers.
All told, an extra 3.8 million people watched the Season 7 premiere within three days. Around 2.5 million of them were in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demographic, and 2.5 million were in the 25-54 demographic. That brings the total viewership up to 20.8 million, with a gaudy 10.3 rating in the 18-49 demo and a 10.8 in the 25-54 demo. (AMC makes a chunk of ad deals based on guarantees in the 25-54 demographic, making the ratings for that demo somewhat relevant, unlike on some other networks.) Those numbers were up in the low double digits from the L+3 ratings for the Season 6 finale. The special 90-minute episode of “Talking Dead” tacked on another half a ratings point in the 18-49 demographic and an extra 1.1 million viewers. ‘Walking Dead’ Season 7 Premiere Ratings Near Series Record. Loathe him or hate him, Negan hit a home run on Sunday night.
RELATEDWalking Dead EP: ‘It’s Unfortunate’ Some Will Stop Watching, ‘The Show Still Has a Lot to Offer!’ The Walking Dead‘s Season 7 premiere drew 17 million total viewers and an 8.4 rating (or 10.7 million viewers) in the coveted 18-49 demo, just shy of the series records (17.3 mil/8.7) set by its Season 5 opener. (Pause for context: TWD had about as many viewers just in the 18-49 demo as broadcast TV’s most-watched Sunday drama had overall.) The Walking Dead‘s eventful, brutal hour did mark, however, its highest-rated episode ever in the 25-54 demo, where it scored an 8.7.