AMC’s seminal hit horror The Walking Dead ran for an incredible 11 seasons and has spawned six spinoffs. However, it’s no secret that the flagship show had a fairly dramatic drop in viewership in its later seasons, and one of the former stars thinks he knows why.
Ross Marquand, who played kind Alexandrian Aaron starting in the fifth season of The Walking Dead, talked about the pivotal moment during the Ross Marquand Spotlight Panel at AwesomeCon recently. During his Q&A, Marquand discussed the single episode that he believes did the most damage.
Talking about season 7’s opening episode, “The Day Will Come When You Won't Be”, Marquand discussed the iconic and gory scene where beloved character Glenn Rhee (Steven Yeun) is violently and graphically murdered by bad guy Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan):
"I will say that was the episode that we lost a lot of fans, I think, just from the sheer gore. 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]."
Michael Cudlitz played tough guy soldier Abraham, who also died at the hands of Negan in the same episode.
The brutal double-murder came at the culmination of a season-long tease building up to Negan’s eventual arrival onscreen. After settling in the relatively peaceful Alexandria settlement, The Walking Dead group led by Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) began to encounter groups of violent aggressors who dubbed themselves “the Saviors.” The Saviors were led by Negan, who became a legendary figure offscreen until his reveal in the season 6 finale, when the majority of characters met him in a lethal line-up.
The season ended with the audience not knowing which characters were about to meet their end at Negan’s hands, though we knew at least one would. In the comic version of this scene, only Glenn died, but the TV show pulled the rug from viewers by having Negan Abraham first, making them believe Glenn was safe. But when Daryl tried to fight back against Negan, his impetuousness cost Glenn his life, as Negan murdered the expectant father-to-be by repeatedly hitting him with his signature weapon, a baseball bat he named “Lucille.”
Did Glenn's death mark the beginning of the end for The Walking Dead?
Marquand’s assessment that the death of one of the most loved characters caused many Walking Dead audience members to turn off seems fairly sound given the viewing figures. “The Day Will Comes When You Won’t Be” opened the seventh season with over 17 million viewers, but after the deaths of Glenn and Abe, the following episode, “The Well,” dropped to 12.46 million. It was only the beginning of the dramatic slide in the zombie show’s viewership.
Fans also tuned out for the show’s eighth season, when it deviated from the source material and killed Rick's teenage son Carl, played by Chandler Riggs (Carl lived to the end of the comics). By the end of the eighth season, viewership had dropped to under 8 million viewers per episode. That was down to 2 million in the show's 11th and final season.
It’s clear that there were many other factors contributing to the decline, including the changing trends from cable to streaming and the departure of show lead Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes in the ninth season, but there’s no doubt the heartbreak that viewers felt over the loss of Glenn was a major issue. This death — along with Carl’s — was the final nail in the coffin for viewers who could not bear to see characters who embodied hope and the future lose their lives.
AMC’s boss at the time, Sarah Barnett, spoke to the Los Angeles Times in 2020 about the effect these depressing stories had on the audience. “It’s true to say that that season with Negan became a little too hopeless for audiences. I think that there was creative intention behind it that was really smart and thoughtful, but I think it probably pushed people to a place where it was a lot to take at a time when maybe people just didn’t want to see that,” she said.
Glenn's death was the beginning of Steven Yuen's explosive career
While the audience numbers may have waned, there's still a core devoted fandom for all things Walking Dead, and recent spinoffs like Dead City, Daryl Dixon and The Ones Who Live have kept tem entertained.
Glenn’s death, meanwhile, was certainly not the end for actor Steven Yeun, who went onto massive success after The Walking Dead. As Marquand remembers, Yeun had new roles lined up ever during Glenn's death scene. "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."
Yeun has indeed secured several voiceover roles, including the lead role of Mark Grayson in the animated superhero series Invincible, which is based on a different comic by The Walking Dead author Robert Kirkman. Marquand has been on Invincible as well, voicing multiple supporting roles. The talented vocal star plays both Professor Charles Xavier and Doctor Doom in X-Men ‘97.
Marquand has also expressed interest in appearing in a new Walking Dead spinoff; Aaron did survive through to the end, after all. “I’m excited, too, if they ever want to bring us back," he told FandomSpotlight in 2023. "I think that’s another reason why they kept a lot of us alive. Even though the show was ending, there might be opportunities with spin-offs and everything else to come back. So, we’ll see.”
Sadly, the chance of Glenn returning from the dead seems less likely.
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