TWD Fans Are Split On The Final Season's Lack Of Big Deaths And Darkness
When "The Walking Dead" came to an end in 2022 after 12 years on the air, the door was closed on the flagship series that made shocking character deaths a trend. The series always maintained a dark and foreboding edge as it explored a world torn apart by flesh-eating zombies and humanity's worst impulses to survive.
It was sometimes difficult to divide characters between good and evil due to the moral ambiguity the writers showcased through the show's various characters, but the final season took things in a different approach. Fans on the "Walking Dead" subreddit have noticed that the last installment of the horror-drama series lacked many big deaths while also being lighter in tone than its predecessors.
Redditor u/FlimsyNomad63 observed, "There weren't enough Character deaths towards the end they had to save all them that kinda took away the vibe of twd." But the opinion was not all negative towards the ending, and some think it fits into the true legacy of "The Walking Dead" as a whole.
Some fans claim the final season is supposed to be less intense
Although the series finale of "The Walking Dead" had quite a few shocking deaths, Season 11 as a whole was tame compared to the seemingly relentless, non-stop mayhem and tragedy of its previous 10. For some viewers, this was not what they had expected when anticipating the closing chapter of the series that gave birth to a franchise. In response to a fan opinion stating Rosita (Christian Serratos) should have died when she fell into the zombie pit in the last episode, u/Neon_Pigeon shared how the season was missing the characteristic gloominess many had come to expect.
But other fans felt differently, with u/TheFerg714 stating, "The final season didn't need a lot of darkness imo, and actually worked better being a bit more light. It's supposed to be the antithesis of the early seasons. People aren't dying left-and-right anymore, and that shows how society has developed since the world fell apart."
u/RickGrimes30 was more critical like many by pointing out that the final installment of the program played it safe and the characters made it out of impossible situations far too often, which, in their opinion, took away from the original suspense the post-apocalyptic drama contained. But despite the mixed feelings, the show's last act took place years after the initial outbreak in the pilot episode; it was only a matter of time before humanity learned how to truly survive.