‘Walking Dead’ loses viewers, stars—and has no endgame in sight

Andrew Lincoln plays leader Rick Grimes.

Early last month, “The Walking Dead” returned for its ninth season—but not everyone cared. In the United States, it lost nearly half its viewers, down to 6.1 million, when it had a strong season debut last year—over 11 million viewers, according to Nielsen.

Some speculate that losing some of its stars has caused the significant decrease in viewership, the final straw in a season that was unevenly executed.

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Chandler Riggs, the teen who played Carl, the ex-cop Rick Grimes’ combat-ready son, was ejected from the show, his character killed off unexpectedly. He was supposed to figure heavily in more arcs, but as a major deviation from its source material, “The Walking Dead” chose to take a different, more risky direction.

It has also been announced that this will be Andrew Lincoln’s final season as Rick, who is now a more relaxed leader of survivors after a time-jump. He’s savoring the victory over the violent Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), now their combined communities’ first prisoner, punished with a life sentence after brutally murdering some of Rick’s allies.

Lincoln is departing the show to be with his family in England. But another impending exit will affect the AMC/Fox+ show, although in a less significant way. Lauren Cohan, who plays Maggie Rhee—Rick’s longtime friend and leader of another community—will also leave the show at some point this season. After a much-publicized salary renegotiation, Cohan is back for her last few episodes.

Will the show survive without Lincoln/Rick Grimes? The show is about him and his family, after all. It’s doubtful—even with just Carl gone, the loss is being felt.

Lauren Cohan as Maggie

The father-and-son transformation amid the zombie apocalypse gave so much to the dynamic and appeal of the show.

Losing Lincoln will no doubt negatively affect the series, and the recent viewership plummet is already indicative of devotees moving on.

If someone from the older cast members is being groomed as the next central character, he or she needs to become as sympathetic as Rick—whose crucial life-and-death dealings make him a complex protagonist. And that is a tough task.

Narratively, Season Nine’s first three episodes are tighter than much of the last season. After Rick’s consolidated forces win in the grueling “All Out War” story line, everything seems to look up for the once-warring sides. Negan’s former group has accepted Rick’s terms for peaceful coexistence, but there are still people who pose a danger to that hard-won peace.

There is dissent in the ranks, primarily from Maggie, who’s had problems with how humanely Negan is being treated. He killed her husband, Glenn (Steven Yeun), at the start of Season Seven. In the new season opener, she publicly executes a traitor in her group, a clear portent of conflicts to come.

The other badass women, the former loners Michonne (Danai Gurira) and Carol (Melissa McBride) are relatively less busy, given that they’re shown as romantically linked to Ezekiel (Khary Payton) and Rick, respectively. But that may also have to change soon.

With no endgame in sight, as the comic book stories are still ongoing, “The Walking Dead” is starting to become redundant, overstaying its welcome and, for one reason or another, losing the beloved figures who kept fans invested in the series all these years.