This past Sunday night’s episode of “The Walking Dead” was certainly one of the most must-watch in the show’s history, as it promised the final hour of the show’s hero, Rick Grimes. Of course, it was only afterwards that we learned Andrew Lincoln actually will be back in a series of made-for-TV movies, but the alluring promise surely jacked up the ratings, right?
Well, not by all that much, actually.
Via THR, the heavily promoted “What Comes After” delivered a 2.1 rating among adults 18-49 and 5.4 million viewers, up only slightly from the 5.1 million viewers who tuned in to watch the previous week’s episode. “What Comes After” is the second most watched episode of Season 9 so far, with the premiered grabbing 6 million viewers back in October.
For the sake of comparison, even the lowest-rated episode of the show’s previous season, Season 8, had 6.3 million viewers, significantly higher than Rick’s big farewell episode.
“The Walking Dead” is undoubtedly in a slump that it may never recover from, but as we always make sure to note, these are still huge numbers for any TV show to be pulling in. We can only assume that the exit of Rick Grimes, however, will only make the show fall even harder in the ratings in the weeks to come, which should be interesting to see.
Then again, there’s always the chance that a new direction for the tired series could win former fans back, which is something that AMC is no doubt hoping for post-Rick Grimes.
