The Walking Dead
"The Walking Dead" characters Glenn (Steven Yeun, left) and Nicholas (Michael Traynor) helped increase the show's ratings thanks to their incredibly tense cliffhanger at the end of Season 6, episode 3. AMC

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard that last week’s episode of AMC's “The Walking Dead” left fans on a hotly debated cliffhanger. With many believing that the episode ended on a purposely ambiguous note just to draw in viewers, few will be shocked to learn that the play seems to have worked.

It’s worth mentioning at the top that, because no one knows exactly how the events will play out, it’s unfair at this point to accuse either the show or anyone affiliated with it of artlessly seeking ratings. However, that doesn’t mean that nail-biter didn’t add up to significantly more eyes on the screen than usual. According to Variety, which cites Nielsen’s “live plus same-day” estimates, the zombie drama received an average rating of 6.8 among the highly coveted adults ages 18-49, as well as 13.1 million viewers in total during Sunday night's installment. This means that the episode’s potential character death boosted the series’ ratings by about 8 percent.

With audiences getting annoyed at the show playing with their feelings, and showrunner Scott Gimple teasing that it may take longer than a week before people figure out what exactly happened, the bottom line is that the Glenn (Steven Yeun) plotline has proved incredibly fruitful for both AMC and the hit horror series.

For those that are unfamiliar with what happened, [SPOILER ALERT] episode 3 of “The Walking Dead” Season 6 featured a scene in which Glenn appeared to meet a grisly end at the hands of a horde of walkers. But the way the scene was shot left some room for ambiguity, and many believe that the gutting of the character was not quite what it appeared to be. In fact, he wasn’t even mentioned in the usually thorough “In Memoriam” portion of the series’ after-show “Talking Dead,” which ComicBook notes saw a great increase in viewership as well, marking a nearly 50 percent jump in the key demographic.

What do you think of the Glenn plotline on “The Walking Dead”? Comment below or tweet your thoughts to @TylerMcCarthy.

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