The last scene of Episode 4 of The Acolyte, “Day,” is among the best of the series so far, with the Sith Lord revealing himself to the Jedi. And then, just as the battle starts… the episode ends. Many fans on the internet were disappointed at this sudden cliffhanger, especially at having to wait a whole week to see the fight. But there was once an even worse cliffhanger, one that makes The Acolyte‘s seem like a binge-watch by comparison. In April 2016, Season 6 of The Walking Dead came to a close, finally introducing the series’ greatest villain, Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). He makes one hell of an entrance and kills one of the main characters, but, as he does it, the episode ends without revealing who he killed. Now that was a bad cliffhanger.

What Happens in the Season 6 Finale of ‘The Walking Dead’?

When Season 6 of The Walking Dead started, the AMC series was at a pivotal point. Between the prison arc and the arrival at the Alexandria Safe Zone, Rick Grimes’ (Andrew Lincoln) had to face many challenges — much more than in the original Robert Kirkman comics, for example. Expectations were high for the introduction of the Hilltop community and the Saviors, two key groups that make up one of the best arcs in the comics. However, instead of going straight into this plot and properly fleshing it out, Season 6 tried to elongate the story around some poorly made decisions, like Glenn’s (Steven Yeun) fake-out death in Episode 3, only for him to return four episodes later after much ado.

So when it was time for the finale, Episode 16, “Last Day on Earth,” fans were short on patience. The second half of the season completely changed the pace of things, with the proper introduction of the Hilltop and leads being dropped about the introduction of the Saviors. When Dwight (Austin Amelio) was introduced before getting his face burned, everyone understood what was about to happen: Negan was coming at last. The Alexandria group started having skirmishes with the Saviors more often, and, in the finale, when Maggie (Lauren Cohan) endures pregnancy contractions, all the roads leading to the Hilltop are closed by the Saviors, coaxing the Alexandria group into the woods to where Negan’s fateful introduction happens.

In that last scene, Negan proves his terrifying stying power. He lines up all the Alexandrians on their knees, introduces his barbed-wire bat, Lucille, and explains how things are going to be between the Saviors and Alexandria. He taunts Rick, threatens Carl (Chandler Riggs) and Maggie, and says that half of everything Alexandria gets now belongs to him, and, to make sure Rick and his group won’t forget that, Negan is going to kill one of them — his gleeful enjoyment underscoring the danger the group is in. He plays a game of “eeny, meeny, miny, moe,” and, when he gets to “it,” the perspective shifts to the point of view of the Alexandrian victim. The person is beaten to death, blood is spilled on the camera, Negan praises this person for “taking it like a champ,” and, before we can learn who is being killed, the episode ends. It would be 203 days until the identity of the fallen Alexandrian would be known.

The Backlash to ‘The Walking Dead’s Cliffhanger Made It Even Worse

Before “Last Day on Earth” aired, there was a lot of hype around it. Season 6 had more downs than ups, but just the promise of Negan’s arrival was enough to keep everyone tuning in weekly to watch the series. The cast themselves were teasing how bloody and scary it would be. Andrew Lincoln said he felt “sick to his stomach” just reading the script, and that, the day before shooting, he woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t go back to sleep. Lauren Cohan also joined in, saying “it was the hardest day on set” she ever had. It was impossible not to board the hype train, and every day there was something new teasing Negan’s introduction.

When the episode ended without showing audiences who it was that died, fans were enraged. It felt like The Walking Dead was aware of all its problems, but, instead of addressing and fixing them, they came up with the two cliffhangers in the season to try and keep the audience hooked — Glenn’s fake death and Negan killing one of the Alexandrians. After a whole season of needlessly elongated plots, killing supporting characters for shock value, and a lot of circling around what was really going on with the Saviors closing in on Alexandria, we wouldn’t even get to know who it was that Negan killed? It didn’t seem fair to the audience.

It was such a scenario, that showrunner Scott M. Gimple had to publicly ask fans for “the benefit of the doubt,” and Robert Kirkman himself issued a letter to fans claiming he thought the episode and what happened were actually “fun.” The promise of a payoff in the Season 7 premiere also didn’t do much to keep spirits up. When it was finally time to learn who Negan had killed, expectations were mostly deflated. In the wake of the Season 6 finale, social media was abuzz right after the episode ended on that note. If the team behind it had any expectations of fans engaging in theorizing and debating who it was that died, reception was actually catastrophic, with around 70% of interactions being on the negative side.

‘The Acolyte’ Thrives on Week-to-Week Storytelling

The Walking Dead‘s Season 6 finale was among the biggest events on social media for all the wrong reasons. That’s nothing The Acolyte can’t handle, seeing as it has been no stranger to week-to-week bad fath discourse and continues to surprise and expand on Star Wars lore. There are obvious similarities between those two cliffhangers. Both cut off the episode right when tensions are at their peak, but they can hardly be put in the same basket as disappointing — The Walking Dead Season 6 stands alone in this category.

For The Acolyte, it isn’t the ending of the season, for example. A week of waiting is peanuts for those of us who have had to wait months, even years between seasons. The battle between the Sith Lord and the Jedi on Khofar is simply about to begin, and, although the series may be teasing danger for Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae) dies because of his “I’ll explain everything” line to Osha (Amandla Stenberg), no one has died yet. There is a whole fight to happen before that, and even then everyone may walk out alive. Also, the way the episode ends, right with the introduction of the Sith Lord, acts more like a division between the two halves of the season, with a new phase clearly starting now that the main antagonist has revealed himself.

The repercussions around “Day” have mostly been focused on the identity of the Sith Lord. There is no way of knowing what exactly happened in that battle simply because it hasn’t happened yet, which is the opposite of what happened in The Walking Dead Season 6 finale. Back then, someone clearly died. The series made a point of telling the audience that, and then withheld the information about who it was that died. Not quite the same thing.

New episodes of The Acolyte air weekly on Disney+ and The Walking Dead is available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.