The latest death in The Walking Dead has proven once again that the AMC series has far too many characters in its cast. In The Walking Dead season 11, episode 6, titled “On the Inside,” Frost (Glenn Stanton) became the show’s most recent causality. Rather than feeling meaningful, however, his death serves as a reminder that the long-running series lacks focus, which hampers its capacity for pathos.
After just six episodes, The Walking Dead’s final season has already killed off a number of minor characters. Several lives were lost in the mission to get food for the survivors, which is currently ongoing. The majority of the characters who set off with Maggie (Lauren Cohan) aren’t coming back. Gage (Jackson Pace), Cole (James Devoti), Agatha (Laurie Fortier), and Duncan (Marcus Lewis) were all killed. Frost, who was split off with Daryl (Norman Reedus), was killed off-screen by the Reapers after being tortured for information.
With Frost dead, that leaves Elijah (Okea Eme-Akwari) as the only surviving member of Maggie’s group. Maggie’s return brought a handful of new characters into the fold, but The Walking Dead season 11 wasted little time in getting rid of them. That decision can likely be attributed to the state of the show's cast. With all the characters that were already on the show when season 10 ended, it would have been difficult to properly tell the stories of Agatha, Cole, Duncan, and Frost. There just wasn’t enough room in the story for them to be explored in a way that would have been worthwhile. For this reason, it makes sense that they were all killed before any of them could be developed.
Unfortunately, this isn’t a new problem, as it’s been a concern ever since communities like Alexandria, Hilltop, and the Kingdom became central to the story. Encompassing three settlements limited the screentime of several characters, and resulted in some being overlooked or even wasted, which is what happened with Rosita (Christian Serratos) in season 10. And apparently, eliminating the Hilltop and the Kingdom hasn’t exactly corrected this long-standing issue.
The Walking Dead still suffers from this problem in season 11. For example, it looks like the show is keeping Elijah, but at this point, it’s not clear why. Apart from a few brief interactions with Maggie and Kelly (Angel Theory), Elijah hasn’t done anything meaningful, even though there have been opportunities, especially with him being involved in Maggie’s season 11 mission. The show just has too many cast members for Elijah to receive the important character moments he needs to become a memorable addition to the series.
Also, there’s no reason to believe that The Walking Dead season 11 is on the way toward making this better. The introduction of Commonwealth has brought in a host of new characters, including Stephanie (Margot Bingham), Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton), Pamela Milton (Laila Robbins), and Tomi (Ian Anthony Dale). Plus, Virgil (Kevin Carroll) and Leah (Lynn Collins) may be sticking around for a while. All things considered, the cast size problem is about to get a lot worse going forward.