Spoiler Alert! Are you a die-hard fan of AMC's "The Walking Dead"? If you haven't watched the series' mid-season finale, then you probably need to skip this as this contains some spoilers which came directly from the cable TV channel.
Many fans of the hit Zombie TV series "The Walking Dead" were left dumbfounded and heartbroken after a spoiler was posted on the series' Facebook fanpage on Monday, December 1.
The spoiler is a photo showing Daryl Dixon, portrayed by actor Norman Reedus, carrying the lifeless body of Beth Greene portrayed by actress Emily Kinney. It had the caption, "RIP Beth."
Of course, AMC instantly received social media flak for the said photo, especially from those who haven't watched the episode yet. To date, the post has earned over half a million likes and more than 220,000 shares.
AMC immediately released an apology the day after. "We heard your feedback to last night's post, and we're sorry. With zero negative intent, we jumped the gun and put up a spoiler. Please know we're going to work to ensure that, in the future, possible spoilers by official AMC social feeds are killed before they can infect, certainly before the West Coast (U.S.) broadcast of The Walking Dead. As always, thank you for watching, and keep the comments coming. We appreciate all of your support. #RIPSpoiler," their statement posted on the show's official Facebook page read.
According to the report of Entertainment Weekly, this is not the first time that AMC issued a spoiler to the "The Walking Dead" series. It noted that a DVD ad posted on AMC's website two years ago have also revealed Shane Walsh's death. The role was played by Jon Bernthal.
However, CNN said that the spoiler did not affect the show's ratings. It even pushed the number of viewers to 14.8 million, a 23 percent increase from the previous season, it noted.
Also, a Forbes report said that the Sunday episode of "The Walking Dead" resulted in a really high social media mentions with a total of 572,056 mentions. This shows a 238 percent surge in mentions over the previous week.
"Chatter about the death shocker drove 14 percent of the conversation, and six percent came from people who said they got emotional during the episode," Forbes said.
"The RIP hashtag specific to the episode was used by nine percent of people engaging on social media last night, and three percent admitted that they cried because a character on the show cried. The Walking Dead has officially made the zombie genre emotional," it added.
"The Walking Dead" will return on February 2015.
Here's some sneak peek for the return of the series in February: