When Lexa was killed, the internet exploded. And not in the way the writers were expecting. Jason Rothenberg’s follower count, which had been climbing steadily since S3 began, plummeted.
It is a natural reaction when an episode that is hyped as a can’t miss and “the best of the series” is the episode where the surprise twist at the end if the death of a minority character beloved by viewers.
Javier Grillo-Marxuach, who had written the episode, took to twitter to talk to fans, defending his story and Jason’s vision. He claimed that the issue of Lexa being killed off was balanced out by the other LGB characters on the show.
In a podcast the day following the episode, Jason Rothenberg
gave conflicting statements about Alycia Debnam Carey’s availability. AMC, who
had previously been fantastic with negotiations, suddenly became the target for
blame. After the conflicting statements were pointed out by fans (who had
Alycia’s schedule memorized, having watched all hiatus for hints that she was
on set and hadn’t been killed off), the writers released corrections and
additional statements.
Jason Rothenberg also admitted to being surprised by the negativity of the reaction, but the extent of his response was a podcast the day following the episode. That podcast contains a number of problematic quotes and pieces of information from Jason, as outlined below.
“We only had the actress for – this was it, she was going to Fear the Walking Dead the very next day, she flew out the next morning and went to… wherever they went to shoot it. So that factored in the storytelling. Lots of factors went into the decision, that was just one of them.”
Eventually, after several long days of discussions with fans, Grillo-Maxuach admitted that they had made a mistake in killing Lexa and handling her death the way that they did. Other writers came forward and expressed that they didn’t expect the reaction they received either–hopelessness and despondency, rather than anger. Jason, however, dismissed all of that.
Angry fans started a fundraiser in protest of Lexa’s death,
raising thousands upon thousands of dollars for disaffected and alienated queer
youth—exactly the kind left behind in the wake of Lexa’s death. Twitter
trending topic “LGBT Fans Deserve Better” achieved a quarter of a million
tweets and trended for several hours during the episode of the show the
following week, eventually being noticed by BBC.
Cast members supported the charity and several reached out
to fans through social media. At the convention in London, cast members even
discussed their disappointment with the story decisions.
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