'The Walking Dead' season finale suffered a big drop in viewers for the zombie show

Not only was Sunday's season-finale episode of "The Walking Dead" controversial, it marks a pretty big low in viewership for the popular AMC series.

The zombie show attracted 14.2 million viewers to its season-ender, 8.8 million of which fell into the group most popular with advertisers, viewers between the ages of 18 and 49, Deadline reported.

That represents a 10% drop from the season-five finale audience of 15.8 million viewers, which was a series high. For the 18-49 audience, the show experienced an even bigger 15% drop.

The good news is that the cliffhanger from last week's episode drove some interest for Sunday's finale as the show saw a 15% increase in total viewers and a 20% increase in the 18-49 group. Boy, "Walking Dead" fans are fickle.

One reason for the ratings drop could have been competition from Sunday's Academy of Country Music Awards on CBS, which last year's finale didn't have to contend with.

Speaking of fickle, the episode saw a whole lot of fans going out of their minds over a teased death at the end of the 90-minute episode. The show will reveal the big death when it returns next year, but will even fewer viewers show up to find it out?