Young Bond author Charlie Higson recently weighed in on the death of James Bond in No Time to Die, arguing that if the producers “had any sense,” they’d do exactly the above. At first, I agreed with the sentiment outright, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized his point unintentionally highlights the larger problem. If they truly had any sense, they never would have killed Bond in the first place.

It remains baffling that the franchise chose such a needlessly final route when there were far more effective emotional alternatives available, like killing off Madeleine and whatever the stupid daughter’s name is to keep the focus on James Bond and not undermine the core identity of the character.

Instead, the movie closed with Bond’s death while asking audiences to feel an emotional attachment to characters who never earned that level of investment. Did they really expect me to feel an emotional attachment to them as they drove off in Bond’s Aston Martin DB5? Swing and a huge miss.