‘The Walking Dead’: Glenn’s Alive, So It’s Time To Start Worrying About Carl
Warning: “Walking Dead” comic book spoilers are ahead!
So, Glenn’s alive, and that’s great — but perhaps it’s time to start getting worried about another season one veteran.
Perhaps you picked up on the not-so-subtle “The Assassination of Jesse James” vibes happening on the latest episode of “Walking Dead,” called “Heads Up.” Before the wall of Alexandria comes crashing down, bringing all manner of hell and horror with it, we see the various dwellers of the community spending their days in all kinds of ways.
Rick and Tobin work on reinforcing the wall (er, about that), Maggie is smiling up at Glenn’s balloons, Morgan and Carol are about to get into an aikido fight over the fate of the wolf (PLEASE LET THIS HAPPEN), Carl is about to get shot in the back by Ron, Michonne is admiring Deanna’s map, and…
…wait, yeah, let’s back it up a second.
Carl is about to get shot in the back by Ron. This is not a drill.
At the very least, Ron looks eager to take out the son of Rick Grimes. For weeks now, Ron has grown more and more unhinged, taking up an interest in firearms, and showing signs of mistrust toward Team Grimes, to put it mildly. It’s hard to blame him, considering Ron witnessed Rick kick the crap out of his father in broad daylight…
…followed up by watching Rick put a bullet in his father’s face later that same night. Ron looks like he’s out for vengeance, and he’s got the bullets and target practice to prove it. He’s seen trailing Carl around Alexandria in the minutes before the wall’s collapse, indicating that whatever he’s up to is not good news for our favorite little cowboy-in-training.
Of course, there’s another reason to start getting very worried for Carl, and it has to do with the comics.
FINAL SPOILER ALERT IS IN EFFECT.
Around this point in Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard’s comics, something unthinkable happens to Carl. Alexandria becomes overrun with zombies, and in the madness, bullets start going flying… and one of them lands right on Carl’s eye.
In the comics, it’s a random act of friendly fire, as one of the community’s more esteemed members gets ripped to shreds by walkers. Given that we’re right up to that very same moment on the show, it looks like the AMC adaptation is gearing is up for a similar tragedy, albeit a more intentional one, with Ron as the trigger man.
Are we looking at a midseason finale cliffhanger with Carl’s eye gone and his life in the balance? The show often mixes things up from the comics, so it’s far from a guarantee — but if I were a betting man, I would place money on Ron taking the whole “eye for an eye” thing rather literally on his vengeance quest against the Grimes gang.
While everyone else in the world was tearing their hair out over Glenn’s huge cliffhanger on “Walking Dead,” Glenn himself was closely monitoring all the weeping and wailing — from deep inside a carton of greasy takeout food.
Steven Yeun, who plays our favorite pizza-delivery-boy-turned-zombie-slaying-badass, was on the “Talking Dead” via satellite Sunday night (Nov. 22) to talk about (SPOILER ALERT) Glenn’s big comeback in tonight’s episode.
After a celebration of his UnMemoriam moment — complete with a Handel Hallelujah chorus set to the footage of his great escape — here’s what he had to say about the big twist everyone’s talking about.
“I have not been out much,” Yeun said of the past four weeks, during which his fate was up in the air and he was required to keep mum and stay out of sight. “I frequent a lot of takeout, and my apartment looks like a hoarder’s house.”
But even inside his hidey hole full of fast food wrappers, news of the fan reaction to Glenn’s maybe-death reached the actor.
“I feel so amazed at the response,” Yeun said. And he was happy for his own reasons to see his character get another shot at life, saying, “I think it proves that this world still can take that story of the good guy winning sometimes. I like that it’s not always something miserable happening, really accepting the fact that good guys survive.”
And as for the making of that terrifying scene in which we thought for sure that we were watching Glenn’s insides coming out, Yeun had some behind-the-scenes intel on how that particular sausage got made.
Turns out, all that juicy meat was actually… well, juicy meat, which the zombie extras chowed down on while Glenn wriggled out and under the Dumpster.
“[They] used barbecue pork. And the day after, it rained, and they didn’t clean up the pork,” Yeun recalled. “And then they said, ’hey, you should go back under there because we have more to do.’ And there were flies, and pork, and it was terrible.”
All told, said the actor, he spent “a cool seven hours” under the Dumpster, surrounded by day-old meat.
Yeun also shared some insight into what’s next for his character, including fatherhood.
“I think — last season, you saw a resolve in Glenn, really accepting what Alexandria was and could be for them,” he said. “Once he found safety, all he could probably think about was making sure he could create more life.”
And if there’s one thing Yeun learned from his near-death “Walking Dead” experience, it’s that people really, really care about this show, and its characters’ well-being.
“You realize in that moment that you have affected a lot of people at once. And that’s something you don’t see a lot anymore. With what’s going on in the world now, it’s nice to have some connection,” he said.
MTV
