Spoilers are ahead.
Glenn is getting chewed to bits on The Walking Dead and it’s the end of him. It’s the end of his story. It’s the end of all he can do, and whatever business he has left is the tragedy that exists in the new world that these characters live in. Oh, you can’t raise your newborn baby? Well what did you expect — you got eaten by zombies.
If Glenn miraculously survives, be it hiding in a dumpster or Nicholas’ useless body shielding the horde of goddamn zombies from eating him, then it will be a new low in The Walking Dead and probably a new low in modern television.
This season of The Walking Dead has been stellar, more than the series has historically been the last few years. In service of good, compelling storytelling, Glenn was killed. He met his unfairly, untimely death due to the selfishness of Nicholas, a man who had attempted to kill him before but was spared by Glenn’s gift of mercy. When Nicholas realized he can’t live up to his gift, he kills himself, and takes Glenn with him.
That is 100% Walking Dead. That is the macabre poetry of the apocalypse, where mercy and compassion get you killed and ruins the rest of your loved one’s miserable existence. Walking Dead told this story so elegantly, so beautifully. Keeping Glenn alive would be destroying beauty.
Fuck the set photos of Steve Yuen still on set. Fuck the dumpster that people think he somehow magically crawled under. Fuck Nicholas’ body that is supposedly shielding Glenn, and also fuck Nicholas.
Many are living in denial that Glenn is still alive and are holding out hope until the next episode (or after, this Sunday’s episode will be heavily focused on Morgan). I’m living in the denial that The Walking Dead would compromise one of the best stories it’s told in a long time for the sake of shock television.
Glenn better be dead, or good television is decaying into a zombie.
