In what is perhaps the show’s biggest story deviation yet, Chandler Riggs and The Walking Dead are going their separate ways.
AMC dropped the bombshell during season 8’s mid-season finale, “How It’s Gotta Be,” when it was revealed that Carl Grimes had suffered a fatal bite while exploring the outer perimeter with Siddiq – much to the dismay of Rick, who will spend the remainder of The Walking Dead season 8 enduring the five stages of grief.
Of course, as any TWD fan will tell you, Carl Grimes is still alive and kicking in Robert Kirkman’s source material, which made AMC’s story twist all the more heartbreaking early last month. It’s a decision that has outraged many viewers and it seems that some of the cast aren’t too happy with it, either.
Always one to speak his mind, Norman Reedus recently sat down with Entertainment Weekly to talk all things Walking Dead, and when the topic of Carl’s death came up, he warned the writers to be careful with who they kill off next.
“The people that started this show, to me, are the heart of the show,” Reedus said. “When you lose those key members, it’s such a big blow to the show, and to the fans, and to us that are there. Who’s left? There’s only a few of us left out of all those people. If you wanted to turn it into a totally different show, you get rid of those people. But if you want to hold on to what made the show special, you’ve got to be very careful what you do with those people.”
Of course, for some fans, the loss of Carl isn’t just sad but is also indicative of The Walking Dead making the wrong creative decisions. Like we mentioned above, in the comics from Kirkman, Grimes Jr. remains alive and well, even taking a much more involved role amongst the group of survivors.
As such, a popular fan petition has been started and calls for Carl’s death to be undone and for showrunner Scott Gimple to be fired. Though AMC is highly unlikely to concede to these demands, the petition, along with these new remarks from Reedus, might make them shy away from killing off any other long running characters for a while.
Or maybe they’ll do the opposite and kill them all? We’ll just have to wait and see what happens when The Walking Dead returns for its midseason premiere on February 25th.
