Why The Walking Dead Didn’t Show Carl’s Death

As expected, young Carl Grimes met his end in tonight’s episode of The Walking Dead. And as the show’s impassioned fanbase now starts to come to terms with the fact that they’ll never see him again (except perhaps in a flashback), the post-mortem has begun, with the cast and crew of AMC’s hit zombie drama discussing the thinking behind this hugely significant character death.

If you’ve seen the episode, which we imagine most of you have by now, you’ll know that no one explicitly saw Carl’s final moments. And as it turns out, that was done intentionally. Speaking to ComicBook.com, producer Greg Nicotero (who also directed the installment) explained the reasoning for this, saying that there’s really no reason that the audience needs to see Rick’s son pass away.

“There’s no reason that you need to see that moment,” Nicotero said. “It’s all implied, like the moment where Carl is forced to shoot Lori in season three. There is a respectful way to show this, and I really never imagined that we would have ever wanted to film that. His last words were, ‘It’s like it’s got to be done by somebody that you love.’ He’s really sparing Rick and Michonne this last heartbreaking moment by being willing to do it himself.

Continuing on, he noted that Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira’s aforementioned characters need to be left with some sense of hope and a “sense that there can be more for them to live for.”

“I don’t think Rick or Michonne could ever truly recover from that,” Nicotero went on. “He’s already left them with a lot to think about in regards to what his dying wishes are. You know, he really is laying out the possibility what the future can be. He talks about the Governor, and he talks about Woodbury, and the fact that Rick in the past has been able to bring people back.

What we realize is that all the flash-forwards that we’d seen to this moment forward, or this moment in the season, were all Carl’s visions of the future and what Carl was really hoping. So he needs to leave Rick and Michonne with a sense of hope and a sense that there can be more for them to live for. So I don’t think it would have made much sense at all to actually physically see Carl die on screen or to have one of them do it. I think it fit perfectly in everything that Chandler [Riggs] was portraying in that moment.”

Nicotero makes a good point here, and while some fans no doubt would have liked to have been able to witness Carl’s final moments, not showing it was probably the right decision in the end. But that’s just our opinion.

What do you think? Would you have wanted to be with Rick’s son as he met his maker, or are you happy with the decision that Nicotero and The Walking Dead team made? Sound off below and let us know!