“The Walking Dead” has clearly established by now that the real evil isn’t in the slavering, mindless zombies but rather the horrors that people will commit in a world turned lawless and desperate.
Advertisement
Is he or isn’t he? If Glenn really is dead, then the whole Nicholas storyline was a bust and it was a pretty anticlimactic death for a longstanding and beloved character. Nicholas and a few of the others are quick to start fighting, but one guy panics and pulls out his gun too quickly. What’s going to happen on tonight’s episode of “The Walking Dead”?
Elsewhere, Glenn is starting to see more of Nicholas’ haunting past. Nicholas seems to know where they’re now located at, so he helps point out which way to proceed. As Nicholas falls, Glenn is taken down with him and the herd of walkers quickly descend on Glenn, ripping open his torso and munching on him.
While I don’t think we’ll be losing Rick any time soon, Glenn’s death should have a huge impact. And was this your reaction to the scene as well?
The people he killed were in his way and he removed them. Boo-yah! Take that, Rick Grimes and your crazy-ass scheme to make Alexandria safe from zombie attack by leading squillions of zombies past the front gate. So I’ll say this: “In a few way, we will see Glenn, a few version of Glenn or parts of Glenn again, either in flashback or in the current story to help complete the story”. Michonne tells Glenn she should do it – he has to get back to Maggie – but he says it’s his plan, and he’ll do it while she leads the others home.
Rick is on the run, taking out walkers on the road.
Along the way one Alexandrian trips and sprains her ankle just before a pack of zombies appear in the woods looking for dinner. The new strategy is for Rick to run ahead to the RV and lead the walkers away from the community. That they stop to recoup in a small town where he abandoned several of his teammates on a previous mission doesn’t help. Three people: Limping girl, Limping guy, and Bit Guy. It seems running away and leaving your friends to die doesn’t come with many benefits. Within minutes of re-joining our heroes, one of the Alexandrians gets himself eaten. Nicholas drags him in one direction, and we see that Michonne and her group are cornered by a part of the herd. Is his time up, or is something else going on? Exhausted and injured, they seek shelter away from the walkers at a pet shop while they hatch a new strategy to get home. No more killing. He mutters “Thank you” to Glenn, then pulls out a pistol and puts it to his head. There’s the moment in the pet store when he insists that he must run off to set fires alone because it’s his plan, his responsibility. But instead, Glenn not only let him live, he taught him how to properly defend himself, and gave him a chance to redeem himself, which he did. Now they’re asking to be left. He tells them to keep going no matter what as majority won’t make it back. All bets are suddenly off. Now Michonne, Daryl, and especially Rick look like they’re in deep shit. (In fact, you could argue his belief in Nicholas after all the things he’s done wrong, was his fatal mistake.) And while I understand Rick’s increasingly bleak worldview, I enjoy seeing the light that someone like Glenn could sometimes add. He could reason with Rick and make sense of even the worst situation.
The rest of the group make it to an alley and find an exit, but they have to make it over a fence before they can escape. Have you ever done things that made you afraid of yourself afterward? “Have you ever been covered in so much blood that you didn’t know if it was yours, or walkers, or your friends?”
Michonne balances her tough talk with a little humanity. Frankly, if they’d both survived – as opposed to just Michonne – it would’ve strained credulity. I suspect Michonne is merely hoping he can make it home in time to say those last words in person. Can you contract zombie virus from a needle stick injury?
At which point Michonne Mich-owned him (I will not apologize for that pun).
Back across town, Glenn and Nicholas find the feed store only to see that it’s already burned to the ground.
Nicholas takes his gun and shoots himself in the head, spraying Glenn in the face with his blood.
And not to bury the lead: Glenn is basically dead. Glenn’s death snaps me right out of that, and it makes the manic cliffhanger of the episode all the more terrifying.
AMCRick gets his hand sliced by the machete sticking out of a walker.AMCRick.
Advertisement
We see the least of this group in the episode; Rick spends most of it running to the RV, while the others spend much of it traveling either towards and away from the town. Unfortunately for Rick, the Alexandrians blame him for what’s happened. After finding a bottle of baby food in one of the Wolves’ pockets, Rick no knows what has happened at the Safe Zone. He explains that he lost everything and had more or less given up when Aaron found him. Alexandria man Sturgess doesn’t heed the warning and eventually, when walkers come his way, he starts firing. Glenn radios over his plan to Rick, who is fighting walkers one by one, sustaining a nasty hand cut when his knife breaks apart after getting stuck in a walker’s head.
