It’s been over two years since the traumatic demise of one of The Walking Dead’s most beloved (former) survivors and Steven Yeun has weighed in on one of the show’s biggest questions: Was Daryl (Norman Reedus) responsible for Glenn Rhee’s death? As most may remember, it was Daryl’s fist-wielding outburst towards Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) in response to Abraham’s (Michael Cudlitz) brutal murder that appeared to seal Glenn’s fate. While Daryl may still carry the burden of guilt for that night, Yeun recently told the fans at Walker Stalker Con London that he doesn’t blame Daryl at all for his character’s death.
“I think nobody would have just sat there and taken all that, whoever it was,” Yeun guessed. “So I don’t know, it seems like you can’t even blame anything. It’s just what happened.”
True, some of us might have snapped at the sight of a gleefully murderous blowhard attacking our loved ones while others might have recognized Negan for the detached homicide enthusiast that he was and kept quiet, like the rest of the Alexandria gang. It’s hard to say, but if anyone should have the final world on the matter, it should probably be the man who lived and breathed the fallen character for six seasons.
While Glenn’s death mostly aligned with events of the original comic, many fans where hopeful that Scott Gimple and company would divert from the source material – as they have successfully done plenty of times – especially if that meant preserving one of the few visible Asian-American characters on television at the moment. Since the horrific events of the seventh season opener, The Walking Dead’s ratings have failed to recover.
Yeun also talked about what might have happened had Glenn survived the showdown, which doesn’t sting at all:
“But I think what would have happened is definitely Glenn and Maggie would have tried to forge their own path, I think that would have been real. Maybe they would have gone to Hilltop, maybe they would have stayed in Alexandria, just kind of carved their own space there. But I don’t see them abandoning their group. I don’t see them just up and leaving. But I do see them growing and moving on beyond kind of what they’re expected to be.”
Unfortunately, that’s something that we’ll never know for sure, which is not linked to Daryl’s historically reactionary behavior one bit.
[Via ScreenRant]
9 Comments
I do.
I blame the graphic novel.
I blame writers who don’t love their characters as much as they ought. Any death is fine, so long as it’s written out of love. I mean, Ramsay Bolton’s TV show “death by dog” was written out of love of the character of Ramsay Bolton, for example. Love is funny.
Of course it’s not Daryl’s fault. It’s Rick’s fault. It’s all Rick’s fault. Every single time the group runs across anybody who has managed to get their shit together, Rick gets a big ol justice boner and ends up getting a bunch of people killed.
On a side note, Simon’s Steven Ogg is featured in season 2 of Amazon’s ‘The Tick’ and he’s great.
Steven Ogg is amazing and I really hope he gets a regular gig soon.
Well that’s a relief.
Yeah, I checked the fuck out at this point and had no interest in returning. As a confirmed ghost story and horror movie addict, I could never get on board with the whole torture porn thing.
Glenn’s weird fakeout non-death in season 6, only to be followed by a possible reprieve from his expected fate in season 7 with Abraham, only to then immediately be killed after all that— it was kinda my last straw for the show. Still lovin’ them comics, though.