The Walking Dead: Be Careful What You Wish For

For those not in the know, this is Negan and his barbed wire wrapped bat Lucille.

I’ll keep this intro short as most of what I want to talk about is very spoiler based.  Join me after the cut for more on this past week’s Walking Dead episode, The Walking Dead comic and why, as the title says, you should be careful what you wish for.

Last chance…spoilers from here on out for the most recent episode of The Walking Dead and The Walking Dead comic book series.

I’ll just stick this picture of Maggie here to give some more spoiler space. And because, well, Maggie.

So…Glenn is alive.  Yeah Glenn!  I’m a bit surprised he is alive actually, but that’s another story.  And the whole thing worked fine from a story point of view.  I just really hated how the producers and Scott Gimple and everyone else surrounding the show handled this.  As Ryan is fond of saying, the whole thing was a head fake.  Many speculated from day one that the guts Glenn was reacting to were Nicholas’ and that he climbed under that dumpster.  But the show had to go and make an ambiguous announcement about Glenn on Talking Dead and then remove his name from the credits, etc.  It just all seemed unnecessary and took away from letting the show speak for itself.

This is probably the most popular show on TV currently, it didn’t need this attempt to drum up ratings with the whole “is Glenn alive or not” campaign.  I don’t think any viewers were gained by it.  And it anything it pissed off viewers.  Or last week became almost, “Ho hum, Glenn’s alive, let’s move on”.   Also, The Walking Dead  is not typically a show to use head fakes or pull punches.  I didn’t see any head fakes (sorry) when Hershel died.  This whole stunt lost some credibility for the show from me.  I still love it though, don’t get me wrong.

But I digress.  During that “is he alive or not” period when everyone was posting theories online and spying around the set looking for clues of Glenn shooting new scenes etc., there was one rumor that I heard many people cling to to prove Glenn was alive.  And that was the fact that Glenn couldn’t be dead because there is an iconic scene from the comics that involves Glenn and that fellow Negan above who is rumored to be showing up by the finale of season 6.

Two problems with this.  One, while the show borrows heavily from the comic, they are not one and the same.  There is no saying that Glenn/Negan scene will ever happen.  Rick hasn’t lost his hand.  Carl doesn’t have a hole in his face (though I thought that might be coming near the end of the last episode).  I’m sure they will make Negan the scary asshole he was in the comics, but there is no saying they will handle things exactly the same.

Second, that iconic scene…involves Negan brutally bashing Glenn’s head in with a baseball bat covered in barbed wire.  It is easily my least favorite thing in the entire almost 150 issue run of the comic.  I hate it so much I can’t even do an image search for it to plug it in here and show you as I never want to see it again.  (Or at least limit the number of times in my lifetime that I do see it.)

So, is that something to be excited about and look forward to?  Yeah!  Glenn is alive, thank God, now he can survive until at least the season finale and GET BLUDGEONED TO DEATH!  If Glenn had died thanks to Nicholas, it wouldn’t have been a great send off, but I think I would be OK with it if it avoided this scene.  I really have no interest in seeing this get translated to the small screen.  And I’m sure Jenny or Ms. Impossible and any other of the legion of fans that are elated to have Glenn back but have no idea this may be coming, would feel the same way.