Few shows have the chutzpah to test their audience like hit necrotic soap opera The Walking Dead. Being a committed Deaderer has, since the show began in 2010, meant you must accept a few hard truths: that the story will never, ever end, because the comics on which it’s based will still be being written when the cockroach/Farage death mutants inherit the Earth; that, generally, you’ll find more cheer in an abattoir for Andrex puppies; and that, for long stretches, you’re going to be bored. Really bored.
Remember how much fun it is to watch people mope about in some woods? No, you don’t. Because it isn’t. But, over seven seasons, Walking Dead fans have strained until they’re sodden in the underpants to convince themselves that it is. It’s exhausting. If it were a romantic partner, The Walking Dead would be one with no ambition and a damning body odour. But you stay with this fun-sponge because they used to be cool and occasionally – very occasionally – they take you out for some nice cake.
The one thing the show has always had for it was tension. People could die. And they did. Beloved characters, whom you’d spent entire seasons observing glumly wander the various arboreal environs of Georgia, could perish in a crimson shower of their most private innards. “Adorable old man” distilled, Hershel: dead. Rick’s best pal, the smouldering and cuckolder-ing Shane: dead. Rick’s wife Lori: so, so very dead, no takesies backsies. The reappearance of racist bumpkin Merle aside, this was a show that didn’t insult viewers with “if you didn’t see a corpse then YOU NEVER KNOW, EH?” misdirectional guffery.
You could never rely on the show being, you know, good or fun in any measurable way, but you could always rely on it being straight with you, like a no-nonsense bailiff who takes your telly but wipes their feet on the doormat on their way in. Until, that is, we got to the unfortunate case of geek-turned-hardcore survivalist Glenn. In the third episode of season six, Glenn and Nicholas, a no-mark redshirt so featureless I had to Google his name, find themselves pinned down by a group of zombies. The pair retreat to the top of a dumpster. Surrounded. All is lost. Deciding he doesn’t want to die by watching a couple of ex-alive people squabble over his pancreas, Nicholas puts a gun against his temple. He fires. As his limp body flops into the throng, Glenn, in shock, falls with him. The camera cuts to a close-up of Glenn – a character we’ve been with from the beginning; plucky, plucky Glenn – screaming in agony as all his insides reluctantly become outsides. Actor Steven Yeun’s name is removed from the credits. Fans are bereft. But what did they expect? This is The Walking Dead, and no one is safe. That’s the whole point, right?
Um, no. A mere four episodes later, Glenn is back. Apparently Nicholas’s body fell on top of Glenn, and all the blood and gubbins were actually his. It was simply a misleading camera angle. But that was fun, wasn’t it guys! Making you think Glenn was dead! It was a cheap, sub-Neighbours parlour trick. A blatant dutch oven to fans who put up with so much already. It went against the entire ethos of the show: when death used to be final. That was the point. Now? If you don’t actually see a corpse then YOU NEVER KNOW, EH?
