The Walking Dead: It’s time to stop hating Carl Grimes

For many seasons, fans struggled to find reasons to like Carl Grimes on AMC’s zombie drama The Walking Dead, but it’s time to embrace the unique character.

Let’s be honest. Even the most hardcore fans of The Walking Dead had characters that they don’t like. While many didn’t care for Lori Grimes or Andrea, there seemed to be a big group of fans that just didn’t like Carl Grimes.

I never really understood the dislike for the character. Personally, I felt like Chandler Riggs did a fantastic job of bringing the character to life from the comic book pages and gave some excellent performances in several episodes, including the death of his mother and enjoying a nice big can of chocolate pudding.

Still, there are negatives to any character on The Walking Dead. For example, I can see how Carl’s curiosity about the zombie apocalypse could be off-putting or his siding with Shane Walsh instead of Rick Grimes at several points might be considered a breach of trust for the Grimes family.

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However, a lot of time has passed for Carl. He’s grown up considerably as a character as well as an actor. The young Grimes boy has become a young man, with even grown adults like Father Gabriel Stokes and Michonne looking to him as a confidant and weapons trainer. He’s taken the experiences of killing his own mother and father figure and used them to develop into a strong survivor while other might be traumatized for life by those events.

The future is bright for Carl, too. Enid seems to have an interest in him (despite Ron Anderson insisting that he is her boyfriend) and he seems to have graduated from glorified babysitter to regular contributor for Alexandria. Soon, he’ll be out along side his father on missions for the community and a valuable asset when it comes to protecting the community.

Related Story: Does Carl see the former version of himself in Ron Anderson?

Hopefully, fans that have struggled to accept Carl Grimes can see past the growing pains of childhood and the awkwardness that the young man experienced growing up in the zombie apocalypse on The Walking Dead. Give the Chandler Riggs character another chance to be a beloved part of your favorite show and he might just impress you.