Great Character Introductions on The Walking Dead: Glenn Rhee

We only meet a character once. Sometimes that introduction is just woven into the story. Other times it’s a dramatic event. Let’s look at some of the great introductions on The Walking Dead.

Glenn Rhee. His introduction was a memorable one. We meet him first just by voice when Rick is in a pretty desperate situation. We hear his voice at the very end of the very first episode ever of The Walking Dead. He calls our hero a dumbass.

But his voice offers hope for escape so we forgive him. His voice also lets us know there are more people alive out there after just witnessing a huge herd of walkers in downtown Atlanta.

Then we hear his voice again in the second episode. That’s when we actually meet Glenn. He clues Rick into his situation from the outside. He offers him a plan to help him make it out of that tank alive.

Call it foolish naïve hope, that if I’m ever that far up shit creek, somebody might do the same for me. I’m an even bigger dumbass than you

Once Rick gets out of the tank and runs we finally see the person behind the voice. A baseball shirt and cap wearing young man who leads Rick to semi-safety for a little sarcastic chastising.

He makes remarks about how stupid he is and Clint Eastwood, and asks if he’s the new sheriff coming to clean up the town. Our Glenn is a funny kid. We can tell his sarcasm comes from a place of compassion and frustration.

Glenn knows he couldn’t leave Rick, but he’s annoyed that he knows himself well enough that this man made a bone head move that forced Glenn to put himself into danger to help him.

Next: Great introductions to characters: Merle

Then Glenn just lays it out there plainly. He tells Rick he’s a glass half full kind of guy and he says one of the most telling and important Glenn lines of the entire series, “Call it foolish naïve hope, that if I’m ever that far up shit creek, somebody might do the same for me. I’m an even bigger dumbass than you.”