As the title suggests, death is a large part of The Walking Dead. The classic AMC franchise has been one of the longest-running in small screen history, thrilling audiences for almost 15 years. And the stakes have been extremely high throughout that time. In the world of the undead, lives in the TWD Universe were quite literally on the line on a weekly basis, and that ensured that audiences were glued to their seats in the hopes that their favorite characters might make it out alive.
While we've all gotten comfortable with the TWD franchise now, there was a time when it was impossible to get comfortable with The Walking Dead - even (especially!) if you were a fan of it. The show had no problem killing off major characters at a moment's notice, surprising viewers with their exits midway through seasons and when they least expected it. It was a rollercoaster to be a fan of the show, and it still is when you take into account all of its spinoffs.
When you think of the most infamous, however, Glenn Rhee would likely top that list. It's understandable, too, for the beloved character's brutal death had so many things wrong with it that fans began tuning out of the show shortly afterwards. And yet, it's not the show's worst ever death.
Carl Grimes' death is still one of the worst decisions The Walking Dead ever made
Although The Walking Dead quickly developed a reputation for taking risks with high-profile character deaths early on, that doesn't mean that every risk needs to be taken. Though most of them worked to highlight the life-or-death stakes in a show like this, some of its most jaw-dropping were also its biggest misfires. We mentioned Glenn and the controversy that his death created, but the biggest offender in all of this was the baffling decision to kill off Carl Grimes midway through the show's eighth season.
The show was running out of momentum at this point, but its loyal audience was still tuning in to see Rick and his friends take it to Negan and The Saviors. But the season billed "all out war" was a little slow getting started, which isn't exactly what it needed off the back of its questionable seventh season. And yet, fans hoped that the grand finale of the all-out war would be worth it, bringing the Negan storyline to a close once and for all. However, when the midseason finale came and Carl died after suffering a walker bite just a few episodes earlier, it was clear that there was no turning back for TWD.
That walker bite came when Carl nobly offered to help Siddiq when Rick declined. It was a major character moment for both, because while Rick was losing sight of who he once was, Carl had learned everything that his father had taught him. After some rebellious years, he was the man that Rick, Lori, and Michonne always knew that he could be. Which is why the completely random decision to off him at this point in his story is just baffling. Learning a lesson should only complete one chapter of a story, not finish the whole book.
It was all made that much worse by the subsequent reveal that this was actually a creative choice, as The Walking Dead had decided to move on from Carl. Actor Chandler Riggs didn't want to leave, and that makes this ridiculous decision all the more ridiculous. TWD star Andrew Lincoln wasn't happy about the series axing his on-screen son either, and that reportedly played a role in his ultimate decision to leave the show the year after that.
We've thrown around words like "ridiculous" and "baffling" when describing Carl's death, but they only begin to scratch the surface of how bad this decision was. From a character standpoint, sacrificing yourself in a noble act to complete your character arc is a fine way to kill a character off, but that doesn't extend to Carl Grimes. This is somebody who everybody invested in throughout the show's run, ensuring that he would survive and thrive for the next generation. Heck, the show invested in him, and that's what made his demise all the more heartbreaking.
Carl was the future of the TWD Universe, so going on without him made no sense
Carl was, quite literally, the future of the show. He was Rick's son - the very reason that Rick was doing everything he could to ensure that he and his loved ones survived. It was the meaning behind all of the surviving; the chance for his child to live happily in a world after the apocalypse. Through all the horrors of the walker-infested world, this was Rick's driving force. To take it away so cruelly was, quite frankly, unforgivable.
Lori wanted to Carl to beat this world. In her dying moments she told him that he was the future and that her death would be worth it if her children got to live. And thus, we come back around to the question: Why, five seasons later, did the same creative team come up with the idea of killing him off?
TV deaths as major as this one, on occasion, can work if storylined correctly. It can drive the remaining characters' arcs forward and make for a more compelling show all around. But The Walking Dead completely dropped the ball here. Season 8 is widely regarded as one of the show's weaker seasons and that didn't change after Carl was killed off. Moreover, less than a season later, Rick was written off the show when Andrew Lincoln departed and, the following season, Michonne was written off too when Danai Gurira left. To make matters even worse, there were multiple time jumps to move on from Carl's death as quickly as possible and Siddiq (the character who Carl saved when he was bit) ended up dying in season 10.
With all of that in mind, there was just no room for any kind of major aftermath or follow-through. Carl's sister Judith ended up inheriting a lot of his storylines to the upset of fans. Not only did the way that it happened leave audiences feeling like the show saw Carl as replaceable, it also struggled to convincingly garner the same audience connection for Judith simply due to the fact that her character development took place off-screen during the time-jumps, so viewers didn't see her grow in the way that Carl did.
We're nearly a decade on from this one and nothing has changed: Fans still recognize it as one of the worst moments in the history of the series and it did irreparable damage to the show's central storyline that resulted in it aging even worse. Carl, Chandler Riggs, and their fans, deserved so much better than this.
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