The Walking Dead
“Thank You”
October 25, 2015
HORN!!!
Rick and the rest of his group herding the quarry walkers out in the woods hear the horn coming from Alexandria and are like, “WHAT THE WHAT?” Realizing that the noise is going to draw the walkers directly towards their friends and family, Rick comes up with a new plan: he will go back and retrieve the RV, Glenn and Michonne will lead the rest of the group back to Alexandria, and he contacts Daryl, Abe and Sasha via walkie to inform them what is happening. Rick then takes Glenn and Michonne aside and instructs them that no matter what, they have to keep going. Not all of the Alexandrians are going to make it back, but it is vitally important that they do. No hiding, no waiting. And right on cue, one of the dumb Alexandrian babies gets himself eaten.
R.I.P. Big Dumb Baby.
But in good news, the horn stops, so that’s something. While the rest of the Alexandrians watch in horror, Michonne stabs their dead dumb baby friend in the head and Rick strips the dead dumb baby of his weapons while urging the rest of them to get back safe. Yeah, good luck with that everyone.
And, in fact, the group soon comes across a shuffle of walkers in the woods. Glenn orders them to not shoot the walkers unless they have to. So, of course, one dummy in a dumb hat starts immediately shooting at the walkers, but only manages to hit one of his fellow Alexandrians in the leg instead before running off in the opposite direction.
As if being shot in the leg by his next door neighbor isn’t bad enough, the poor guy is then set upon by walkers. But Michonne and some other guy, David? maybe? manage to pull Shot Guy to safety, only to have David, Sure, Let’s Call Him David, get himself bitten on the back by a sneaky quiet walker. Michonne sighs heavily.
They keep walking, though, all the while David yammering about his wife back in Alexandria, how she saved him after he lost everyone else in his life, and worrying that he’s going to turn before he can get back to Alexandria to tell her how much she’s meant to him. One of the other Alexandrians, let’s call her Annie, suggests that they stop and bandage up Shot Guy’s leg, but Glenn’s like, “NOPE.”
But soon enough, they come upon a deserted town, and poke around looking for a car that will start. They fail. Heath is like, “Hey, Joel Osteen, isn’t this where you and Lt. Incompetent went on that supply run and got all your buddies killed?” Joel Osteen admits it is, and is like, “We had no idea what we were doing.” So Heath puts him in charge of leading them through the town. GREAT IDEA. GOOD PLAN.
The group soon comes across Hat Dummy in the process of being eaten, and everyone is like, “WELL THAT’S WHAT YOU GET FOR SHOOTING WHEN GLENN TOLD YOU NOT TO SHOOT.” They then realiz they are surrounded on all sides by walkers and take refuge in a pet store, which must just smell fantastic.
R.I.P. Hat Dummy.
In the store, Glenn comes up with a plan: they’ll set fire to a nearby building to draw the herd’s attention, and Michonne will lead the rest back to Alexandria. When Michonne protests that she isn’t going back without Glenn, he promises that he’ll be fine, and adds, “if I get stuck out here, I’ll find a way to show you guys I’m OK.”
So Joel Osteen is like, “I’m full of bad ideas and terrible luck, how about I show you a feed store down the street that we can set fire to?” Glenn agrees, but says he needs to do one thing first before going into an aisle, taking Hersh’s pocket watch out and radioing Rick this new plan, before signing off, “good luck, dumbass.”
Rick doesn’t actually talk to him, because he’s too busy macheting walkers in the face and his slicing open his own palm. Dumbass.
Back at the pet store, Heath bandages up Shot Guy and tells Annie, who is working with a pretty good limp, that they’ll fashion a crutch for her. Annie and Shot Guy protest that they are just slowing them down, and that they should just leave them behind. But Heath is NOT HAVING IT, and glaring at Michonne, he insists that they don’t leave people behind.
Michonne is like, “DUDE, WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM?” Heath explains that he heard Rick tell them that they weren’t going to survive or be able to keep up and it hurt his fee-fees. Michonne is like, “STOP BEING SUCH A DUMB BABY. Rick has seen things, man, and until Heath’s “been covered in so much blood that you didn’t know if it was yours, or walkers or your friends,” he doesn’t get to be such a big dumb baby. Basically.
Meanwhile, Glenn and Joel Osteen manage to sneak out of the pet store without drawing the attention of the walkers, somehow, don’t worry about it. They are out running down the street when they happen upon one of the people (now walker) that Joel Osteen and Lt. Got Everyone Killed left behind on their supply run that one time. Joel Osteen has a sad, but Glenn assures him that he’s not that person anymore and Joel Osteen stabs his old buddy in the head.
R.I.P. Supply Run Walker.
But then over in Alexandria, Carol has gotten her hands on the guns and is busy shooting some wolves, and the sound of gunfire catches the attention of the herd. Glenn and Joel Osteen run in the direction of the feed store, only to discover that it’s already been burned down. But instead of just setting fire to any of the many other nearby buildings, Glenn and Joel Osteen panic.
Back at the pet store, That David Guy writes his wife a note that he wants Michonne to deliver for him, but she’s like, “NOPE,” before writing, “You’re Getting Home” on her arm. But then some walkers who have just quietly been passing the time in a closet in the back of the store decide that it’s time to come out, and the ensuing hullabaloo draws the attention of the walkers outside the store, putting our friends in a bit of a pickle.
Michonne and the group shoot their way out of the pet store only to have Annie trip and fall immediately, getting herself devoured by the herd.
R.I.P. Annie.
Michonne and the rest head down an alley that is blocked by a gate that they scale, all but for That David Person, who is pulled down by the herd and eaten, and WORSE, the note to his wife falls to the ground, becoming irretrievable. SO THANKS, MICHONNE.
Meanwhile, Glenn and Joel Osteen find themselves trapped in an alley, too (what is it with this town and alleys?), so they climb up on a dumpster and rather fruitlessly kick at the zombie heads below. At some point, Joel Osteen just zones out before he suddenly tells Glenn, “thank you,” and takes out his gun and shoots himself in the head. Which honestly would be just fine! EXCEPT AS HIS BODY FALLS, IT KNOCKS GLENN OFF THE DUMPSTER AND (MAYBE, MAYBE!) GETS GLENN EATEN.
Seriously. I can not.
R.I.P. Glenn (????????????????????????????????????????????????????)
Meanwhile, Michonne, Heath and Shot Guy make it to the woods where Heath assures Michonne that even though there’s no smoke, it doesn’t mean that Glenn and Joel Osteen didn’t make it. And then Heath sees his bloody face in a reflection in a creek, and is like, “DAMN.” They eventually make it back to Alexandria, where they find the outer walls burnt and are like, “Uhhhhhhh…”
While all this is happening, Daryl leaves Sasha, Abe and the other half of the herd to return to Alexandria even though they’ve only gone five of the twenty miles they planned and Rick told them specifically to NOT GO BACK TO ALEXANDRIA, because NO ONE CAN FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS ON THIS SHOW.
But good news! Rick manages to get back to the RV and put in in place to distract the herd. When he tries to radio Glenn, he receives no response, so he radios Daryl, Sasha and Abe to let them know the plan is back on track. Except, haha, that’s when the Wolves that Morgan let escape attack the RV. THANKS AGAIN, MORGAN. Rick shoots a few inside the RV, and on one he finds a jar of baby food, which gives him pause. But no time for that, as he sees the other Wolves sneaking up the side of the RV. Using a machine gun, he fires through the RV’s interior to kill them, which he does! Hooray! However, he also shot something important on the RV, because when he goes to start it, it won’t turn over. This just in time for the herd who is shuffling their way out of the woods and towards him. So, that’s great.
But, hey, when he heard gunfire coming over the radio, Daryl returned to join Sasha and Abe, so that’s something. I guess.
So this episode.
As I’m sure you’re aware by now, it’s not entirely clear that Glenn is actually dead — and I personally am of two minds on the matter. The bad news is, it looks as though we won’t have absolute final totally-for-certain confirmation that Glenn is dead (or alive) for at least two weeks, as next week’s episode appears to be Morgan’s flashback story. (And boy, Morgan’s story better be a good one to make up for letting those Wolves escape with one of the Alexandrians’ guns.)
So, as we did with the Enid controversy last week, let’s break down points in favor of both scenarios:
GLENN IS ALIVE
1. The framing of the “death” shot suggests that someone’s entrails are being devoured, but are we sure they are Glenn’s? When Joel Osteen offed himself and knocked Glenn off the dumpster, they fell in such a way that his body was on top of Glenn’s, so those could have been Joel Osteen’s intestines being eaten in front of Glenn’s face.
2. We did not see Glenn actually pass away. In fact, the last time we saw Glenn, he was still screaming — either in agony or horror.
3. Steven Yeun wasn’t on The Talking Dead last night. When a character is offed, they are usually given a proper send-off on the post-show. Clearly they are trying to keep Glenn’s “demise” ambiguous for a while longer.
4. He also wasn’t included in The Talking Dead‘s death count.
5. The writers gave a statement to The Talking Dead insisting that we will see Glenn again in some fashion: “Dear fans of ‘The Walking Dead,’ this is a hard story to tell and when we were planning to tell it, we knew our friends at the ‘Talking Dead’ would be talking to you about it. And knowing you’d all be talking and feeling and commiserating, I knew we should say something about it, lest our silence say something we didn’t mean to say or not say. So I’ll say this: In some way, we will see Glenn, some version of Glenn, or parts of Glenn again, either in flashback or in the current story, to help complete the story.”
6. Michonne foreshadows Glenn being covered in Joel Osteen’s blood when she tells Heath that they have “been covered in so much blood that you didn’t know if it was yours, or walkers or your friends”:
7. Glenn himself foreshadows that he will live when he promises Michonne that if he gets stuck, he’ll find a way to let them know he’s alright.
8. If that is Joel Osteen’s intestines, Glenn has a way out of this: there is space under the dumpster for him to slide under.
9. COMIC SPOILERS: Seriously, only scroll over this if you’re cool with being spoiled for both the comics and the show: In the comic, Glenn’s death is particularly horrific and upsetting. Glenn is beaten to death with a barbed-wire-wrapped baseball bat by a character named Negan. Negan is being cast and is expected to appear at the end of this season. So Glenn still might die soon, but it’s not going to be alone in some random alley somewhere.
10. Glenn calls Rick “dumbass” in this episode, just like he did when he saved Rick from the tank in the first episode. Strikingly, in the second episode, Glenn explains that he saved Rick because, “call it foolish, naive hope that if I’m ever that far up s**t creek, somebody might do the same for me.” Glenn under the dumpster = Rick in the tank, and someone will come save him. I JUST KNOW IT. THEY HAVE TO.
GLENN IS DEAD
1. There are some who feel it would be a cheap fake out if Glenn is actually alive after this. And even if those are Joel Osteen’s intestines, it does seem improbable that he could survive very long being in the middle of a horde that huge with no actual means of escape.
2. COMIC SPOILERS: Seriously, only scroll over this if you’re cool with being spoiled for both the comics and the show: As noted,Glenn’s death in the comic is horrific and emotional and the readers have been anticipating it for seasons now. Having him die in this episode before Negan ever arrives would be shocking for the entire viewership.
3. Glenn’s death at this point would give the events in these past few episodes some real consequence. So far after releasing hundreds of walkers and being attacked by machete-wielding maniacs, the only people we’ve lost have been a bunch of red-shirted Alexandrians. And sure, we’ve lost a lot of them, but that doesn’t carry the same weight as losing a major character.
4. Um, that’s all I’ve got.
What do you think? Does hope — and Glenn — live?
The Walking Dead airs Sundays on AMC at 8 p.m.
This post was originally posted on the Hearst site Chron.com.