'Walking Dead' pulls a 'Game of Thrones,' departs from comics with major character death
Warning: The following post contains spoilers for the most recent episode of The Walking Dead and the comics on which it is based.
In its final season, The Walking Dead is showing no mercy – but what else is new?
On Sunday night's episode, we learned that Carl Grimes took a severe bite to the abdomen and his death is imminent. Carl, played by Chandler Riggs, has been on the show since Season 1 – the only character besides Rick who's been around for that long. Riggs told The Hollywood Reporter that Carl is "definitely" at his end, halfway through Season 8.
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Meanwhile, in the comics, Carl is alive and well, the young leader his world needs as it tries to rebuild. The Walking Dead has remained mostly faithful to Robert Kirkman's comics, but this is a rare exception reminiscent of a certain other big TV show based on printed source material.
"I didn't expect for Carl to ever get killed off," Riggs told THR. "But it serves a good purpose in the story. There's still a little more left in Carl's story — in episode nine [the midseason premiere in 2018] — and that impacts Rick, Michonne and everyone. Although Carl's story is coming to an end it's not over yet."
Riggs has been on the show since he was a literal child, so the audience has grown up with him as much as he has grown up with the show. Carl will still be around when the show starts back up in 2018, and we can expect that farewell to be a doozy.
The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 p.m. EST on AMC.
Topics Comics The Walking Dead
Proma Khosla is a Senior Entertainment Reporter writing about all things TV, from ranking Bridgerton crushes to composer interviews and leading Mashable's stateside coverage of Bollywood and South Asian representation. You might also catch her hosting video explainers or on Mashable's TikTok and Reels, or tweeting silly thoughts from @promawhatup.
