It's been an excruciatingly long summer for fans of The Walking Dead. The season finale of AMC's hit undead drama ended with our favorite zombie apocalypse survivors in their darkest hour, literally on their knees facing the much-hyped introductory wrath of the villainous Negan. This was six seasons in the making, ending on the cruelest of cliffhangers. We would have to wait until next season to find out who got eeny-meeny-miney-moe'd to meet their bloody end, courtesy of Negan's barb-wire covered baseball bat, "Lucille."
On Sunday night's season seven premiere, we finally found out.
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It's Glenn.
Glenn is dead. As many of us knew and feared in our hearts, it was our beloved Glenn on the receiving end of Negan's brutal beating. Killed, as foretold in The Walking Dead #100. As longtime readers of the comic books know, Glenn was killed in the exact same manner at Negan's introduction, in perhaps the most shocking, infamous moment of the entire series. Since the publication of that issue in July 2012, Glenn's possible (or inevitable) death has hung ominously over the TV show, season after season.
Still, many fans held out with hope that Glenn might be spared, and this would be one of the significant ways the show deviated from its source material. Major characters, like Carol, who were killed off early in the comic book, have survived past the corresponding timeline on the TV show, and vice versa. And after the controversial fake-out last season in which Glenn was seemingly gobbled up by a zombie horde -- only to emerge very much alive several weeks later -- would the show put us through the wringer again? Yes.
But first, as many speculated, there was another victim. And as many correctly predicted, it was Abraham. Negan started his slaughter by killing Abraham, then turned his bat on Glenn. I was not ready to see that. I remember the moment from the comic book -- it's gruesome -- but I was not ready to see that. I was not ready to see an Asian man being beaten to death with a baseball bat.
I'm going to have nightmares about this fucking show.
So dammit, whyyyyyyyyy. I'm heartbroken. I need to talk about what a huge loss this is, not only for The Walking Dead, but also for television, and for Asian America. Glenn Rhee, played marvelously by Steven Yeun, is one of the most significant Asian American characters in the history of television.
Over the course of six seasons we have seen his character grow and evolve from that Asian kid -- a pizza delivery guy, apparently, in his pre-apocalypse life -- into Glenn, one of the most courageous, trusted and invaluably badass members of the group. Amidst chaos, darkness and desolation, Glenn fell in love, started a family, found community, and held firm to his humanity. In many ways, this Korean American guy was the show's everyman, the heart of The Walking Dead. In the apocalypse, he became who he was meant to be.
Perhaps that's why he had to die. Damn this show.
I'm bummed as hell. Glenn was one of the most complex and beloved Asian American characters in all of pop culture, where complex and beloved Asian American characters are few and far between. There are too many delivery guys. There aren't a lot of Glenns. Things have certainly improved in recent years, but Glenn has been beacon of awesome, holding it down on the most popular show on television. The character, which made a star out of Steven Yeun, leaves an important and indelible legacy.
As a fan of the show since its premiere, I can only hope Glenn's death services the story. I can only hope, because I'm thinking me and The Walking Dead are done, at least for a while. Goodbye, Glenn.
