Carl From Walking Dead Anime Dareal From Walking Dead Animea

'The Walking Dead' director explains Sunday's large death: 'I know people are going to exist upset'

Rick's going to accept a tough time moving frontward.

Alarm: There are major spoilers ahead for Sunday's mid-flavor premiere of AMC's "The Walking Dead," "Honor."

"The Walking Dead" returned Sun with a large send-off to one of its original characters.

When we terminal saw Rick and the gang, the leader of Alexandria was shocked to detect that his son Carl (Chandler Riggs) was suffering from a zombie seize with teeth. Fans waited until February to learn his not-so secret fate.

This is your last alert before spoilers.

Chandler Riggs has played Carl for eight seasons on "The Walking Dead."

Though some fans held on to hope that Carl would make some miraculous recovery, there was no turning back from a walker seize with teeth to his side.

Carl took the state of affairs into his own hands, subsequently maxim goodbye to his male parent and all-time friend Michonne, and took his life in the remains of Male parent Gabriel'south church.

While fans are processing the death of ane of the testify's longest-running characters, they should slightly exist comforted in knowing that Carl'southward send-off has a bigger purpose.

"I think what they [fans] can take away from Carl's death is that information technology's not a senseless expiry," episode managing director and executive producer Greg Nicotero told INSIDER. "There's some meaning and purpose backside it and we encounter the fact that Rick and Michonne are able to say farewell to him and that he goes out with a lot of dignity."

Why Carl had to die

Rick and Michonne process the news that Carl was bit.

Nicotero said equally far equally he knows, in that location were never conversations to kill off anyone else on the show but Carl. He was talking about the thought to kill off the character since the fourth or 5th episode of flavor eight. Though, Nicotero said this is something showrunner Scott Gimple could take had in mind for a while.

"I remember they [the 'Walking Dead' squad] had been thinking near it [Carl'due south death] in regards to propelling our story forward," said Nicotero. "I mean, it's a really big deal and in terms of the war, I thinkthe thing that's important is, you know, in the comic books information technology's kind of over relatively chop-chop [the war]. So, I remember for our purposes information technology was really just well-nigh keeping the motivations clear about what the stakes are."

Carl'due south expiry may serve as the impetus to get Rick to swallow his pride and end the war with Negan.

At the heart of the show, "The Walking Expressionless" has explored the thought of morality and who the characters are becoming in the face of the zombie apocalypse. As we've seen in recent seasons, it'south turned the unremarkably peaceful Morgan into a vengeful killer and Daryl into someone bent on revenge after he was kidnapped past the Saviors in season seven.

Just killing off the few remaining, breathing inhabitants of the earth around them might non be the right answer in the long run in a earth full of the undead.

"With Carl, it gives him an opportunity, a very, very strong opportunity to attain out to Rick and try to make him empathise what the stakes are and that the earth in front of them is a completely clean slate," explains Nicotero. "Information technology's upward to him to define what society tin can become and I recollect the feeling was, at that place weren't a lot of characters on the prove that could have that kind of impact on Rick. Carl is really the biggest one that tin can really try to lay downwardly some blueish prints for him."

Carl starts to have a serious conversation with his father about the direction of the state of war with Negan on the season eight premiere. It connected in November'southward mid-flavor finale.

Those blue prints include Carl telling Rick about his visions for the future, the ones where he imagines seeing Negan living in harmony with the Alexandrians at the episode's very end.

"That's really Carl's vision of the future and our hopes are that Rick can hear what he has to say and accept that to heart because, otherwise there's non going to be anybody left to live on the planet," says Nicotero.

We now know that this wink-forrard sequence was Carl's ideal vision for the future.

"Not a senseless expiry"

Carl's expiry is going to exist used to aid end the ongoing war betwixt Rick and Negan. How that will happen remains to exist seen, just Negan had a neat respect for Carl. There was even a signal where he wanted him to work with the Saviors.

Negan fifty-fifty fabricated Carl spaghetti once.

Information technology'due south tough to imagine that Carl's death won't have some sort of touch on Negan.

"Carl conspicuously has a dissimilar perception of what he wants for the world. He doesn't participate in the war. Carl is charged with keeping Alexandria prophylactic," said Nicotero. "So the idea that Carl was non killed every bit a result of the war is tremendously of import."

Nicotero acknowledges that not anybody in the fandom is going to be happy subsequently the mid-season premiere. Later all, viewers have watched Riggs grow up on screen since 2010.

Everything Rick has done on "The Walking Dead" has been for Carl. At present, he'll have to meet if he tin can carry out his wishes.

"I know the people that are going to be upset," said Nicotero of the expected reactions to Carl's decease. "The people that are going to be angry, hopefully will understand that we really wanted to make sure that nosotros pay tribute to a very loved character and a fantastic thespian. I think in that location are aspects of the episode that are actually beautiful and I experience similar it'southward a great story that we were able to tell."

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