The Walking Dead Finally Revealed Glenn's Fate

Did the fan favorite character survive falling off that dumpster?

By Billy Nilles Nov 23, 2015 3:00 AMTags
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Warning: The following contains major spoilers about tonight's episode of The Walking Dead. If you haven't watched yet, what are you even doing here?

The fate of Glenn Rhee is finally known to all and it ... is exactly what everyone thought it would be.

That's right, The Walking Dead finally let viewers in on what exactly happened to the fan-favorite character after he was thrown off that dumpster into a horde of ravenous walkers nearly a month ago and, what do you know, the guts we saw getting eaten belonged to exactly who we thought they might.

Alright, enough dancing around it. Let's just cut to the chase: Glenn (Steven Yeun) is not dead.

So, here's how he made it out of that alley alive. After blowing his brains out and knocking them both onto the ground, Nicholas (Michael Traynor) landed on top of Glenn, shielding our hero from the walkers. As they feasted on ol' dead Nick, Glenn made good use of their distraction by slowly sliding out from underneath, slipping under the dumpster. Somehow, only two walkers noticed and Glenn was able to knife them in the head. As he waited it out, somehow a large can rolled down the street, catching the attention of one walker after another until the horde all left to follow the noise. It was that easy!

We'll be honest, we're not sure how we feel about the way The Walking Dead handled this whole plot point. The weeks we were left to wait for answers on Glenn's fate felt kind of manipulative, with the removal of Steven's name from the opening credits and the cryptic message from showrunner Scott Gimple directly after the cliffhanger. After all that, he's just fine and it's because a magic can came out of nowhere? OK, whatever you say.

Glenn's not entirely out of the woods, though. After getting some water thrown his way from Carl's crush Enid (Nice to see you again, Enid!), the two made their way back to Alexandria while she filled Glenn in on what went down when the Wolves attacked. They come across some green balloons (apparently part of the original plan to get the walkers out of the ravine) and bring them along to the settlement, before they finally lay eyes on the massive hurdle in their way: All the walkers at the gates.

With all hell about to break lose in Alexandria (more on that in Spare Parts), Rick (Andrew Lincoln), Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and all the other major players see the balloons take flight and experience some temporary relief, knowing Glenn's alive and just on the other side. It's just too bad that there's one more massive war standing between them. But since when has TWD ever made anything easy?

Spare Parts:

- Here is the church, here is the steeple. Steeple falls down, walkers race in to eat all the people. No, seriously, the fight is on to save Alexandria with that wall toppling down. Something tells us we'll be saying good-bye to some familiar faces in the next episode.

- Morgan (Lennie James) is still sticking to his all-lives-matter ethos, finding himself in several philosophical debates with Rick, Carol (Melissa McBride), and Michonne (Danai Gurira), while roping Dr. Denise (Merritt Wever) into administering antibiotics to the wounded Wolf in the basement. It seems like the show is building to a moment where Morgan is going to have to abandon his hopes for peace and that's a bummer.

- How soon until Ron is dead? Seriously. This week he stole some bullets to load his gun, pulling it out of his waistband as he ominously followed Carl (Chandler Riggs) through the neighborhood. Is it too harsh to hope he's walker bait in the next episode?

- Spencer (Austin Nichols) too, for that matter. That stunt on the rope over the walkers was insane. And his "Damn, I lost a shoe" once they rescued him? Girl, bye.

- "The only thing that keeps you from becoming a monster is killing." Ugh. Subtle as ever, TWD.

- "You point a gun at me and I'm the a--hole?" Good to have you back, Glenn.

What did you think of Glenn's fate? Surprising or totally expected? Sound off in the comments below.

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC.