In The Walking Dead recap, the survivors try to lead the herd away from Alexandria but a shocking death could change things forever….
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
Is he or isn’t he?
That’s the question on everyone’s mind this week after an eye popping episode of The Walking Dead aired Sunday night where it appeared Glenn met his final demise after a horde of walkers surrounded him and Nicholas and then proceeded to tear them apart.
The whole sequence was shocking from the moment you realized Nicholas wasn’t quite himself after witnessing the horrific fallout from his actions while previously leading scavenging missions only to leave some of his fellow Alexandrians behind so he could escape. Only after Glenn finally intervened and beat some sense into him did Nicholas finally wake up and see the atrocities he helped cause during his time as a supply runner.
But the bad timing of his conscience ultimately came at Glenn’s expense after Nicholas shot himself and the two of them tumbled to the ground as a group of zombies began tearing them apart.
The question remains, however, did Nicholas end up as the only one ripped limb from limb or was Glenn part of the carnage with a lot of blood, a lot of screaming and even some intestines that went flying during the melee.
The Walking Dead executive producer and show runner Scott Gimple released this statement after the show, further teasing Glenn’s fate.
“In some way we will see Glenn — some version of Glenn or parts of Glenn — again. Either in flashback or the current story to help complete the story.”
So in other words we haven’t seen the last of Glenn but there’s still no confirmation that he’s alive or dead. It certainly didn’t look good for him in that moment and all signs pointed to his insides being turned out with zombies gorging on his body parts, but as the writers and producers behind the show always say — someone’s not dead unless you see them die and technically we didn’t actually see Glenn perish in that moment.
Weigh in with your own thoughts — is Glenn dead or alive? And was this your reaction to the scene as well?
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Think about that while we recap the latest episode of The Walking Dead titled ‘Thank You’:
Alternate Route
We pick up this week just moments after the first episode ended with Rick and the others trying to lead the bigger herd of zombies ever known to mankind far away from the front gates of Alexandria. Unfortunately a very loud horn — courtesy of a crashed truck driven by the Wolves — has distracted many of the zombies and they are making a bee line back to town where the walls and the people inside are woefully unprepared for what’s about to hit them.
Rick splits apart from the group so he can go find the RV they used to barricade one wall while leading the herd out of town while Glenn, Michonne, Heath, and a couple more folks from Alexandria trekked out the other direction to get back to town ahead of any zombies that might be headed their way.
Daryl stayed with Abraham and Sasha (at least temporarily) to continue leading the other half of the herd away from town because they can’t risk leaving that many walkers loose in the streets before they eventually make their way to Alexandria as well.
Before leaving, Rick warns Glenn and Michonne to keep moving no matter what and if the people from Alexandria keep up, leave them behind because the whole of this mission is more important than any one part — especially those who are unable or unwilling to help themselves. Heath overhears the command and it doesn’t sit too well with him because he knows that if anyone gets sacrificed, it’s going to be him and his friends.
As Rick jets towards the RV over a mile away, Glenn and Michonne’s group start running through the woods to get a big lead on the zombies headed in the same direction. Remember humans run, zombies walk.
Along the way one Alexandrian trips and sprains her ankle just before a pack of zombies appear in the woods looking for dinner. Glenn and Michonne are able to dispatch most of them, but in the fray another guy named Sturgis panics and starts firing his gun — with seemingly the only shot he lands actually hitting another guy from Alexandria. Sturgis freaks out and runs away and just leaves everybody behind.
Glenn and Michonne get the upper hand and finish all the walkers off, but not before one more straggler shows up and takes a bite out of a guy named David, who was already worried that he’d get sacrificed after Rick made his speech. Now he’s definitely going to turn, but not before he at least tries to make it back to town to say goodbye to his wife.
The Town that Dreaded Walkers
Glenn and the others make it far enough away from the herd that they are able to stop briefly to look for a car to try and drive back to Alexandria instead of run. With one girl limping and another guy shot in the leg, running isn’t exactly an option now either.
Along the way, they make it to another part of town where they find Sturgis’ hat and a few feet away they find him getting gnawed on by a group of zombies. It seems running away and leaving your friends to die doesn’t come with many benefits.
This area also happens to be the scene of the crime where Nicholas and Aiden used to do supply runs and often times leave others behind when things got too hairy. Nicholas even spots a 19-year old kid he abandoned during one of his many trips outside the walls of Alexandria. Instead of handing off the duty to someone else, Nicholas takes it upon himself to kill the kid and it appears to be some kind of cathartic karma but really there’s a lot more going on in his head — such as he’s finally realizing the gravity of all the awful things he did while leading supply runs and letting so many others die so he could live.
With no cars running, the group holds up in a pet store to wrap up David’s wounded leg while they come up with a new plan.
Glenn decides that the best way to slow down the herd is to distract them with another shiny object — namely burning one of the store fronts where they are currently hiding out and hopefully the crackle of the fire and the bright lights will keep the zombies distracted enough to stop moving towards Alexandria and so they can escape. Michonne tries to volunteer for the job, but Glenn says that it’s his idea so he’ll be the one to find the store and set the fire.
Nicholas offers to go with him since he knows this area so well and he even suggests an animal feed supply warehouse that will go up in flames much quicker than any other building around.
Meanwhile, the two wounded Alexandrians are actually asking to be left behind because they know their injuries will just slow the group down. Michonne is actually the one to tell them no way, but Heath still has his reservations thanks to Rick explaining that they need to keep moving and if someone can’t keep up, then they are collateral damage.
Michonne finally breaks it down to Heath, who thinks he’s been in the shit because he did some supply runs outside Alexandria. She tells him that while he’s faced a few zombies and been out of the comfy confines of a community with walls, Heath has never gone up against a herd of walkers or a maniacal sociopath like The Governor or seen his friends eaten alive after what happened in Terminus.
“Have you ever had to kill people because they already killed your friends and are coming for you next? Have you ever done things that made you afraid of yourself afterward? Have you ever been covered in so much blood that you didn’t know if it was yours, walkers or your friends?
It’s a harsh wake up call but one Heath needed to hear.
The bad news is that’s not the only thing they hear at that point — the lead they thought they gained on the walkers was much less than expected and the herd is beginning to funnel into this area of town so now Glenn, Michonne and the others are trapped with little chance to escape on foot.
Run for It
Everyone inside the pet store knows that they need to get out of there before the herd pushes through and makes it to Alexandria. Before they leave, David pens a note to his wife saying goodbye, but Michonne promises that she’s going to make sure he gets there before the zombies get all of them or before he turns.
Finally, the group pushes out the doors and makes a run for it with Glenn and Nicholas headed in one direction while Michonne, Heath and the others make a mad dash towards Alexandria.
The whole thing goes awry when the injured Alexandrian woman trips and falls (again) and at that point she’s a lost cause. The zombies fall down and eat her alive as Michonne and the others continue to push forward until they run into a closed alley with only one way to escape — up and over.
So one by one they jump up a table and over the fence, but the last two people still on the other side are Michonne and David. The zombies get closer and closer and finally Michonne makes it over, but it’s too late for David. He’s attacked and eaten despite Heath’s best efforts to save him by shooting zombie after zombie until he’s out of bullets. David’s note falls to the ground and gets lost forever and Heath is painted in his friend’s blood as the undead rip him apart, spattering pieces across the fence onto everyone on the other side.
Back across town, Glenn and Nicholas find the feed store only to see that it’s already burned to the ground. Before they can find an alternative place to set on fire, the zombies begin to surround them and the chances of getting out alive are very, very slim.
Much like their compatriots, Glenn and Nicholas get trapped in an alley with fences all around but they aren’t nearly as lucky because the zombies have now managed to take over the entire area and the only thing they can do is climb on top of a dumpster and wait to die.
It’s here that Nicholas finally realizes that this is his punishment for all the people he allowed to die while protecting himself for the months he led supply missions outside Alexandria. As the world goes numb around him, Nicholas looks at Glenn and says ‘thank you’ before putting the chamber to the side of his head and pulling the trigger. Glenn is also a recipient of a rather nasty blood splatter before the two of them tumble off the dumpster and to the ground.
It certainly looks like Glenn is dead but my bet is on his survival.
Something tells me he allowed Nicholas to get eaten on top of him before he eventually rolled under the dumpster and waited for the zombies to disperse so he could make an escape. Or maybe I’m just fooling myself because it’s hard to believe Glenn is actually dead.
Start Me Up
Rick is still running (for most of this episode) before he finally runs into a few walkers he’s forced to deal with on the road. In the process of killing them, Rick’s knife breaks and he has to grab onto another blade left embedded in one of the walker’s shoulders so he can continue the fight. Rick slices open his own hand in the process but ultimately gets away.
He finally makes it back to the RV and starts it up, but a second later he’s attacked by a roaming wanderer with a gun — the same roaming, psychopathic wandering wolf who grabbed a gun on his way out of Alexandria when Morgan refused to kill him.
Rick is able to gain the upper hand on him and the other friend there with him before shooting them both dead. He then spots a few more people coming around the side of the RV and he fires through the vehicle with an AK-47 to kill all of them in one hail of gunfire. The whole day whenever Rick runs into anyone that’s dead or who has already been killed, he’s rifled through their pockets to add to his supplies. He’s found a few weapons and other trinkets, but this time as he looks through the pockets of the Wolves, he sees a jar of baby food and he knows immediately that it came from Alexandria.
Remember when Aaron found Rick and his survivors, he offered them apple sauce and then gave him a jar of baby food for Judith as proof that the people in Alexandria were survivors and could be trusted. Rick now knows for certain these raving lunatics just came from there and he has to get back as quickly as possible to save them.
And of course the RV will no longer start.
Rick sits in pain and tears as he tries to turn the RV over so he can drive back to town and then things get even worse because the zombie herd has caught up to him as well. The undead start emerging from behind the trees and Rick is trapped inside with nowhere to go and no way to get there.
Finally at the end, Michonne and her group make it back to the outskirts of Alexandria minus half the people they started with including Glenn and Nicholas as they walk back into town to see the truck that crashed into the tower and the fences that have been decimated after the attack from the Wolves.
With a herd of zombies barreling through the woods, there’s not much time to repair this damage and Alexandria is about to get a harsh dose of what it’s really like out there very, very soon.
Next week when The Walking Dead returns it doesn’t appear we’ll get any answers about Glenn or Alexandria’s survival as the show focuses on what happened to Morgan after running into Rick that led him to being the stick-wielding life loving enthusiast we all know now. Get a sneak peek below.
