'Walking Dead' Boss and Steven Yeun Explain S6 Glenn Twist

Well, the cat’s officially out of the bag now. After a month or so of intense fan speculation, The Walking Dead finally revealed the truth of Glenn’s fate on Sunday’s penultimate 2015 installment “Heads Up,” to the surprise, delight and derision of many. To wit, showrunner Scott Gimple and Steven Yeun himself dropped by Talking Dead via video feed, hoping to address the fervor surrounding one of Season 6’s most controversial twists.

You’re warned of full spoilers through The Walking Dead Season 6 and last night’s “Heads Up” from here on out, but yes, #GlennLives. As many had (immediately) suspected, the guts we saw in October’s “Thank You” belonged to Nicholas, whose body landed atop Glenn in a crowd of walkers, while Glenn himself managed to shimmy under the dumpster, and stave off any loose-limbed walkers until the undead dispersed.

Understandably relieved to see Glenn alive, many a fan nonetheless expressed their discontent with the month-long twist, leaving Gimple and Yeun to put in a Talking Dead appearance explaining the intent. Said Gimple:

The story we were telling was one of uncertainty. When people leave the walls, in this case Alexandria, they don’t have cell phones. They aren’t rocking ‘80s beepers. You don’t know what happens. You have no idea. When they leave, that could be the last time you ever see them. It was important to do a story this year about uncertainty and that the audience would share that uncertainty that the characters had, like in episode five: Maggie didn’t know what happened to Glenn and I wanted the audience to be exactly where she was and to feel the exact same way.

Meanwhile, Yeun merely expressed his relief that the veil of secrecy ended, adding that good things can occasionally take place in the world of The Walking Dead:

I feel relieved. I feel very grateful. I feel so amazed at the response. I feel bad that I couldn’t say anything to everyone and to the family and friends I’m pretty sure I lost along the way. It’s been overwhelming. I didn’t know how to take it all … I think it proves that this world still can take that story of the good guy winning sometimes. I really like the fact that it’s not this bent of always seeking out something miserable happening on television or something terrible and sulking on that and rather just really accepting the fact that sometimes good guys survive.

It remains to be seen if Maggie and Glenn will have a happy reunion, given the closing moments that saw Alexandria’s bell tower crashing down into the longstanding walls, but do Gimple and Yeun’s words justify the month-long wait fans have had for news of Glenn? How should The Walking Dead Season 6 have handled its big twist, if not by dumpster?

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