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‘The Walking Dead’ Recap: Steven Yeun’s Glenn Is Alive, But Has ‘TWD’ Jumped The Shark? #GlennIsAlive

By Patrick Frye
Published on: 13:53 PST, Nov 22, 2015

If you have discussed The Walking Dead Season 6 on Twitter lately, it is probably way, way too late for a spoilers alert. Glenn is alive and everyone is letting their buddies know it through the new trending hashtag #GlennIsAlive and #GlennLives. Steven Yeun’s name also came back onto the credits, which just proves that the show runners were messing with everyone’s heads by removing his name in the first place.

While The Walking Dead spoilers have been predicting that Glenn lives for weeks now, the way in which Glenn survived has some fans questioning where The Walking Dead jumped the shark. After all, it does seem incredible that Glenn survived being dogpiled by zombies, so some fans are thinking the show writers have given new meaning to the term “dumpster diving.”

In a related report by the Inquisitr, a leaked TWD video shows Negan taking a swing at someone, and fans are speculating like crazy about who it might be. It’s also possible the TV show may diverge from the comics and Ron will put Carl Grimes’ life in danger during the The Walking Dead finale for the mid-season. [UPDATE] In a recent interview, Steven Yeun also discussed the future with Enid.

The last time we saw Glenn, he was stuck in a pit of zombies. Nicholas had just died, and we saw Glenn’s horrified face as zombies began munching down on someone’s guts. We never actually saw Glenn die directly, and Nicholas did land on top of him, so there was a lot of speculation about a potential escape. Still, the last shot was pretty grim.

The Walking Dead Glenn Death
The Walking Dead – Glenn’s Death [Image via AMC]
But as practically everyone predicted, Glenn went dumpster diving in order to survive the walkers. Perhaps Glenn was saved by the fact that the walkers were getting their slime all over him, but somehow he manages to hide for a better part of the day before the zombies miraculously give up and shamble off to find prey that can’t hide in a dumpster.

“The Walking Dead has the best fans in the world and I’m happy to be back,” Steven Yeun said during the mid-episode commercial break. “I’ve been following everything you’ve been saying and it’s meant so much to me to see all of your support and concern for Glenn.”

The question is whether the TV show is jumping the shark in the way they handled Glenn’s “death” scene. The phrase “jumping the shark” refers to an old Happy Days episode where a character named Fonzie literally jumped a shark while wearing water skis. This moment was considered the worst of Happy Days and the end for the show quickly followed.

So, when TWD fans say that The Walking Dead jumped the shark, they mean the show is quickly going downhill and has few redeemable qualities left to keep fans watching.

Of course, not everyone agrees with this assessment.

[Spoilers Warning]

To a certain extent, it could be argued that the The Walking Dead writers just pulled off a little bit of meta-writing. Since the comic and TV show have diverged so greatly, they essentially wrote a story which made light of the original story itself. All the comic book fans know that Glenn is fated to die by the bat of a certain someone, so it is almost genius to seemingly kill off Glenn early and tweak the fans’ fears at the same time.

The problem is that the showrunners went out of their way to create uncertainty with a shell game based upon fan manipulation. When asked about Glenn’s death scene, Norman Reedus recently said, “You can make theories this way or that way, but whatever you see is right.” What everyone thought they saw was Glenn’s guts being yanked out as he screamed. In reality, the show is now a magic show with camera angles providing the smoke and mirrors, and the writers are resorting to red herrings like removing Steven Yeun’s name from the credits.

There’s also the possibility that Glenn is alive only to have his life majorly threatened again during next week’s episode, which is the mid-season finale. Fans who don’t follow the comics probably wouldn’t appreciate having their emotions tossed into the dumpster in such a blatant fashion… never mind if Daryl Dixon dies. That possibility may be enough of a nudge for some to rage quit the show.

What do you think?

[Image via AMC]

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