Andrew Lincoln admits that Walking Dead death might have "over-egged the omelet"

You know which one—and so does Lincoln, reflecting on his decade-plus with the franchise

By William Hughes  |  July 3, 2024 | 11:24pm
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Andrew Lincoln admits that Walking Dead death might have
The Walking Dead Screenshot: Netflix

Few TV shows on television had a higher body count for named characters than The Walking Dead, which relentlessly tore through a whole small town’s worth of briefly featured folk across its 11 seasons on the air. (And that’s before we factor in the show’s six-and-counting spin-offs, each with their own heavy additions to the zombie fodder ranks.) Even so, series star Andrew Lincoln does reckon he knows the one spot where the show went a bit too far in its depiction of the death of a beloved character—or, in his words, when “we over-egged the omelet.” (A very evocative turn of phrase, given how hard this particular egg got cracked.)

Lincoln was speaking, of course, of the death of Steven Yeun’s Glenn, which is arguably one of the single most sadistic moments in the entire run of that very sadism-friendly show. In case you forgot, Glenn’s death was executed as part of a weirdly convoluted game of chicken with the audience: Teased in the show’s sixth season finale, then feinted away from, and then delivered with a level of absolute brutality by incoming co-star Jeffrey Dean Morgan. If you wanted (fairly, a lot of people would argue) to boil The Walking Dead down to a very extended exercise in nihilism and masochism, Glenn’s death would be Exhibit A. (You probably wouldn’t say they “over-egged the omelet,” because you aren’t a 1920s fancy man, but the vibe would be the same.)

Lincoln was revisiting the moment in a conversation with Empire, reflecting on his new series The Ones Who Live, a title that definitely does not describe poor, head-smooshed Glenn. “Maybe it was lingering too much,” Lincoln continues, although it’s not entirely clear whether he’s talking about the show as a whole, or just that sequence, which runs for more than two full minutes from the first hit, and which features some loving close-ups of what we have to assume was the Makeup And Props Department (Eyeball Bulging Out Of A Guy’s Skull) Division’s finest all-time work. Anyway, it’s nice to see someone involved in the show finally admit it, even if it’s nearly a decade after the fact.

 
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