The Walking Dead star confirms show exit
Warning: This article contains MAJOR spoilers for The Walking Dead's season eight midseason finale 'How It's Gotta Be'.
If you're reading this article, you may know that Sunday night's (December 10) midseason finale of The Walking Dead ended with a heartbreaking reveal.
If you want to know about the specifics of said heartbreaking reveal and don't mind massive spoilers, then head below the picture.
Yes, last night's midseason finale revealed that Carl Grimes (Chandler Riggs) is dying.
While there were few major reveals elsewhere during the episode, it did end with Carl lifting up his t-shirt to reveal a fatal bite mark on his stomach to his horrified dad Rick (Andrew Lincoln).
Oh no #TWD pic.twitter.com/wc9lv1bGvL
- The Walking Dead AMC (@WalkingDead_AMC) December 11, 2017
Oh. So that's why he was stumbling around so much while evading capture in Alexandria, because we were wondering about that.
Carl actually suffered the bite while he was helping Siddiq free the souls of some dead walkers earlier in season eight of The Walking Dead, so he totally knew he was dying during this entire episode.
And, while he's not dead yet, Riggs has since confirmed Carl definitely will die – and his final moments will be screened in episode 809 when the show returns in the new year.
The actor also revealed he never expected Carl to get killed off and leaving was not his decision. SOB.
"Leaving Walking Dead wasn't my decision," Riggs told The Hollywood Reporter. "It was all story related. It made sense story-wise for it to happen for Rick and Michonne and all the other characters."
"I didn't expect for Carl to ever get killed off but it serves a good purpose in the story."
Riggs added: "There's still a little more left in Carl's story, and that impacts Rick, Michonne and everyone. Although Carl's story is coming to an end it's not over yet."
"Episode 809 is really Carl trying to teach Rick as much as he can about what he's learned and trying to convince Rick to not kill every single Savior because there's still good people out there.
"The Alexandrians, the Hilltop and the Kingdom - all those people probably see him as a villain like the Saviors. There's some humanitarian aspects that Carl is going to try and teach Rick in his final moments. "
News of Carl's imminent death came after The Saviors turned the tables on Alexandria, Hilltop and the Kingdom.
It also came after the Heapsters completely abandoned Rick once more and the brief return of Oceanside, when Enid probably killed Sydney's grandma Natania, after the latter held Aaron at gunpoint in a bizarre subplot.
During the midseason finale, we also got to see Rick and Negan physically fighting over (among other things) Carl's future, an argument which ultimately turned out to be in vain.
Oh well. At least we got to see Rick get his hands around Negan's baseball bat, Lucille – if only for a few moments.
The Walking Dead returns to AMC in the US, plus FOX and NOW TV in the UK, during early 2018.
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