The Walking Dead showrunner Scott Gimple loves to “remix” storylines from Robert Kirkman’s comics for the small screen, and it looks like another popular (albeit slightly gruesome) comic book plot point could be coming our way in Season 6. If you don’t want to be spoiled, we suggest you stop reading now!
In the comics, Rick Grimes’ (Andrew Lincoln) son Carl Grimes, portrayed by Chandler Riggs, loses an eye when a massive horde of walkers infiltrates Alexandria. In the chaos, Carl gets shot and has to give up his eye in order to survive.
On-set spoilers from late August showing Chandler wearing an eye patch seem to suggest this storyline will play out on TV, but Scott is (of course) reluctant to confirm any such thing. “We don’t know if anybody’s losing their eye,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “This is not A Christmas Story.
Based on what we know of the photos, Carl loses his eye as he jumps in front of a bullet to save Rick when someone tries to kill him after Jessie dies.
But Scott dished, “There are some things we can’t do that were in the comic.” As an example, Scott brought up the fact that comic book Rick loses his hand, while TV Rick still has both of his.
However, The Governor, played by David Morrissey, has already set the precedent for losing an eye on TWD so we know it can be done.
“There are other things we can and will do,” the showrunner added. “There is a balance to be struck. If it is stuff that’s really important to serve the character, we need to try and do it. It’s also just if we can pull it off on a consistent basis in a great way. There’s stuff we can do, there’s stuff we can’t do. I would never tell you what it is.”
Ha, what a shock. Looks like we’ll just have to wait and see what happens!