Entertainment

We Need to Honor 'Walking Dead's Fallen

If you haven't yet had the chance to tune into last night's heartwrenching mid-season finale of The Walking Dead , consider yourself lucky (and you should probably stop reading this post because spoilers lie ahead). Not because it wasn't a great episode, though — it really was, one of the show's best — but instead because watching it, particularly the ending, will likely make you feel as if showrunner Scott Gimple has ripped your beating heart out with his bare hands, squeezed the life out of it, then tossed it in a blender on the purée setting, then poured it down the drain and turned on the garbage disposal. Or something similar. In other words: TWD pulled out all the stops this week, and now we have until Feb. 9 to nurse our wounds before the series returns for the second-half of Season 4.

Needless to say, there was a lot of death and chaos in last night's episode. This in itself isn't much different from what we're used to seeing on the show, until — SPOILER ALERT — you consider who actually perished. Not all of the deaths were bad: Though the episode left it pretty open ended, TWD's aftershow, The Talking Dead, confirmed that The Governor did in fact die at the end of the episode. I know there was a lot of talk of redemption for his character — even I rooted for him a little after an episode reminded us that there's still humanity in him — but all that went out the window after what he did this week just before he was ultimately killed: In one of the episode's most shocking moments, he beheaded none other than resident doctor and one-legged badass, Hershel Greene. In front of everyone.

RIGHT IN THE FEELINGS.

In an effort to help us all make sense of this — and remember that Hershel's character, after so long on the show, deserved a MUCH BETTER ending than being beheaded by The Governor in a mid-season finale — here's a rundown of his best moments on the show. Ugh, why do we still love this series when it hurts us so?

  • When Carl was hit by a bullet during a hunting accident in Season 2, Hershel was able to save his life despite immense pressure, a lack of supplies/antibiotics, and only a degree from veterinary school — in other words, he was a badass, and definitely the type of guy you'd want to be stuck in a zombie apocalypse with.
  • He's a tough son of a bitch.
  • Even as the world went to shit, and people started to kill each other in search of shelter, food, supplies, and weapons, Hershel didn't lose his sense of humanity, and his compassion. He came off as a tough guy when Rick and the group began to camp out in the fields of their farm, and he may have been hesitant to let them stay, but he eventually did — whereas others would have either killed the group, or made them leave, for fear they'd become a threat.
  • He was a good dad.
  • And he knew just as well as Maggie did that Glenn was a good guy.
  • He could shoot a gun like a pro, and kill zombies like a real-life video game protagonist.
  • And — above all — he never lost his sense of humor, even though the entire world was pretty much destroyed, and humanity had barely any chance of surviving the walkers without pretty much being sent back into the dark ages.
  • It's the little things.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a river of my own tears to drown in. R.I.P., Hershel. You will be missed.