The Walking Dead has barrelled toward a Season 6 finale that has promised the death of a major character, but fans wondering whether Daryl or Glenn meet an untimely end could have a long time to wait.
The entire season built up to Sunday’s frenzied 90-minute finale, one that finally welcomes the arrival of the villainous Negan.
[Warning: Potential Walking Dead finale spoilers below]
As fans of the comic book series already know, the arrival of Negan means that one of the major characters will be killed. His group captures Rick and the others in the comic book, forcing them to their knees as Negan warns that he will kill one of them.
In the comic, it is Glenn who suffers a fatal beating at the hands of Negan and his barbed-wire covered baseball bat, nicknamed Lucille. Showrunner Scott Gimple has addressed the Walking Dead spoilers that Glenn could be killed , saying fans should definitely be worried that he could be killed for real after a fake-out earlier in the season.
“It’d be disingenuous of me to say, from a viewer’s point of view, that I wouldn’t be afraid,” he told TVLine . “But what am I holding out hope for? That it isn’t going to be like that? And, man, if it isn’t going to be like that, then what is going to happen? I doubt it’s going to involve flowers. The fact that he’s coming is not going to mean great stuff for Rick’s group.”
If the spoilers from the Walking Dead cast members are any indication, the Season 6 finale will be especially jarring. Normal Reedus, who was able to see a rough cut of the finale early in the week, told Entertainment Weekly that it’s the “most hardcore episode we’ve ever shot.”
“I couldn’t speak after I watched it,” said Reedus, whose character Daryl Dixon was shot in the season’s penultimate episode. “And, of course, I knew what was happening, and what was going to happen, and who was involved, but I got to tell you, I couldn’t speak for like an hour. And then I just was bombarded with phone calls on my drive home. But that was a rough, rough, rough cut. I will say that it might be the best episode we’ve ever shot of the show.”
‘ #WalkingDead ‘: 8 Cryptic Teasers About the “Hard-Core” Season 6 Finale https://t.co/uBGSJovjOD pic.twitter.com/yhmoqBcCyt
— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) April 2, 2016
That seems to indicate that one of the major characters will be killed off, but Reedus didn’t actually get into any specifics of why the episode was so “hardcore.”
There have been plenty of rumors that Daryl himself may end up being killed. Reedus has signed up for an upcoming reality series on AMC in which he rides his motorcycle to various locations, which some believe is an out to kill off his character while still keeping fans somewhat satisfied.
Norman Reedus Talks Big Daryl Spoiler in ‘Walking Dead’ Season 6 https://t.co/FycQqRByjv pic.twitter.com/ORUKDoV9CL
— Movieweb (@movieweb) March 29, 2016
But fans will likely not know who is killed for many months, Walking Dead spoilers indicate. Vanity Fair reported last week that the finale will end on a cliffhanger that leaves fans wondering which character ended up being killed at the hands of Negan.
“[A]ccording to the leak, after Negan plays a game of ‘eenie, meenie, miney, moe’ with some of our favorite characters, the camera shifts to the victim’s point of view. In other words, we’ll see Negan swing the bat towards the camera and then, after the episode cuts to black, we will spend seven months arguing over which character—Abraham, Daryl, Maggie, Glenn, etc.—was on the receiving end.”
Other spoilers pointed to a cliffhanger ending for The Walking Dead season finale. Earlier in the week, fan website The Spoiling Dead Fans posted audio reportedly of the final moment of the episode, prompting AMC to take legal action to have it taken down. But according to MassLive , fans who heard the audio confirmed “it is impossible to tell which character has been killed and the identity may not be known until the start of Season 7.”
[Image via Instagram /AMC]