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The Walking Dead, Negan, Glenn, Glenn Rhee, ABraham, Season 7 premiere, Steven Yeun

The Walking Dead Season Premiere Gave Me PTSD

by Deborah Cruz

I am a BIG fan of the Walking Dead. I’ve watched it since that debut all those years ago when I was a new mom with toddlers. I remember coming home from trick-or-treating that first Halloween, getting my little girls to bed and settling into what would quickly become my mom addiction, The Walking Dead but last night, oh last night, you went too far Nicotero!

 

Look, I love a good gore fest as much as anyone else. Horror has been my favorite genre since about the age of 7. There is just something about having the shit scared out of you that takes your mind off of your own shitty existence and makes you feel alive.

 

Anyways, I’ve invested 7 seasons of my life into the Walking Dead. Rick Grimes is my leader even when he’s a little bat shit crazy. Daryl is the white trash hero I never thought I’d love. Michone is the bad ass that I want to be. Glenn and Maggie were the beautiful love story in the midst of the apocalypse. They were the last bits of humanity. They were the only thing left that had any semblance of what the world should look like.

 

Glenn, Steven Yeun, was the underdog. He was just like all of us. Sweet, a little naïve but willing to sacrifice his life for what was good. He did it time and time again, beginning with that first moment he was on the show and he saved Rick from the zombies. He didn’t have to but he did. He was just a good person and not just sometimes, all the time. He loved his Maggie, respected his elders and was willing to fight and care for the people he loved. He was willing to die every day for them.

 

Abraham, Michael Cudlitz, was the hooker with the heart of gold. He was definitely rough around the edges but he was funny and he always made us laugh. In the zombie apocalypse, he made us laugh with his funny sayings and turn of a phrase. He was the comic relief in a high stress, always shitty situation. He too dared to love big and plan a future in the face of death and that takes balls.

 

Last night as I held my breath and waited for the season premiere to reveal who Neegan was going to kill, it felt personal. First, the producers drug the anticipation out for too long. You know what I mean. When you’re already sensitive and they torture you with making you wait. It was terrible. Then as Neegan did his Ennie, Meenie, Miney and mo around our kneeling group, I could feel myself getting sick. Then he landed on Abraham and Abraham took it like a boss.

 

Seriously, Neegan swung Lucille and dared the group not to say a word and if they did he assured them it would be to their detriment. Sasha and Rosita wept and whimpered through merciful shock and everyone’s stomach turned as they watched in complete horror. Abraham’s last words were appropriate, “Suck my nuts!”  We all felt helpless and sick. Then the unthinkable happened, Daryl lunged forward propelled by sheer emotion and punched Neegan and in return Neegan’s Lucille found its way to the top of a completely unsuspecting and unaware Glenn, as his best friends and mother of his child sobbed in horror unable to do anything.

 

By this point, I was honestly about to vomit. It felt as if I were there on the ground in the woods watching my husband being bashed over the head with a barbed wire covered ball bat. It was personal. I literally gasped in shock and sobbed as I watched Glen’s horrible demise unfold.

 

Then he got back up on his heels, with his head bashed in and his eyes popping out and he rambled like a confused child with a high fever (because he never even saw it coming) and his final words were, “Maggie, I’ll find you.” And then I died and so did he.

 

I sobbed for this character on a show, for the people he loved and for the loss of humanity.  The show will never be the same again. The moral compass has been broken and lost forever. Every single person watching it happen broke in that moment.

 

I watched the rest of the show with a heavy heart and a lot of empathy because I know what it feels like to love someone so much that you don’t remember life before they were a part of it and it’s hard to imagine living without them. It’s unthinkable. It’s terrifying and I think Maggie, Lauren Cohan, played it perfectly.

 

Dear writers, producers, and directors of the Walking Dead,

I say this as one of your biggest fans and a longtime follower please don’t ever do something this gruesome ever again. It was too much for our hearts to handle. I went to bed last night feeling broken and empty and I woke up feeling the same. I keep having flashbacks and it’s horrible. The feeling of grief is real even if the loss was just of a character on a show. Glenn was more than that to his fans and to add insult to injury, you even took the only guy who could make us laugh in the zombie apocalypse, Abraham. I’m pretty sure that I have PTSD now. P.S.The sight of Negan and Lucille makes my stomach turn.

Love,

All the Fans of The Walking Dead Ever

 

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3 comments

Best Horror Movies to Introduce your Teen to Scary Movies 2018/10/11 - 2:11 pm

[…] READ ALSO: The Walking Dead Season Premiere Gave me PTSD […]

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Nikki 2020/02/04 - 2:52 pm

This may be old but I still feel this way. Rewatching it all now and I am still going to skip that awful scene. I still remember first seeing it. It stayed true to the comics but they should have adapted it for screen.

Reply
Chloe 2020/03/25 - 4:25 pm

Recently showed my Dad some of the badass scenes we’ve had in Season 10 and he asked for some context, but whilst showing him a recap video on youtube, this scene obviously was a part of it. My Dad only saw a snippet of that scene and he is still having the awful image of Glen pop into his head, he actually couldn’t stop thinking about it before trying to sleep that night. It was so long ago I had finally blocked it out but I was right there with you when it happened. I wanted to find like minded people to try help him get rid of the image in his head so I came to google and ended up here! I think the producers fell victim to the ‘shock value’ trend that would gain them the biggest online buzz that was plaguing TV shows at the time. The scenes that give me pure chills of awesomeness, the ones that make me literally air punch and cheer leave much more of an impact on my life. I know it’s the apocalypse and everything… but this felt too messed up.
Anyway, Hope you are doing well in our very own Pandemic of 2020 !

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