Glenn Rhee's Death On The Walking Dead, Explained

"The Walking Dead" may be over, but it's not really over. After 11 seasons, AMC's adaptation of Robert Kirkman's beloved comic book series of the same name reached its conclusion in 2022. The franchise lives on through its various spin-off shows, including "Dead City" and "The Ones Who Live."

Through nearly 200 episodes, fans experienced the zombie apocalypse more thoroughly than any one movie could ever provide. There were high highs and there were low lows. There were also quite a few deaths along the way. We are dealing with zombies, after all. But no death in the history of "The Walking Dead" was as upsetting as Glenn Rhee's. Played by Steven Yeun, the fan-favorite character met a grizzly demise at an unexpected point in the show's run. Years later, it remains a point of contention so far as the show's legacy is concerned.

So, what happened to Glenn, exactly? Why is it that such a beloved character had to die in such an ugly manner? Was Yeun okay with the way his character was killed off? We're going to thoroughly explore Glenn's death, the good, the bad, and the ugly of it all.

Glenn's death was arguably the most built-up moment in the history of the series. It all revolved around the introduction of Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan, the most notorious villain in the comics. The leader of The Saviors, Negan appeared at the very end of "The Walking Dead" season 6 finale to pick his victim, leading to a major cliffhanger. Audiences saw that Negan was going to kill a member of Rick's group with his barbed wire-covered bat Lucille, playing a cruel game of "eenie, meanie, minie, mo" to decide. Crucially, we didn't see who it was and viewers would have to wait months until season 7 premiered to find out what happened.

The season 7 premiere, titled "The Day Will Come When You Won't Be," aired on October 23, 2016, and revealed who Negan beat to death. Out of a lineup that included Rick Grimes, Michonne Hawthorne, Carl Grimes, Glenn Rhee, Maggie Greene-Rhee, Abraham Ford, Sasha Williams, Rosita Espinosa, Eugene Porter, and Daryl Dixon, Negan first beats Abraham to death in brutal fashion. Unfortunately, that's not where it ended. Daryl has a rage fit at this horrific act, which results in Negan killing someone else as well. That's when Glenn met his fate at the wrong end of Lucille.

Rather suddenly, Negan cracks Glenn upside the head with his deadly bat. Fans probably assumed the worst was over, only to have a surprise gut punch thrown their way. Glenn, bloody and dying, looks at Maggie, who is pregnant with his child, and says he'll find her before Negan finishes the job. Audiences aren't spared a single gory detail, as everything is shown. Nothing is left up to the imagination. Even by cable TV standards, the deaths are shocking.

To demonstrate just how impactful the death was, Morgan said in 2023 that this scene from "The Walking Dead" changed his life before adding, "I walk down those streets, and the people that are there remind me daily that Glenn was their favorite character."

Glenn's death naturally hit fans hard. That was the idea. There were lots of brutal deaths on the show, but this wasn't brought on by zombies (at least not directly anyhow). It was human-on-human violence, depicted with some of the most hardcore gore that one is likely to find on mainstream television. For many fans and critics, this episode was the point where "The Walking Dead" went wrong.

Critics, at the time, were mixed on the episode writing for Vox about "The Day Will Come When You Won't Be," Emily St. James called the episode "terminally stupid television." It wasn't just the violence that was at issue. Many believed the episode was slow to pay off that frustrating cliffhanger, and the resolution, when it came, was a bridge too far for certain viewers. The Hollywood Reporter's Daniel Fienberg called it "nonstop torture porn."

The response did not go unnoticed. Speaking with Deadline in January 2017, series executive producer Gale Ann Hurd acknowledged that they took "feedback on level of violence" and that "we did tone it down for episodes we were still filming." Despite that, "The Walking Dead" hit a four-year ratings low in the weeks that followed, with ratings continuing to slip as the show progressed, with small peaks in between.

Glenn's death was a very clear line in the sand for what was, at one point, the most popular show on cable TV. There was before this death and after this death. What came after never reached the highs of what came before, certainly in terms of viewership and, in the eyes of many viewers, creatively as well, as what are largely considered the worst seasons of "The Walking Dead" followed. This was a point of no return. 

As for how Steven Yeun feels about Gleen's death on "The Walking Dead?" The actor seemed to not only be at peace with it, but he fully embraced what was coming well ahead of the episode's airing. In a 2016 interview with Entertainment Weekly following his character's on-screen death, Yeun explained that he actually wanted to bring this moment to life, even if it meant leaving the show behind.

"It's such an iconic moment and I think I even said, 'Don't give that to anybody else.' It's such a gnarly thing to say but sincerely, living that out was very wild but at the same time, that moment happening and being realized on television in a different medium and to do it in the way that we did it I think is brave and at the same time super affecting. And for me, that was the motivation to be like, 'Yeah, that sounds great.'"

Series executive producer Greg Nicotero also reflected on the watershed moment. "When we got to that part in the series, It was the introduction to Negan — and it was really, it was really rough," Nicotero, who also directed the episode, told the New York Post in October 2024. "It's always difficult to kill a character on a show like that because the audience invests in them," Nicotero added. The visual effects maestro concludes his thoughts on the death, labeling it as rough.

"Glenn, that was really a rough one. And, you know, right on the heels of Abraham. And the senselessness of it, I think, was just what was so shocking."

Robert Kirkman's "The Walking Dead" comics came to an abrupt end in 2019 with issue #193, ensuring that the producers of the show would never have to divert from the source material unless they wanted to. There would be no "Game of Thrones" situation here, where the show gets ahead of the books. That said, the show did often divert from the comics, and Glenn's death, in some ways, was a diversion.

The moment that inspired the season 7 premiere came from "The Walking Dead" #100 which does see Glenn beat to death by Negan, similar to how it happens in the show. However, it's only Glenn who dies in the comic. The fact that Negan first kills Abraham, only to then kill Glenn was well served as a bit of a diversion and, arguably, overkill. To stay faithful to the source material, Negan didn't have to kill both of them, but he did.

Abraham's death is another question entirely, but in many ways, Glenn almost had to die for the show to move forward in order to remain faithful to the source material. Kirkman, speaking with Entertainment Weekly in October 2016, explained why.

"It's just that there's a lot of material that comes from Glenn's death in the comics. And while we do try to change things up to keep things interesting for the audience, and for me, this is one that there's so much that comes from Rick, there's so much with Negan, because that character is someone that he killed, and definitely Maggie is someone that kind of gets put on the trajectory that affects a great number of stories and a great number of characters moving forward. So it was kind of essential that that part of the scene at least remained intact, unfortunately."

Lauren Cohan's Maggie was a core member of the show until the very end. Maggie survived and even went on to star in a spin-off, "The Walking Dead: Dead City," which paired her with Negan in a very unlikely team-up. For what it's worth, "Dead City" did address the Glenn situation. Whether or not that satisfied viewers is a matter of individual taste.

"The Walking Dead" was very much the show that made Yeun a star. After leaving a hit show like that, one's career can be a bit uncertain. Be that as it may, Yeun was particular about the projects he chose after his departure. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly in September 2021, the actor said that he turned down leading roles simply because they felt too close to Gleen.

"The things that came for me after 'Walking Dead' were actually great projects that were asking me to be the lead, they were asking me to lead a television show, but for some reason, when I would read the synopsis, it still felt adjacent to Glenn, the character that I played, and I don't like staying in one place for too long."

Fortunately, Yeun didn't have any trouble landing on his feet. In the years that followed, he starred in a wide array of projects on both the big and small screen. Everything from the horror movie "Mayhem" to Bong Joon-ho's "Okja" on Netflix. He's also done quite a bit of voice work in shows such as "Voltron: Legendary Defender" and "Final Space." One of his biggest post-Glenn roles is on the Amazon animated superhero series "Invincible," which reunited him with "Walking Dead" creator Robert Kirkman.

Yeun has also found himself at the center of several critically acclaimed projects in recent years. He starred in the inspired-by-a-true-story critical darling "Miniari," which earned Yeun a Best Actor Oscar nomination. The actor also starred in Boots Riley's "Sorry to Bother You" and Jordan Peele's "NOPE," among other films. He's also due to reunite with Joon-ho in "Mickey 17," with his romance movie "Love Me," which co-stars Kristen Stewart, also on deck for 2025.