This entire post is a spoiler for the episode of The Walking Dead which aired last night
It’s been well established that The Walking Dead has a bad habit of killing off characters of color, particularly men. This has been happening for years, although producers have redeemed themselves somewhat by allowing more equal character development. Last month, fan favorite Tyreese was bitten by a walker and succumbed.
In this latest episode, we got to know more of relative newcomer Noah, who expressed an interest in learning about architecture and building. So, in true Walking Dead fashion, Noah got eaten. This pisses me off so much. There are no other prominent black men on the show apart from that horrible excuse for a preacher, Gabriel. On the bright side, maybe this means that Morgan is closer to finding the group. US Magazine has more on how Noah’s death went down during a run to find a part to repair the power grid. Things went south after Noah and Glenn tried to save Aiden, that douche from the compound. Nicholas double crossed everyone and got Noah killed.
Although Glenn, Noah, Nicholas, and Tara wrote off Aiden as a goner when he was struck with shrapnel while fighting off a walker during the group’s supply run, the d-bag son of Deanna was actually alive. But when Nicholas refused to help rescue his friend, Aiden succumbed to the walkers headed his way.
The second, far more affecting death of the episode was also the fault of Nicholas. Eugene manned up and carried an injured Tara back to the van the group took to the warehouse while Glenn, Noah, and Nicholas tried to save Aiden.
After that rescue attempt turned out to be fruitless, they made a break for it and became trapped in a revolving glass door. Again, Nicholas wasn’t a team player and instead of helping Glenn rescue them all, he made a break for it, opening the door enough for a walker to reach in and pull Noah out — then proceed to tear him apart (literally).
This episode revealed a couple of times that the a*holes in Alexandria regularly sacrifice people in order to escape dangerous situations. Tobin, the construction crew head, stated that their “system” for escaping walkers involves leaving people behind. He stepped down from his position as head of construction after Abraham saved a female worker by single handedly killing dozens of walkers. This was particularly ironic in light of Gabriel’s speech to the head of Alexandria, Deanna, claiming that Rick and his group would sacrifice the others to save themselves.
Why couldn’t they have killed off Gabriel if there can be only one black guy at a time? (Also Eugene needs to go despite his sort-of heroics this episode. I kept thinking he was already dead until he resurfaced.) I’m glad that Aiden is dead, but I really liked Noah and wanted him to stick around.
US also points us to The Hollywood Reporter’s interview with the actor who plays Noah, Tyler James Williams. Williams has a new gig on the CSI spinoff with Gary Sinese. He was nothing but gracious about his exit and said that it will set up some incredible acting for his former co-stars. He said “In a way, these are my brothers and sisters of acting. So for me, Noah’s death was beautiful because I know what it’s going to do for Steven [Yeun] (Glenn). I know he’s going to crush what ever is coming next. I knew I’d get another gig but this is going to set up some awesome acting for these people. I’d love to have worked on it for the rest of my life but I love these people and what they do. It’s going to set up some great stuff for them.” Glenn of course witnessed Noah getting eaten alive. It was horrible. Naoh’s death was one of the most brutal and graphic I’ve seen on Walking Dead and that’s really saying something. There are two episodes of Walking Dead left this season.
photo credit: AMC
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