The Real Reason Jon Bernthal’s Shane Walsh Died In The Walking Dead Season 2 – SlashFilm

Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) could also be the principle character of “The Walking Dead” general, however you possibly can actually make the case that Shane Walsh (Jon Bernthal) was an important character of season 2. He was Rick’s conflicted frenemy, a man who cared for Rick however did kind of sleep together with his spouse on a number of events. He additionally served because the satan on Rick’s shoulder, continually arguing in opposition to Dale (Jeffrey DeMunn), the angel on Rick’s shoulder. He wasn’t evil precisely, however he positive did not see the worth in enjoying by society’s outdated guidelines on this new violent world they’d all discovered themselves in. 

However though Shane was the standout character of season 2, the present nonetheless killed him off within the season’s penultimate episode, “Higher Angels.” After rising pressure between them, Shane tries to kill Rick, just for Rick to show the tables and stab him to dying as a substitute. Shane does return for a bit as a walker, however is fortunately shot within the head by trusty Carl (Chandler Riggs). That is the tip of Shane for the subsequent 9 seasons, though he’s identify-checked each every so often, and even exhibits up in a hallucination or two. 

In season 7, Rick offers an emotional monologue about how he is aware of Shane is the true father of Judith Grimes, however that he loves Judith anyway. Fortunately for everybody, Judith grows as much as be extra like Rick than she does Shane. 

In a 2012 interview discussing Shane’s dying, co-creator Robert Kirkman defined: 

“We knew that [Shane] was going to die earlier than we solid Jon Bernthal. If the primary season had been 13 episodes as a substitute of six, Shane’s story would have been advised all in that first season; it could have been very like the comedian ebook the place Shane dies on the finish of the primary quantity. However as a result of we had that in need of a season, we ended up increasing it to actually have the ability to inform that story to its fullest. We knew from Day 1 after we sat down within the writers’ room to drag out the second season that this was going to be the season that Shane died. It was all the time about working towards that and increase that character and organising this confrontation between Rick and Shane.”

When requested in regards to the present’s particular methodology of killing Shane off — by having Rick stab him up shut and private — Kirkman defined that the aim was to make his dying “definitive.” There might be no ambiguity, no opening for followers to theorize a couple of shock Shane return down the road. There additionally could not be any room for Rick to play off the homicide as an accident. It wanted to be clear selection made by the principle character, one thing that will push him ahead into the darker Rick we meet in season 3. 

The different plan with Shane’s dying was to make use of him to disclose a serious factor about how the zombie virus works on this universe: Everybody’s contaminated right here. By having Shane die with out being bitten, solely to return from the lifeless shortly after, this helped affirm the key the C.D.C. physician advised Rick within the season 1 finale, that every one lifeless individuals on this world come again as a walker. Getting bitten actually hastens the method, however Shane’s dying made clear that every one of them will must be shot within the head once they die, bitten or not. 

For followers accustomed to the comics, essentially the most shocking a part of Shane’s dying was that it took so long as it did. In the comics, Shane will get shot by Carl on the finish of the very first quantity. His function there may be to foreshadow the ethical downslide Rick would undergo, however the comedian model of Shane wasn’t a very fleshed-out character in his personal proper. He was rapidly forgotten. 

On the TV present, holding Shane round served just a few clear functions. The first is that the awkward place Rick finds himself in — by waking up from a coma and discovering out that his finest good friend and spouse connected underneath the belief he’d died — makes for some very messy, compelling leisure. The writers had been going to take advantage of that dynamic for all it was price. 

The different (higher) function was that Shane helped externalize Rick’s struggles. As an alternative of 1 man coping with the fixed string of ethical quandaries on his personal, the present had Shane representing Rick’s want for a colder, pragmatic method to surviving the apocalypse. In the meantime, the present introduced in Dale a bit sooner than the comics to characterize Rick’s want to be a superb particular person, to stay to his beliefs irrespective of how impractical it might be. When Dale dies in “Decide, Jury, Executioner,” the massive thematic concern this poses is that now Shane’s acquired a gap to take totally bend Rick to his viewpoint. 

Rick kills Shane within the subsequent episode, however after all the ideological battle between Dale and Shane would rage on in Rick’s head lengthy afterward. It turned a personality battle that was extra delicate and internalized than it was within the first two seasons, however arguably much more compelling. As Robert Kirkman defined in one other interview after Shane’s dying:

“On the finish of the day, what we stored coming again to is that ‘The Walking Dead’ is rather more about Rick and his journey than it’s about Shane and his journey. And holding Shane round was, in a way, stealing from Rick. It was time to let Rick emerge and see how Shane’s dying affected him and the way it knowledgeable his selections. …  It actually sucked to lose Jon Bernthal, however it’ll make the present that a lot better and that rather more lethal.”