The Walking Dead Gives Its Biggest Clue Yet That Glenn Is Coming Back To TV

Glenn’s death is the watershed moment that made a lot of fans give up on The Walking Dead. There were plenty of scenes that went too far — from Rick shooting the zombified Sophia to Carol shooting the unzombified Lizzie — but Glenn’s horrific demise in The Walking Dead season 7 premiere really took the cake. It was ripped straight from the original comic book, but it was nowhere near as shocking in the source material, because it was only depicted as a crude black-and-white drawing. Realized in live-action, the image of Glenn’s eyeball hanging out of his skull is something I haven’t been able to unsee for the past decade.

They say that in comic books, no one is ever really dead. It wasn’t long after “The Death of Superman” hit shelves that Supes was resurrected and went on as normal. But when a character dies in The Walking Dead, they tend to stay dead. We’ve had a few fake-out deaths — including one for Glenn himself, a few episodes before he was actually killed — but once someone has been eviscerated by walkers (or, indeed, beaten to a pulp by a barb-wire-wrapped baseball bat), there’s no coming back.

Having said that, it’s never been out of the question for Glenn to return at some point. There’s no way to undo his death, short of a Dallas-style it-was-all-a-dream retcon, but he can always appear in flashbacks and fantasy sequences. Well, it looks like that time has finally come.

The Walking Dead: Dead City is ramping up the marketing campaign for its third season. Dead City season 3 is looking to finally move past Maggie and Negan’s feud and make them reluctant partners (something we’ve been promised since before the series even premiered), and according to showrunner Seth Hoffman, we might be seeing the long-awaited comeback of a familiar face — a face that got bashed into oblivion 10 years ago.

What Glenn’s Return Would Mean For The Walking Dead

While Hoffman said that he’s “not at liberty to confirm or deny” the appearance of certain characters, he did promise that fans would see some cast members that they “haven’t seen for a long time.” Naturally, this has sparked some speculation that they’re setting up the long-awaited return of the late, great Glenn Rhee. Hoffman hinted that this season will feature an episode set in an “alternate reality” where the zombie apocalypse never happened. He said that this would provide a convenient opportunity to “invite back some characters that haven’t been part of the franchise in a long time.”

He may not be at liberty to confirm or deny who he’s talking about, but it has to be Glenn. All the other O.G. characters, from Rick to Daryl and Carol, have enjoyed their own spinoffs in the past couple of years, so it hasn’t been that long since we last saw them. The only one we haven’t seen for “a long time” that fans would be clamoring to see again is Glenn. I can’t imagine he’s talking about bending reality and rewriting history as an excuse to bring back Andrea.

Given that Maggie and her son are central to The Walking Dead: Dead City — and that Glenn’s death is the source of all the tension and conflict between Maggie and Negan — Glenn is the most likely candidate to appear in this standalone what-if episode. I guess we’ll find out when Dead City premieres its third season on July 26. Glenn’s return would be huge for The Walking Dead. If they actually got Steven Yeun to reprise his role in scenes with Lauren Cohan and whoever they’ve got playing Hershel now, then it would be a truly momentous occasion, and might actually get Walking Dead viewers who gave up years ago to tune in again.