From the moment in the very first episode entitled, "Days Gone Bye" when we heard his voice come over that radio when Rick (Andrew Lincoln) was trapped inside a tank teeming with walkers, we loved him. The Walking Dead Universe is filled with dozens of characters that all brought a little something different and unique to the twelve-year horror phenomenon, but Steven Yeun's Glenn Rhee was by far the best. He was there with us from the get go with witty one-liners, youthful exuberance, an awkward naïveté, street smarts, and most of all, compassion and hope. In a world bereft of kindness and empathy, the guy who "delivered pizzas" before the end of humanity brought some levity and occasionally made us forget that turning and death had become an almost inevitable daily occurrence. He was also a trusted confidant, but uncomfortable with dishonesty, and he was pretty handy with a blade when the need arose. His relationship with Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and the child that came from their union was a beacon of light in an otherwise dreary and depressing world that had essentially come to an end. We needed Glenn.
Meeting the "Pizza Delivery Guy"
In the final scene of the pilot episode of Season 1, it looked for all the world that Rick was done. Trapped in a tank crawling with the undead, he had lost his bag of guns and was stymied. Then a voice came over the radio and suddenly, there was hope. Glenn's introduction into the Walking Dead was a fitting preview of what he would come to embody for the rest of his time on the show. In Episode 2 of Season 1, the street smart kid who knows how to make it from point A to point B and has a knack for "getting" things, collects our hero from certain death and ushers him to safety atop the downtown Atlanta deportment store building. When the group needs a plan to get out of the perilous situation there, it's Glenn that again hatches the plan to escape the horde of walkers and get everyone to safety. It becomes abundantly clear within the first few minutes of meeting Glenn, that he's going to be a vital member of the group for a variety of reasons, and he was going to do a lot more than, "deliver pizzas" in this dreadful new world.
Youthful Exuberance and a Red Mustang
The new world is full of the undead and humans that have been reduced to lawless scavengers, Glenn had an earnestness about him. He was still quick with a grin and at the ready with a witty barb, but maybe more than anything, he was a reminder that there were still some reasons to smile and be optimistic in this dreary and depressing new order. That was evident when he finds himself behind the wheel of a flashy, cherry red Ford Mustang as he's drawing the herd of walkers away from the group. By the ebullient look on his face, you would never know that the world was over, and the future would be filled with pain and death. And when he finally gets an opportunity to let that Mustang rip as he speeds out of downtown Atlanta, the organic exuberance of getting to drive a sweet ride, if only for a little while, was a welcome respite from the dire circumstances that he and the group were in.
Glenn and the Farmer's Daughter
In Season 2, when the group finds a safe haven at Herschel's (Scott Wilson) farm, there's Glenn peering through a set of binoculars ogling the woman that would become his soulmate and the mother of his child, Maggie Greene. "Oh, the farmer's daughter." he says to himself softly. You knew at that moment that there was going to be something special between those two characters. And when they are tasked with heading into town to do what Glenn does, which is to "get things," at the local pharmacy, the two begin a relationship that would grow to symbolize hope and optimism where it had become almost impossible to find any. Glenn and Maggie were a much-needed reminder that life was going to go on, and that stealing a moment of happiness or pleasure was something that still made us human. It was the beginning of a relationship that would serve as a beacon of light in the hardscrabble world that discouraged love and lust. The connection they made represented hope. Hope for the present and perhaps more importantly, hope for the future.
Hope Lost — Glenn's Demise
For many fans of the show, when Glenn's death happened, it was one of those, "Do you remember where you were when Glenn died?" type of moments. The utter devastation of hardcore fans and even casual ones was palpable. We were all talking about it around the water cooler the next day at work saying, "Man, I can't believe he's gone." and, "That was the most brutal death I've ever experienced as a fan of a show." It was heartbreaking.
In the premiere episode of Season 7, tabbed, "The Day Will Come When You Won't Be," we witnessed Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) extinguish the last and brightest light of the show. When he put his barbed pet baseball bat, Lucille, to Glenn's head and unceremoniously ended his life, he did so much more than that. He snuffed out hope. He had licked his fingers and pinched out the flickering flame of goodness and compassion from the show. Many still maintain that the show never fully recovered from Glenn's death.
There are strong factions of fans that view The Walking Dead in two mutually exclusive ways, "Before Glenn" and "After Glenn." It certainly can be argued that the tone of the show darkened dramatically after his death, and never fully found another source of hope and light. It's just another testament to how our attachment to Glenn and what his innocence represented made him the best Walking Dead character ever, hands down.
Little Herschel Rhee and a "New Beginning"
In Season 7 of The Walking Dead, Rick has a dream of all the original members of the group having an outdoor dinner together after having been through the wars together with the Governor, the Saviors, and others. In it, Glenn is seen with his little boy, Herschel, bouncing on his knee. Naturally, Glenn is flashing his trademark smile, a proud papa and husband. It's a bittersweet fantastical vision that Rick has, but is no less poignant and representative of what Glenn was to the group. He was the group's smile and the group's good times, but above all, he was the group's future.
Baby Herschel would carry on the Rhee name and if he was lucky, he would have his father's kindness, his empathy, and even his awkward innocence that made him such a wonderful character. If Maggie had anything to say about it, he probably did.
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