By Brent McKnight | 8 years ago

One thing The Walking Dead does well is kill the people you care about. Both AMC’s television series and Robert Kirkman’s comic book have that in common. They make you love a character then violently rip them away. It shares that trait with Game of Thrones.

At the end of season two of The Walking Dead Rick and Lori Grimes (Andrew Lincoln and Sarah Wayne Callies) are in a bit of a rough patch. First zombies showed up and started wrecking up the joint, and then the world ended. That’s enough to throw a monkey wrench into any relationship, but add the fact that Lori though Rick was dead, started sleeping with his best friend, Shane (Jon Bernthal), who fell in love with her and went crazy. Now Shane is dead, Lori is pregnant, and everything still sucks. Season three has some big issues to contend with.

With Shane out of the picture, another problem raises its ugly head for the first couple of undead apocalypse. According to THR Callies says, “Lori’s fear is that in killing Shane, Rick became Shane and that he’s turned into a man who’s not a humane, compassionate person but somebody who is now somewhat cold and bloodthirsty.”

Fans familiar with the source material know just what’s in store for Rick’s character one the next leg of the journey, which finds the group holed up in an abandoned prison. Let’s just say there is an ample amount of violence, and that the story takes a dark, dark turn.

Now for some potential SPOILERS:

Again, fans of The Walking Dead comics know that Lori, after giving birth to a baby girl, meets with an untimely end. Familiar with the books, Callies knows this. She says, “I’ve said from the beginning, not only am I OK with Lori dying but I think she has to…I’ve played this character with an eye toward an end.”

Despite her awareness about the fate of her character, the production has seen some hotly contested debate on the subject. Callies continues:

Frank Darabont and I actually—before he was tragically and unfairly removed from the show—we used to argue about it…I argued that it was necessary to kill Lori and I feel very strongly that for all of the other deviations we may have from the comic book, killing Lori does something to Rick that is vital for the story and can’t be done any other way.

Hopefully The Walking Dead will stick to the script, and we’ll see the end of Lori soon. How soon really depends what they do with the prison story. Much news has come out about the addition of the Governor (David Morrissey), the despotic leader of the survivalist enclave Woodbury, and the role he’ll play in the upcoming season. While that’s a great arc, there is a heap of material in the prison. A number of interesting storylines take place before you meet the Governor and crew, and I hope they don’t rush through those just to get to the Governor. That would be a mistake.

Whatever approach they take, I do hope that they kill Lori off. On a personal level, I just can’t stand her character, but there is also the overall integrity of the show to consider. Her demise leads to a fundamental change in Rick, and Carl for that matter, the carries over through the rest of the series. Without her death, they’ll be hard pressed to turn Rick into the man he becomes, and the show will suffer for it.

The Walking Dead returns Sunday, October 14th.

What do you think? Keep Lori or kill her?