Warning: There are massive spoilers ahead if you have not watched "The Walking Dead" mid-season premiere
"The Walking Dead" mid-season premiere re-created one of the biggest scenes from the comic series Sunday night.
Fans have been wondering how the show would deal with many iconic scenes from Robert Kirkman's series, especially one comic fans have seen hinted at since the start of season six.
So fans were probably both startled and excited to see that the show didn't hold back when it came to adapting a scene they've been waiting to see since the shocking issue was released in March 2011.
Last chance to head back before spoilers!
About halfway into season six, episode nine Rick's son Carl (Chandler Riggs) gets shot in the eye. It doesn't happen exactly as it did in the comics, but Carl gets shot by a stray bullet from Jessie's son Ron while trying to make their way through a sea of zombies in their home of Alexandria.
The reveal stayed satisfyingly true to the comic. We see Carl slowly turn and look at his father while revealing the gash in his eye. He calls out to Rick before falling to the ground.
A lot of preparation went into making the scene a reality. You wouldn't realize it while watching the show, but after Carl falls to the ground, we aren't even seeing actor Chandler Riggs anymore.
"It’s something that we certainly discussed," episode director Greg Nicotero tells Tech Insider. "We did a head cast of Chandler and sculpted the wound and there was a lot of discussion in terms of how deep [the injury] was."
"The wound, it was very specific, so we did a sculpture and we did a dummy head. That whole scene where Rick picks up Carl, runs through the walkers, and gets into the infirmary that was all a dummy of Chandler," Nicotero explains. "When we shot the actual reveal of him being shot we had an eye prosthetic on him and then we digitally added depth to the wound so it would look like it was a depth to the wound so that it looked like it was a deep hole as opposed to just a prosthetic over his eye."
The wound itself is illustrated a bit different from the comic series. In Kirkman's graphic novels, Carl appears to have half of his face blown off. That's not the case in the show. We simply see the wound restricted to his eye.
"The bullet kind of catches that bone as it comes down right above your cheekbone,” Nicotero, who has a background in pre-med, explained. “The reality of whether [Carl] would be able to survive that or not was something that was important. We still simulated the fact that it nicked that bone. What we’re seeing is … is that’s why the bullet didn’t go in, but it hit that bone and sort of shot outward. When we did the initial sculptures Robert was very specific about making sure that we had remnants of what the artwork from the comic looked like."
Here's how Carl's injury looks in the comics:
Here it is in the show:
It sounds like there was never a question of whether or not the show was going to adapt this scene or at least have Carl lose his eye. Comic fans know Carl's injury becomes vital to his relationship with future villain Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) on the series, something Nicotero also pointed out.
"I dealt directly with [showrunner] Scott [Gimple] and Robert Kirkman because his wound plays, in the future, you know, Carl reveals, in the comic book, his wound to Negan and Negan and Carl sort of generate this weird friendship because Negan looks at him like, ‘Damn. You’ve been through a lot and you’re still here, kid.’ And I’m speaking strictly of the graphic novel."
Nicotero says actor Chandler Riggs was clued in a while ago about the scene and was told to grow his hair out to prepare for the gunshot wound.
"Chandler knew before anybody, I think," said Nicotero. "One of the things that Scott had talked to Chandler about was, ‘All right, this season you got to start growing your hair.’ And he was like, ‘Well, why?’ ‘Well, later in the season, you’re going to get shot in the eye and we want your hair to be able to come down and cover a good portion of the bandage so that it makes sense from a story standpoint.’ That’s why Chandler’s hair is so long because it was designed so that as the series progresses, his hair will help diminish seeing the bandage."
The scene was one of the biggest Nicotero has helped bring to screen and it was extremely important for him, showrunner Scott Gimple, and the rest of the crew to get right.
"It’s critical for me, personally, and I know Scott and the writers are very dedicated to those moments. I’ve been handed several of those moments in episodes that I’ve directed," says Nicotero. "Season four when Carl’s left on his own when he thinks that Rick is dead – stuff like that. To me, those moments are so iconic. When you think about 'The Walking Dead’ graphic novel, the panels I remember are when Shane gets killed and when Lori gets killed — I’ll never forget the splash page when Lori was shot because she was holding Judith when the Governor attacked the prison."
"So for me, it’s important that we pay tribute to those iconic panels," he continued. "When Carl turns then says, ‘Dad,’ it was … I wanted to mirror not only that moment, but I thought it was great the [way the] shooting was translated into the moment with Ron instead of the way it played out in the comic book."
