It's been a tense couple of days for fans of "The Walking Dead," as they try to figure out just what on earth happened during Sunday night's episode, and what it means for a certain beloved original character. But according to showrunner Scott M. Gimple, fans should know that answers are indeed on their way.

The events that unfolded during the episode, "Thank You," seemed, at first, pretty straightforward: Glenn and Nicholas found themselves trapped on top of a dumpster, surrounded by walkers; Nicholas panicked and shot himself in the head, taking Glenn down with him as his body fell; Glenn was eaten alive by the hungry horde. But an ambiguous statement from Gimple that was read on fan show "Talking Dead" immediately after the episode aired called that sequence of events into question, with a cryptic promise that fans "will see Glenn, some version of Glenn, or parts of Glenn again, either in flashback or in the current story, to help complete the story."

Naturally, this confused a lot of people (this recapper included), and led to wide speculation about Glenn's true fate -- and how fair it was for producers to toy with fans about it, especially if the "death" was a fakeout. Now, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Gimple has attempted to clear the air, explaining that he released that statement in part to help mitigate confusion (um, good try?), and said that he feared that "silence, for some reason, might be looked upon as saying something unto itself."

Gimple also blamed our culture's need for immediate answers and overly-detailed discussion for people's upset reactions to Sunday's episode, comparing it to stopping a movie between reels to ask the audience questions before continuing the film.

"It is this big movie, it's this whole piece," he said of "The Walking Dead"'s current season. " ... We give people something to look forward to every week, and in the meantime I have to worry about people freaking out about the twists and turns of stories."

I'd argue that it was Gimple himself who stoked a lot of the outrage fire with that ridiculous "Talking Dead" statement, since many fans (again, myself included) already had their own interpretation of the episode, and his comment only muddled things further. But regardless of how you feel about it, Gimple said that all would soon be revealed -- fans just have to be patient.

"I would just encourage people to watch the entire thing because all of their questions will be answered," Gimple told the Times. "It's absolutely cool that they're reacting any way at this point, but there are a whole lot more chapters, a whole lot more reels in the movie to watch to get the whole picture."

[via: Los Angeles Times]

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