Way back in Season 3 of The Walking Dead, the Governor (David Morrissey) was the height of villainy, and Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Glenn (Steven Yeun) were being held captive by him. The actor who played Glenn has now revealed that he wanted his character to be the one who killed the Governor.
During this period in time, the Governor had interrogated Glenn before moving on to Maggie. Forcing her to remove some of her clothing, he then confronted Glenn with his girlfriend, and the assumption was made by this character at this point that Maggie had been raped.
Eventually, the two escaped and Glenn found out that this was not the case. However, he was still filled with rage over what was done to Maggie.
Because of this, Yeun petitioned at the time to have Glenn be the one who offed the Governor when his time finally came.
“I remember Season 3 when Glenn thinks that the governor assaulted Maggie, and I remember I campaigned hard,” Yeun revealed to Vulture. “I was like, ‘Yo! Give me a storyline where I go to kill this guy.'”
He felt like he had a valid reason for this as well.
Yeun thought that Glenn was too single-faceted
According to Yeun, not only was he was worried that the character’s time was up but that Glenn was the perpetual nice guy. And, it was this main characteristic that might work to the detriment of his character.
“I felt I had expanded beyond that and I was internally frustrated,” he said. “I felt like I was servicing a concept of goodness, as opposed to engaging with Glenn’s humanity.”
While this may be true of Glenn, it likely also worked to his favor as the character was commonly cited as being a favorite among the fans. Having a character who was always the good guy when every other character was definitely more flawed definitely worked to his advantage.
Yeun also wanted Glenn to be ‘more conflicted’
For Yeun, though, he felt that Glenn needed the growth that comes with the faults explored among the storylines of the others, and having Glenn turn dark and, ultimately, kill the Governor would be a way to do this.
Of course, AMC never agreed to this and the Governor did not die directly as a result of Glenn.
However, Glenn did end up going through a pretty dark journey when Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and the Saviors turned up a few seasons later. It was also when Glenn finally met his demise at the hand of Negan.
Because of this, Maggie has now traveled down a dark path as well as she comes to terms with the loss of her husband and the father of her child. In fact, the repercussions of Glenn’s death are still playing out as recently as the Season 10C premiere of The Walking Dead.
The Walking Dead airs Sunday nights at 9/8c on AMC.