The Walking Dead's Chandler Riggs Discusses Carl's Shocking Moment (Spoilers)

SPOILER ALERT! Don’t continue reading if you don’t want to know what happened on The Walking Dead mid-season premiere.

On The Walking Dead season six mid-season premiere, Chandler Riggs‘ character Carl was shot in the eye by a stray bullet from Jessie’s older son, Ron’s (Austin Abrams) gun after being stabbed by Michonne (Danai Gurira). The moment happens in the comic book.

Chandler opened up to THR about the moment and his character going forward.

“I felt like it would never happen and then when [showrunner] Scott Gimple sat down with me and told me the whole story line of season six, I was really excited to hear that Carl was going to lose his eye. That was something I’d been looking forward to that ever since I figured out that he’d live through the gunshot wound,” Chandler said. “It was a night shoot and it was really late. That whole sequence is really dark and brutal. The whole thing with Jessie and Sam was crazy. With her hand getting chopped off everything was crazy. The fun part was the whole turning around and revealing that my eye was gone.”

Click inside to read more of what Chandler had to say…

On how it will change the character: “I was talking to Scott about it because physically it was harder losing depth perception and about 70 degrees of vision. You don’t realize how much you rely on both your eyes until you’re having to go hours without being able to use one of them. It’s harder to film, which makes it easy for me to play Carl because it’s such a drastic difference in how I live. It’s easier to make that change…The transition from a boy into a man was more in season four when Rick mentioned that Carl was a man at that point. His childhood ended there but hopefully the cool Carl will emerge from losing his eye and be really exciting. It makes him a lot harder and ruthless. My character is always so much more fun to play when that happens.”

On if Carl will blame Rick (Andrew Lincoln): “I don’t think Carl will blame Rick. It was more Ron’s fault than anything and he’s dead. There’s not much vengeance he has against anyone. If anything, he thanks his dad because he was the one that saved the community and gave them the courage to fight and kill all of the walkers. He looks up to him and has a lot more respect for him.”