‘The Walking Dead’ season 5, episode 9 reaction: Chad Coleman looks to the future

Chad Coleman is a fantastic actor. Anyone who watched “The Wire” knew that long before “The Walking Dead” ever premiered on AMC. The man is capable of being this awesome, super-tough character, but what made Tyreese so interesting was his tenderness. This was a man who physically could have been an ultimate badass and a killer, but he wasn’t. His humanity was such a key aspect of what made him such gripping television. You wanted to see how he would handle continuing to survive in this world despite not being a ruthless killing machine.

Unfortunately, we now more or less know the answer to this: He wouldn’t survive. Due to a poor decision (why go into that house?) Tyreese ended up meeting his end on the midseason premiere, and given that this character survives for a long time in the comics, this was somewhat of a blindside move by producers. So why do this? Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Coleman recalled a conversation between himself and showrunner Scott Gimple:

“He said it was a necessary evil. When people are endeared to a character to a degree that they are with Tyreese and have been with others, The Walking Dead needs an impactful death to remind us of the value of human life. So a man of Tyreese’s character and integrity — we needed to get absolute maximum value out of his death. The way I live my life is why it’s so impactful and necessary to remind people of what the value of human life is — and also to give other characters the opportunity to bounce off that death.”

Coleman says that he is now back out in pilot season working to land another gig, and we feel like he really should be out of work for about 2.3 seconds. The man is just too good at what he does to be ignored!

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