Get ready for Chandler Riggs’ best performance on The Walking Dead yet

Chandler Riggs still has some work to do on The Walking Dead, and apparently much of it is going to rip out your heart.

Speaking in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, showrunner Scott M. Gimple noted that the upcoming midseason premiere (airing next year) is going to feature Riggs at his best — really to the point where we wonder if he’ll get some awards consideration from it by the time Emmy season rolls around:

“The work he does in this episode, in the premiere, in the next episode that you’ll see, is definitely the finest work we’ve seen on the show. I’m not saying the finest work by Chandler, I’m saying the finest work by any actor on the show.”

The goal moving forward for Riggs’ character of Carl seems to be tying together as many loose ends as possible before he goes. Carl knows that being bit is a death sentence and that there’s only so much longer that he is. With that, it seems as though he is going to make the most of the time that he has. We reported last night that Carl is going to do his part to teach Rick before he goes not to just go in and murder all of the Saviors — there are good people mixed in there with the bad and he really should find a way to build community with them rather than going on a rampage. Whether or not Rick ends up taking his son’s advice remains to be seen, but we feel like these devastating events that unfolded on the show are going to bleed into the Old Man Rick sequences, whatever they prove themselves to be. Maybe that is the future Rick wants for himself, or maybe they are a way of him working to channel some of his grief, but if you remember some of these Old Man Rick sequences… Carl wasn’t there.

It’s not all too hard to envision why this upcoming midseason premiere would mark the best performance of Riggs as Carl — after all, just remember that he has all of his cards on the table. He knows that there is nothing else to lose and he better pour everything out now.

What do you want to see in what could be Riggs’ last performance as a (living) Carl? Share in the comments below!

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