Is Alanna Masterson leaving The Walking Dead? Is Tara dead?
(Obviously, there are some big spoilers ahead.)
In a word, yes. Tara is gone. In one way, we’re not surprised about this at all. Yet, at the same time, we’re surprised about the way that it happened. While what happened tonight with the Whisperers and the heads on spikes is a moment that is coming out of the comics, it’s still odd for an iconic character to be taken out this way … and we do think that Tara qualifies. She’s been on the show for such a long period of time that this is one of the bigger deaths of the season. Yet, it happened in a way where you could’ve easily missed it. As a matter of fact, we almost did! We thought for a moment that Enid was the only major character to be killed odd.
What we consider the end of Tara to be, more so than anything else, a reminder that there’s a difference between comics and television in terms of how we interpret things. When you look at a comic or a graphic novel, you can fixate on an image for a while and then also come to terms with what you see. For a show, things come and go in roughly a blink. Before you know it, you’ve missed a pivotal moment and if you don’t have DVR, you may have to use YouTube or something else to catch it on the other side.
Alanna Masterson speaks out
In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Masterson confirmed her exit, saying that she first got word about her departure a couple of weeks before the episode was shot. She also discussed what she’s going to miss about working on the show the most:
I’ll miss the cast and crew the most. They’ve become my home away from home, and I will forever cherish the bonds we formed. This show is impossible to make, and day after day we did it. I did it for 6 years, and I will miss the heat, the hours, and the challenges.
While Masterson was one of the show’s original cast members, she had a long-enough run to be practically considered one. What’s sad about losing her now is that there was still a whole lot more that the producers could have done with her heart, her enthusiasm, and her ability to keep fighting on despite being so much of an underdog within this world. She was never the fastest, the strongest, or the best leader, but she found a way to persevere — at times through some really difficult struggles including being out on her own. She’s easily the most important character we lost tonight and there were a lot of people out there who saw a part of themselves through this character.
What’s coming up on the big The Walking Dead finale?
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What do you think about what happened to Tara on The Walking Dead tonight? Be sure to share in the comments. (Photo: AMC.)