Chandler Riggs Thought Carl Would Lose His Arm on The Walking Dead

Gone are the days when losing your right eye was enough. At Walker Stalker Con last week, Chandler Riggs revealed that he was afraid Carl would really lose his arm in the season 7 premiere of The Walking Dead. 

By now we all know “The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be” was a heavy hitter, heartbreaking episode. Not only was it our first, full-on introduction to Negan, but he made his dangerous appearance by taunting and torturing (both physically and mentally) nearly every single member of Rick’s group.

Towards the end of the episode Carl (played by Riggs) was told to come to the front of the group and lie down next to an increasingly hysterical Rick. In order to prove a point, Negan then told Rick he would have to cut his son’s arm off. He even marked the spot the Carl’s arm with a black sharpie, just in case Rick was unsure of where to chop. The moment was so tense and it culminated into a memorable scene that still has fans tense just thinking about it. Negan calls of the arm-chopping just as Rick begins to comply.

“I had no idea it wasn’t going to happen,” Riggs said, recalling the scene. “When I was reading the script, I was like ‘are they seriously going to cut my arm off?’ I was scared to death.”

Riggs was not the only one. The cast has commented several times about the dark nature of the episode even before it aired in October, and now the viewers have been watching the group tested in ways we’ve never seen before. Negan’s dominating presence changed a lot within the group, and they are more separate (again, both physically and mentally) than they have ever been over the course of seven seasons.

Though the story and world of The Walking Dead has always been dark, amputations of that nature aren’t exactly common. We have, of course, seen characters like Hershel who’ve needed a leg chopped off to stop infection from spreading, but nothing as extreme as a kid who already had his eye shot out then losing his left arm.

Fans of the comics will recall that Rick loses his hand, a storyline that viewers thought could potentially play out in the season 6 episode “Heads Up” when Rick slices his hand open killing a walker.

The 13th episode of season 7 “Bury Me Here” airs this Sunday. Keep checking The Nerd Stash for more Walking Dead news.