'The Walking Dead' reveals Glenn Rhee's fate

And so, Glenn Rhee of "The Walking Dead" lives. He lives to fight another day, or to die another day. Or to last out his days for so long as the "The Walking Dead" stays on the air.

Sunday's "Dead" began with life, or the one life in particular that everyone wanted to continue, as Glenn (Steven Yeun) emerged from beneath the Dumpster after having waited out walkers and the millions of anxious fans who fully expected him to ultimately survive.

Some -- certainly most -- fans will be gladdened, some critics less so. Already the fate of Glenn has divided that particular crowd, with a few seeing Glenn's "death" as symptom of what may be a larger ailment afflicting "Dead:" One of TV's biggest hits can't bring itself to actually lose a popular character as much as exploit him, falling prey to a gimmick as old as TV itself, or almost as old, going back to Bobby Ewing and "Dallas." Even Brian somehow survived his "death" on "Family Guy," Kenny on "South Park." Death isn't necessary forever on TV -- just until the next sweeps.

But until now, death has been reasonably consistent on "The Walking Dead." The dead stay dead until they arise. The good die as consistently, and as often, as the bad. That's the law. 

The Sunday recap: At the end of Oct. 25's "Thank You," Nicholas (Michael Traynor) and Glenn were surrounded by walkers as they scrambled to the top of the Dumpster. Nicholas said "thank you" to Glenn, then shot himself, pitching forward into the ravenous crowd, and taking Glenn with him. Final scene: Walkers consuming viscera with Glenn presumably witnessing his own disembowelment. The scene was horrifying of course, meant to be. In fact, Nicholas was on top of him, and Glenn later rolled under the Dumpster.

But should Glenn have lived -- or died? In the Robert Kirkman comic book series, he actually dies upon meeting the villain Negan, who joins the series (per reports) by the end of this season. Negan will be played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan -- who's been having a memorable run on "The Good Wife" this season and many years ago, famously had one on "Grey's Anatomy," where "Denny" died, then returned as a ghost.

There are good arguments in the "Glenn should live!" corner. Foremost, there's no reason for "Dead" to mimic scene for scene the book, nor has it -- they are both their own creations, dependent upon each other but hardly mirrors of one another. Glenn's a fan favorite, and to kill off a fan favorite means killing off fan ardor to some degree. He's an enduring beacon of decency on the series too: He saved Rick seasons ago, and never once drifted to the dark side, never killed a living human, but loved instead. Loved Hershel and Maggie, loved life to some degree. He was a pizza delivery guy before the apocalypse. He was -- now is -- the character most viewers could identify with, or wanted to identify with. Kill off him and you kill off one of the ties that bind them to "Dead."

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Another reason Glenn's death was premature and everyone knew it: Steven Yeun may be the most popular Asian actor on television, which is a medium that has struggled (and often failed) to reverse the racial disparity within its ranks, particularly among Asian actors. At least among the living, "Dead" has attempted to build a cast that looks like the real world, with some obvious and bewildering exceptions (there are no major Latino characters in the core cast, for example, at the moment). That's a function of the comic book series, but why lose so prominent and beloved a character who is ALSO Asian?

Nevertheless, by reversing Glenn's fate, the show -- to some extent -- is reversing a fundamental law of the walking dead universe. Both the good and bad are fated to die, or are already dead to some degree. Heavily freighted terms like "good" and "bad" in fact are meaninglessly in this world. Stripped of moral or their quasi-religious baggage, they're just words, with no bearing on the story or its outcome.

That's the whole point of "The Walking Dead:" The good, like Glenn, are co-equal with the bad. There is no God guiding their fates from above, no heavenly reward awaiting them. The same destiny awaits all.

It's the chilling, cold-blooded subtext of an entire series -- that NO ONE is safe because no one possibly can be.

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Yet Glenn survives -- a good man, a fan favorite, the enduring bright flame of decency over six seasons.

 Nevertheless, to have killed off Glenn might actually have submerged the entire enterprise into TOO much darkness, if that's at all possible. We've been conditioned by television (and movies) to embrace the light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel -- some reaffirmation of our shared values which demands that the bad shall in fact be vanquished and the good rewarded, and that life really is bound by some moral imperative, and therefore our favorite TV shows must be shaped by that to some degree as well.

But not "The Walking Dead." It's always resisted that comfortable bromide by literally gutting it -- just like poor Glenn, apparently, in late October. No more. Glenn lives. Maybe (only) the good DON'T die young. Maybe there is a light at the end of this tunnel, albeit seasons off.

Is this dystopia not so dystopic after all?

Or maybe poor Glenn does die when he meets Negan and his constant compansion, "Lucille," at the end of the sixth season.

In which case, I reserve the right to re-do this entire post.