We now know who dies in "The Walking Dead" and AAPIs are not happy

SPOILERS AHEAD:

READ NO FURTHER IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN SEASON 7, EPISODE 1 OF "THE WALKING DEAD."

THE ONLY Asian/American to survive the zombie apocalypse was killed off last night (Oct. 23).

Yeah, yeah, we know it's all pretend. Nevertheless, the death of Glenn Rhee as played by Steven Yeun in The Walking Dead, hurt. It hurt bad. Studies have shown that the emotions we undergo for our favorite fictional characters are real but not as long lasting as the real thing, thank goodness.

For seven years we watched Glenn grow from slacker pizza delivery boy to bad-ass zombie killer. The character is probably the best developed and complicated Asian/American character depicted on American TV. Yeun was fabulous in the role and introduced the concept of an AAPI heroic figure that the viewing audience of all races could cheer for and identify with.

Glenn was the first Asian/American male character to get the girl. Yeah, before Vincent Rodriguez III kissed Rachel Bloom in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Glenn kissed Maggie and don't think that stereotype-breaker went unnoticed in Asian America.

Together, the lovers represented the hope for the future in a world full of death and inhumanity. Glenn was the last good guy in the show in that he never killed a human being and always held out hope for some of the hopeless people that the group encountered in their journeys, willing to give second chances even if it meant putting himself at risk. In that sense, it was inevitable that Glenn meet his end since every character on the show that demonstrated an ounce of humanity was killed off.

Glenn Rhee, as played by Steven Yeun, has killed his last zombie.

In one dream sequence, the group is having a meal and at the head of the table was Glenn holding the hapa son that he never will get to know. 

The writers used the Season 7 opener to kill of another favorite, the macho militaristic Abraham. The double death was a change from the comics, the source material for the show and perhaps took the audience by surprise. The gruesome deaths of two key beloved characters prompted the producers to do an extended special Talking Dead, the show for the fans to talk about the goings-on of The Walking Dead.

During The Talking Dead, Yeun said that he didn’t want the big dramatic death that Glenn experiences in the comic to go to any other character. "Robert wrote such a messed up but at the same time incredible way to take something away, Yeun said. "To make a story as impactful as it is. When you read the comic, you kind of don’t want that moment to go to anyone else. I think I said that, ‘Don’t let that go to anyone else.‘ To do it the way we did it, I think, was brave and super effecting."

Glenn's last words as his head was being bashed in, "I will find you," was heartbreaking.

Lauren Cohan, who plays Glenn's wife Maggie, and wears her emotions on her sleeve, interpreted that dying promise as: “In this life or the next,” Cohan says. “They’re star-crossed lovers. ‘I’ll find you, I’ll be with you, I’ll watch over you. I’ll be there.’” 

“He dies in such a Glenn way," adds Yeun. "Still not thinking about himself. It’s important that he puts those final words out as a way of saying, ‘Look out for one another.’”

These days when there's so much talk about the importance of increasing diversity on television and whitewashing of roles meant for Asians, killing off a major Asian/American character on a culturally iconic show, is a blow to that movement. I hope that the producers of The Walking Dead and its spinoff Fear The Walking Dead will give more opportunities for AAPI characters to be given a strong presence in our pop culture lexicon. Glenn will be missed.

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The rest of The Walking Dead's season is going to be brutal and 'sickening'

Steven Yeun plays Glenn to Lauren Cohan's Maggie. Everybody's favorite couple recently learned that they were going to be parents on the 'Walking Dead' TV drama.

SPOILER ALERT. DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU'RE A "WALKING DEAD" FAN AND DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT'S COMING. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!

Last chance STOP reading ... OK, here we go ...

HERE WE GO AGAIN. What the Walking Dead does better than anybody else is to have fans invest themselves in the show's characters and their fate on one of television's best loved, best acted, best written dramas.

Besides Game of Thrones, no other television show has shown its willingness to kill off their main characters than The Walking Dead.

For those of you who sighed a breath of relief when Glenn survived falling into a herd of zombies last season, get ready to get back on that emotional rollercoaster. We're almost ready to experience the death of one of the show's main characters.

In past deaths of fictional characters, we are stunned, surprised and go through all the stages of real-life grieving whenever one of the core group of survivors meets his or her demise, as if they were real people.

In fact, studies show that fictional characters that are loved actually become our friends and our feelings towards them are real, as if they are actual people. When they hurt, we hurt; when they're happy, we're happy; when they die, we grieve. The characters may be fictional, but the emotions are real.

We're in Season 6 of the show that takes place in the near future and everyone - except for small bands of survivors - have turned into the undead zombies.

If you follow the comic book, the source material for the Walking Dead, you know that the villain of villains, Negan, is about to be introduced and with him, his barb-wire wrapped  baseball bat that he calls Lucille. You'll also know that Negan uses Lucille to bash in Glenn's head.

Oh, no! Not Glenn again! Why are the show runners always putting the Asian guy in peril? 

If the show runners stick to the comics, Glenn - the only Asian survivor in the zombie apocalypse that we know of; Glenn, the nice guy who gets the girl; Glenn, the pizza delivery guy who has turned into a hardened badass; Glenn, who always sees the good in people, even if they are losers; Glenn, who had never killed a human being (until last week's show.) Our Glenn. Our hero. His time has come. 

Reports that Steven Yeun, who plays Glenn has cancelled an appearance at a fans'  event after this season's finale only lends credence to Glenn's fate. The only other time Yeun missed a fan event was when everybody was asking if his character had died.

Hey, hasn't anyone over at Walking Dead read the USC report about the lack of significant Asian characters on television? Don't kill off the one character with whom we in this under-represented demographic identify!

But ...

The show runners haven't always been faithful to the comics for their plotlines. If they had, Carol and Daryl, both of whom have large fanbases, would have been killed off in the first season.

Will they veer from the comics again? Let's hope so.

Daryl, Carol, Abraham, Gabriel, even Glenn's wife Maggie, who's pregnant, have all been mentioned as possible substitutes for Glenn. 

In the past, the writers have always tried to fill in a character's personality before doing away them. Just as we're starting to know them, we lose them. So if a character is getting more airtime than usual, you can be sure their time on the show is coming to an end. That makes their deaths so much more heartbreaking. This season the writers have filled in the backstories with Fr. Gabriel, Abraham and Morgan. I would be worried if I was an actor playing one of those roles.

That would be just like the show's writers to torture the fans and also to hype fan involvement; build up hope and then pull the rug out from under the fans' feet..

All we're sure of is that someone in the main crew will fall victim to Negan's wrath. Both  Andrew Lincoln (Rick) and Lauren Cohan (Maggie) said the remainder of the season is going to be brutal. "Sickening" is the term they used.

So, Walking Dead fans, get ready to get your hearts ripped out and stomped on.

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