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‘The Walking Dead’: a Handy Comic Moment Comes to Life on Screen

During the mission, Rick and several men are working to rebuild a crucial bridge that more easily connects the rest of the settlements. Part of the mission is for Tara, Jerry and others to distract a large herd of walkers from infiltrating the log pulling.Somebody falters in distracting them, and they end up crashing the party. In a panic, the men drop some unstable logs they’ve been keeping stable, and one crushes Aaron’s arm, leaving him pinned underneath it.

Enid, having been shadowing Siddiq to become a medic as well, is the only person on hand at the time of the incident. She realizes she must amputate his arm in order to save his life.

A similar amputation occurred with Hershel’s leg in season three, played by the late Scott Wilson. This led to him walking with crutches. Aaron’s amputation has raised other questions, though. With his combined growing beard and now missing hand, fans are getting some serious comic Rick vibes.

Angela Kang actually clarified this to THR recently:

“We decided on this story point of Aaron losing his arm before I noticed how much he looks like comic book Rick. That part of it was just a crazy accident!”

There is a bit of a difference in timeline as well. Rick loses his hand in the comics after first meeting The Governor, and that story line with David Morrissey’s Governor is far in the past on the AMC series.

This is the result:

'The Walking Dead': a Handy Comic Moment Comes to Life on Screen
Skybound/Charlie Adlard
She explained that there were many reasons they never had Rick lose his hand, but that they had been waiting for a good opportuniy to do it to somebody.

“We never did it with Rick, for various reasons, but we always thought there was so much story opportunity here. We loved the idea of someone who started the apocalypse without a physical disability now having to learn how to navigate that. The ways you can overcome something like that … it felt like a story that would work really well for Aaron.”

Ross Marquand is all for the new challenge. Kang says he was down from the moment she told him it was happening.

Marquand spoke to comicbook.com recently, where he describes the frustration he feels when practicing daily functions without it.

“When Angela [Kang] presented the idea to me at the beginning of the season, I thought it was fantastic. I love the idea of having the extra challenge. As a character, losing an arm is a significant one. It’s been interesting because I’ve been tying my arm up behind my back because I’ve been trying to get in the habit of not using it. Not all the time, of course, but when I’m at home and when I can get away with using one hand, I just try to keep it immobile. It’s been great because you realize that the biggest thing that comes with that is, obviously the sadness of losing a limb, but also the frustration of it. There’s this immense frustration of not being able to do the things you do. I’ve talked to a few people who have lost limbs and that’s the thing that keeps coming back is just this frustration.”

Kang says that this will affect Aaron’s further development, and his ability to be knocked down and get back up from the most challenging thing he’s been through.

What did you think of Aaron’s loss?

The Walking Dead airs Sunday nights on AMC!