‘The Walking Dead’ Fans Are Really Hating on Henry

Some Walking Dead fans are hating on Henry (Matt Lintz), whose actions concerning the battered Lydia (Cassady McClincy) are dragging the survivors into an increasingly dangerous conflict with Alpha (Samantha Morton) and her Whisperers.

The character, created for the show in Season Seven as portrayed by Macsen Lintz, is especially criticized as a replacement for Carl Grimes (Chandler Riggs), who was killed off in Season Eight despite playing a key role in the ongoing Whisperer war in Robert Kirkman’s comic books.

“As with every season of the show, there’s a certain amount of stuff from the comic that we follow relatively faithfully, but really more in terms of orange cones in the stories, is kind of how we think about it. Like, oh here are these moments that we want to try to adapt, but a lot of times the routes that we take go into different directions,” showrunner Angela Kang previously explained to Deadline of deviations from the books, including the departures of Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan).

In addition to necessary changes brought on by such big losses, “the array of characters and the timeline that we’re in are completely different, and so there are obviously going to be some deviations,” Kang added.

“So, there are some familiar markers to people who know the comics very well, but I’ll say that there are some other surprises coming up along the way as well.”

Kang previously defended Henry as his own character, telling EW, “It’s always a process remixing things for us. There’s nobody that’s going to exactly replace Carl. Carl is his own character, but there are definitely plotlines from the comic that we didn’t want to completely lose.”

“Henry just organically would be with this time jump about the age of Carl in the comics. There were certain aspects that we felt play well with Henry, especially because Carol is now that parent,” Kang added, explaining Henry’s experiences growing up as the sheltered son of Carol (Melissa McBride) and King Ezekiel (Khary Payton) shaped a character who may play out similar beats to comic book Carl but with his own twist.

“Obviously, all of that plays differently because Henry is a different kind of kid in the show than Carl was in the comic at this point. He’s had a different upbringing. He’s had a bit of a sheltered life. He’s also faced different kinds of things,” she said.

“We just wanted to make sure that anything that we take from the comic that maybe once was part of Carl’s storyline, it’s a little different when you have Henry playing it. We don’t intend for it to be exactly the same.”

In February, a poll on live aftershow Talking Dead revealed 73 percent of voters opposed the ongoing Henry-Lydia romance.

Henry has since sneaked out of Hilltop to pursue Lydia after she was returned to the Whisperers, forcing Daryl (Norman Reedus), Connie (Lauren Ridloff) and Dog to trek into dangerous Whisperer territory on a retrieval mission.

The Walking Dead next airs 912, ‘Guardians,’ tonight at 9/8c on AMC.

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