Former ‘The Walking Dead’ Star Shares the Best and Worst Part of T-Dog’s Death

Former The Walking Dead star IronE Singleton is proud T-Dog received a hero’s death, but admits he’s disappointed he didn’t live to see Carol’s (Melissa McBride) famous baking.

“My character died in Season Three, episode four, but the way he died is so memorable, and you all have immortalized the character T-Dog. It was such a heroic death, he died saving Carol before he could even get a batch of her chocolate chip cookies, so that’s the most disappointing thing about his death,” Singleton told nerdTaste with a laugh at Weekend of Hell.

“But one of the most memorable things was that the executives and the writers, they thought so much of me that they gave me an honorable, heroic death. And that’s the best way — if we’re going to leave this Earth, I think that’s the best way to go out, saving somebody else, right? Helping to make humanity better.”

T-Dog sacrificed himself to save a then-less capable Carol when the original Atlanta group settled at a prison, which found itself under siege from an invasion of walkers steered by vengeful prisoner Andrew (Markice Moore).

Having already suffered an incurable walker bite to the shoulder while securing a gate, T-Dog escorted a panicked Carol through prison hallways until they were confronted by a pair of walkers. T-Dog then charged the walkers and was ultimately consumed as Carol made her reluctant escape.

Singleton said T-Dog has since been credited with saving the entire group as Carol, who would later emerge as one of the group’s most efficient killers and protectors, would go on to single-handedly infiltrate and topple the cannibal community of Terminus in Season Five.

“A lot of people have complimented me and said that if T-Dog didn’t save Carol, then Carol would not have saved everybody else at Terminus, the rest of the group — Rick and Daryl and Glenn and so on, and so forth, so they said the show wouldn’t be in existence today,” Singleton said.

“I’m like humbly thankful for that, but that means a lot to hear stuff like that.”

The actor, who also appeared in The Blind Side and Franklin & Bash, has since founded the IronE School of the Arts acting school and penned the autobiographical Blindsided by the Walking Dead: From Surviving the Streets to Slaying the Geeks.

The Walking Dead resumes its ninth season with new episodes Sunday, February 10 on AMC.