Carl Grimes had one of the roughest rides of any character on The Walking Dead. One of his biggest mishaps happened back in Season 6, when Carl had his right eye shot out in Alexandria. The injury meant Carl had to adapt to having only his left eye, which in turn meant that Chandler Riggs had to figure out how to play a character with only a left eye. The Walking Dead fans discovered a big mistake in the series when Carl could be seen aiming a gun with his patched eye socket. Chandler Riggs spoke with CinemaBlend and other outlets ahead of the upcoming midseason premiere of The Walking Dead, and he explained the hilarious reason behind Carl aiming with his nonexistent eye:
Well actually, what we ended up doing, after I got my eye shot out, we ended up switching that holster to my left pant leg. We trained my left hand to shoot and aim down, and by the time I got to it with machine guns and assault rifles, then I just got lazy with it. It felt way too awkward having to try and put it on my left shoulder and aim down with my left eye. It was super-weird, so I was like, 'Just forget continuity.'
As it turns out, Carl aiming with his shot-out eye came down to the simple reality that Chandler Riggs is a righty who didn't want to become a lefty for firing machine guns and assault rifles. He was clearly amused as he told the story behind using Carl's missing eye to shoot an assault rifle, and he's almost certainly not the only one. Sure, sticklers for detail and continuity within the Walking Dead fandom noted the mistake when it first aired in an episode, but it didn't harm the story at all. It's not like Carl was constantly firing automatic weapons on the show. Why should Chandler Riggs have to learn to shoot with his left arm and left eye when he has a perfectly good right eye in real life?
All things considered, Chandler Riggs deserves credit for learning how to use his left side for Carl's handgun as well as the other noticeable ways Carl had to favor his non-dominant side. He already had to learn a new way to move and use objects, and he wasn't allowed to cut his hair to increase his vision that wasn't obscured by an eyepatch. Besides, The Walking Dead is a show about the zombie apocalypse. If fans can suspend their disbelief for the dead reanimating with a taste for human flesh, surely we can suspend our disbelief about Carl aiming with his shot-out eye.
The continuity error did result in some entertaining reactions from viewers after they first noticed Carl shooting a rifle like a righty. Take a look at just one example from Twitter:
Unfortunately, fans won't get to see too much more of Chandler Riggs firing any kind of weapons on The Walking Dead. Carl was bitten by a zombie in the Season 8 midseason finale on an area of his body that couldn't just be chopped off, a la Hershel's leg. He was still alive at the end of the episode, but the midseason premiere promises to be a swan song for a character many thought would live to the very end of the series. Although Riggs (and his family) have expressed sadness at the decision for Carl to die, he did reveal that there's one thing he won't miss about The Walking Dead.
To see Carl in his final moments among the living, be sure to tune in to the Walking Dead midseason premiere on Sunday, February 25 at 9 p.m. ET on AMC. If you're still in the market for other shows to watch now and in the not-too-distant future, feel free to swing by our midseason TV premiere guide and our 2018 Netflix premiere schedule.
