Spoilers if you're not caught up on The Walking Dead through the fourth season finale! During last night's Season 4 finale of The Walking Dead, Rick did something pretty horrific in an effort to get himself, his son, Daryl and Michonne out of a tight spot. And in the process, Andrew Lincoln ended up with a mouthful of blood and raw chicken! The actor appeared on the Walking Dead post-ep talk show Talking Dead last night, and spoke a bit about Rick having to tear Joe's throat out with his teeth. It's a pretty funny story related to one of the season's darkest moments...
"Greg Nicotero kept sidling up to me in the week leading up the shooting of this scene. And he kept saying, we've got to talk about the gag," Lincoln explained. "Meaning the bite gag. And he said 'chicken or beef'? And I was like, 'Well I suppose everything apparently tastes like chicken, so I'll shoot for the chicken,' And he went 'cooked or uncooked,' and I knew it was a test. And I just went, 'well what would be the closest to real flesh?' And he went, 'uncooked,' and I said, 'Well, then that's what I'll be doing."
Of course, Lincoln was second-guessing that opinion when the time came. "At 4:30 in the morning with a mouth full of blood and raw chicken, it was the wrong call."
Gross or not, the scene worked, not only in demonstrating how innovative the make-up and effects people continue to be in creating some of the nastier flesh-ripping moments for the series, but also in demonstrating just how far Rick is willing to go to survive. Yes, he will tear the throat out of a man if it means surviving. And then he'll take a big knife and hack into the guy who, just moments earlier, was on the verge of sexually assaulting Carl. Between those two intensely violent moments, Michonne was turning a man's gun on himself, and Daryl was stomping another guy's head into the ground. It was an incredibly brutal series of events, and yet those men kind of set themselves up for that kind of karma, when factoring in their lust for violence.
Also among the great moments from last night's Talking Dead was Andrew Lincoln's pick for which celebrity he'd like to see in the Walking Dead universe...
For an on-the-spot choice, William Shatner really is a perfect answer.
In other news, Deadline says last night's Season 4 finale of The Walking Dead garnered 15.7 million viewers. That's a massive number for a cable series, and it's up a noticeable amount from Season 3 finale's 12.4 million viewers. And it's close to the 16.1 million total viewers Season 4 brought in for its premiere last Fall. While the fourth season was a bit uneven in terms of content, the series really brought it home with these last few episodes, including the excellent "The Grove" episode, which revealed on of the show's darkest moments to date as Carol and Tyreese found themselves faced with dealing with a very troubled - to put it mildly - girl. Last night's finale left most of the main characters in the clutches of a new group of people and Rick set on making this new group regret it.
Read our breakdown of "A" Here!
