Warning: this article contains spoilers for those who are not up to date with The Walking Dead.
It’s fair to say post-apocalyptic warrior child Carl Grimes, is an enigma wrapped within an enigma, for starters, how old is he exactly and is he a traumatised survivor or a dead-inside sociopath?
However, viewers picked up on yet another Carl-based mystery from the latest episode of season seven of The Walking Dead, Something They Need.
Here we see Rick and Co. invade the Oceanside community after Tara breaks her promise to keep the community a secret but inevitably, a pungent bunch of walkers launch yet another shuffly attack, leading to our heroes to draw their weapons.
However, keen eyed viewers noticed something a little patchy about the scene…
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As we all know, Carl had his eye accidently shot out by Ron after the gruesome herd attack on Alexandria in season six, which claimed the lives of Jessie and Sam.
The supernaturally resilient boy continues to be a badass, fearlessly taking on the saviours and wasting many a pesky reanimated corpse.
However, it’s made clear Carl now has the use of one eye – he wears an eyepatch and when this is cruelly removed by Negan, it’s understood there’s nothing left of the eye except extreme scarring.
So why in this scene does he appear to be shooting from his sightless eyepatch?
We all know Carl is a mean shot, but surely this isn’t the most practical way to deal with a zombie attack? Especially when he’s got a perfectly good working eye on the other side of his face…
You don’t mess with the hardened, obsessive fans of The Walking Dead – they’ve lost too many characters they love and have been forced to vicariously make some fairly grim decisions (look at the flowers, anyone?).
It’s therefore unsurprising fans were on this anomaly like a pack of walkers on a pile of newly exposed guts, with one viewer tweeting:
‘This episode has me confused. Why is Carl aiming/holding the gun to his patched eye’ whereas another noted, ‘Carl must be a terrible shot with that eye’.
Executive producer David Alpert has finally waded into the Carl eyepatch shooting debacle, but I’ll be honest, this explanation might not be enough to satisfy die hard deadheads.
Speaking with The Huffington Post at New York Comic Con, David flat out denies Carl is shooting with the wrong eye:
I don’t think he is, but it’s pretty funny.
I definitely heard that, and I’m sort of like, ‘Yeah, it doesn’t make any sense.’ But it’s kind of funny.
Unbelievable. Is David looking at the same footage? I mean, let’s just take another look…
Let’s just hope David never becomes the leader of a dog-eat-dog colony in the event of a zombie apocalypse.
His way of putting a breezily positive spin on a seriously frustrating situation combined with outright denial reeks of The Governor through and through…
Season eight of The Walking Dead begins 22 October. I.Cannot.Wait.
Jules studied English Literature with Creative Writing at Lancaster University before earning her masters in International Relations at Leiden University in The Netherlands (Hoi!). She then trained as a journalist through News Associates in Manchester. Jules has previously worked as a mental health blogger, copywriter and freelancer for various publications.