Warning: spoilers for the "Some Guy" episode of The Walking Dead.
The Walking Dead has killed off a lot of characters over the years, and some of the deaths have been pretty ridiculous. By this point, the show does have to get creative to still shock viewers. We've seen a lot of blood and gore by this point. "Some Guy" featured the deaths of a whole bunch of characters, and one has to rank as the show's most ridiculous... and not in the best way. Shiva the tiger was killed by Walkers in "Some Guy," and it didn't make a ton of sense. Take a look!
Yes, the tiger was swarmed by Walkers and then ripped apart and eaten. Shiva being gobbled by zombies actually happened off-screen, but the audio of the scene combined with Ezekiel's reaction makes it quite clear what was happening to the poor thing. On the one hand, Shiva's death is a terrible tragedy that serves to strike a blow to the characters without actually killing off one of the regulars. In fact, the show's CGI budget should go down a lot now that she's gone. On the other hand, it's hard not to question how the Walkers managed to kill her.
Tigers are fierce animals, and Shiva was deadly to humans, as we saw in the big confrontation in the Season 7 finale. Her claws, teeth, and muscle made her a massive threat to the people on whom she was unleashed. Humans, on the other hand, have weak fingernails and mostly blunt teeth in relatively weak jaws. Most of us need utensils and a little bit of work to get through tough meals. The zombies that apparently ripped Shiva apart and ate her didn't exactly look freshly turned, which means that their fingers and jaws were almost certainly weaker than those of a living human. There's no way they should have been able to kill Shiva the way they did.
If The Walking Dead absolutely had to kill Shiva, there were other ways that could have made sense. If the Walkers had swarmed her into a pool of water, she could have drowned from the weight of them on top of her. Similarly, they could have knocked her off of something high and broken an essential bone, which could have also functioned to cut her and give the zombies access to her flesh without trying to sell that they bit through her fur. It's not necessarily fun to think about alternate ways for Shiva to die, but there are simply ways that she could have died that would've made sense and packed an emotional punch.
All of that said, Ezekiel's reaction as his beloved tiger was brutally killed was heartbreaking to watch. Khary Payton deserves a ton of credit for his performance, especially considering he wasn't looking at a real tiger on set. Kudos to him for pulling it off.
We'll presumably get to see more of Ezekiel's reaction to life without Shiva in future episodes of The Walking Dead, which you can catch on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on AMC. Negan and Gabriel will be back next week, so be sure to tune in. For the shows that won't be back, swing by our list of all the shows that have been cancelled in 2017.
