TWD's Chad Coleman Explained Why Tyreese Didn't See Karen In The Hallucinations

"The Walking Dead" always showcased plenty of moments that made audiences squirm in their seats. After all, violently dealing with bloody zombies doesn't make for clean TV. But what truly became the most hard-to-watch episodes were always the heartbreaking ones centered on a beloved character's death. In the Season 5 episode, "What Happened and What's Going On," fans received that familiar painful sucker punch with the shocking death of Tyreese Williams (Chad Coleman). At this point, "The Walking Dead" had done an excellent job keeping everyone on their toes about their favorites potentially meeting their demise. Still, no one saw Tyreese's death coming, including Coleman. But even as he succumbs to a couple of Walker chomps, Tyreese reflects and questions his decisions with hallucinations of characters he still feels some guilt for, such as The Governor, Bob, and Beth.

However, noticeably absent from this group was Karen (Melissa Ponzio), someone who was so close to Tyreese earlier in the series that her death had a massive impact on him. Fans would have thought that Karen would have definitely appeared as a hallucination for Tyreese. But as Coleman explained in a Reddit AMA, that wouldn't have been the case. " ... If you come to peace with something, and you come to terms with something, you're not wrestling with it in your subconscious mind," Coleman explained during the AMA. "So he was at peace for Karen. It was only the things that caused him angst, the things that he couldn't answer."

Coleman's response is a sound reason for Karen's absence during that moment. Besides, there was another subtle way Tyreese showed that he'd made peace with Karen's death.

During Tyreese's last moments in "What Happened and What's Going On," Karen isn't among his hallucinations. And the answer to why that's the case may have occurred before his unfortunate encounter with a Walker. In the same episode, there's a scene where Tyreese is trying to comfort a distraught Noah (Tyler James Williams), who breaks down after discovering everyone dead in his community. Tyreese recalls a time after he lost someone close to him when he nearly let a bunch of zombies overtake him. Instead, he tells Noah that he chose to fight and live, and as a result, he was later able to do some good, like saving Judith.

It's implied that the person he's talking about that he lost is Karen, as fans will remember how devastated and lost Tyreese was after her murder. However, Tyreese's path to genuinely making peace with what happened may have begun in Season 4's "The Grove," when Carol (Melissa McBride) finally confesses to murdering Karen. While she gives Tyreese the option to exact his revenge, he instead forgives her. In that context, it makes sense why Karen wouldn't have appeared. The hallucinations are people connected to parts of Tyreese that haven't fully moved on.

Well, while Tyreese may have been suffering the worst time with past personal ghosts, the same can't be said of Chad Coleman. In an interview with The Wrap, the actor noted how he enjoyed the reunion with castmates, saying, "I was so excited all these cast members who mean so much to me were back... It was one big love fest... It all went so perfect."