Why The Walking Dead Killed Off Bob In Season 5

Bob Stookey (Lawrence Gillard, Jr.) met a tragic end in The Walking Dead season 5, but why? He was an important member of Rick’s group who joined offscreen in the time skip between season 3 and season 4. Bob remained with them through the end of the battle with the Governor (David Morrissey). After everyone was split up, Bob was put in the company of Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green), with whom he became romantically involved.

Bob’s time on The Walking Dead was nearing its end when the group was finally reunited at the end of season 4. Shortly after that, they were all caught and imprisoned by Gareth (Andrew J. West) and the cannibals at Terminus. They escaped, but Gareth’s people managed to re-capture Bob. After cooking and eating Bob’s leg, the cannibals were hit with a huge shock when Bob revealed that he had been bitten in an earlier encounter with zombies. Apparently, Bob was already on death’s door at this point. This discovery sped up the cannibals’ defeat, but there was nothing that could be done for Bob, who was taken to Gabriel’s church where he was allowed to spend his final hours with Sasha.

The Walking Dead executive producer Greg Nicotero explained in detail the story behind Bob’s death and why it happened. Bob’s death was borrowed from the original graphic novel story of Dale. In the comics, it was Dale who made the big “tainted meat” reveal after seeing his leg being eaten by the cannibals. Since Dale had died in season 2, this fate had to be given to a different character.

The writers and producers chose this person to be Bob because, as Nicotero explained in an interview with THR, “it was sadly just Bob’s time to go.” It was determined that The Walking Dead should be done with him because he had fulfilled his purpose, which was to propel Sasha’s story forward. Nicotero said the decision for Bob to get Dale’s comic ending was made when they started planning the Terminus arc. According to Greg Nicotero, Bob is an example of a character that the writers originally wanted to keep, but went in a different direction for the sake of the story. Nicotero also said they wanted to stay close to the source material, which indicates that killing characters who weren’t supposed to die yet was off the table. In regard to Bob’s story, they had already deviated from the comics by keeping him with the group, as the comic character stayed in Woodbury and lived the rest of his life there.

It was unfortunate that Bob didn’t make it to Alexandria with the rest of the main characters in season 5, but he did contribute some interesting stories to the series, due in part to his struggle with alcohol addiction. As noted by Nicotero, he also had a lot to do with Sasha’s character development. She ended up growing into one of the show’s most important characters until her own death in The Walking Dead season 8, and a large part of that was thanks to Bob’s influence.

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