Bloated well walker

"Good thing we didn't do anything stupid, like shoot it."

- T-Dog

The bloated well walker is the name attributed to a fictional zombie character featured on the AMC television series The Walking Dead. Played by actor Brian Hillard, it appeared in episode four of season two, "Cherokee Rose".

Biography
Known only as the "bloated well walker", this being was once a human whose true name and history is completely unknown. Following the zombie plague that swept the nation, this man was turned into a walker and had the misfortune of stepping on the rotting wooden slats covering up a water well at the Greene farm and falling down inside. He must have been in the well for quite some time, for his body had absorbed large quantities of water and he was completely bloated.

When Rick Grimes' survivor group came to the Greene farm, Dale Horvath asked Maggie Greene about their water situation. She noted that they had five wells on the property and indicated one that was used primarily for feeding the cattle. When the group opened the well cover, they discovered the bloated walker at the bottom, snarling and stumbling about in a circle. T-Dog suggested shooting it in head, but the others thought this to be a terrible idea as there was no way of knowing if the excessive viscera might contaminate the water flow. Their only other option was to haul it out of the well in one piece.

They tried baiting it into a snare by lowering a ham down on a rope, but the walker had no interest in cold meat, it only wanted living flesh. Once again, everyone's favorite "walker bait", Glenn Rhee, was elected to serve as a veritable fishing lure so they could snare the walker. They lowered Glenn down the well on a rope with the other end wrapped around a pipeline. The pipe tore loose from its moorings and Glenn began to drop. The others scrambled to pull him up and Glenn began to panic as the bloated walker reached up towards him. Despite his fear, Glenn still managed to sling the snare about the over-sized carcass and scrambled back to the surface.

Everyone began hoisting the fat bastard to the surface with all their strength, but just as the walker's body crested the surface of the opening, it tore in half, with the lower half spilling back down into the well, thus defeating their efforts to keep the water line pure. In a display of intense frustration, T-Dog bashed the creature's head to pulp with a pipe wrench. Afterward, he sarcastically remarked, "Good thing we didn't do anything stupid, like shoot it."

Notes & Trivia



 * Discounting flashback scenes, the Blated well walker is the only walker character featured in "Cherokee Rose".


 * Actor Brian Hillard is credited as Brian Keith Hillard in "Cherokee Rose".


 * There is a logical inconsistency concerning the group's plan to fish the walker out of the well. The idea is that they need to keep him intact so that his internal organs and bodily fluids do not contaminate the drinking water. However, walkers are always sloughing off various body parts and dripping ooze, so it is unrealistic to think that the water in the well would not be contaminated already.


 * Brian Hillard is actually a makeup effects designer and mold maker. Despite the character that he plays in "Cherokee Rose", Hillard is actually quite slender.
 * The bloated well walker was featured in the documentary short "In the Dead Water", which was featured on disc four of the The Walking Dead: The Complete Second Season Blu-ray collection. Brian Keith Hillard is erroneously credited as Brian Gross in this feature. Brian Gross is a different actor altogether who appeared in films such as 2001 Maniacs, Knifepoint and Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman.


 * Special effects director Greg Nicotero designed the body-suit that Brian Keith Hillard wore in the scene. He mentions how the abdomen was filled with water balloons to help give the character the bloated effect, and that he used bladders for the bulging eyes for right before the walker is torn apart. Green and brown fluid were mixed with the intestines and the prop rig (sans actor) was set to a timer to tear in half.


 * Producer Denise Huth has said that the "walker in the well" is her favorite walker on the series to date.


 * A collectible mini-bust of the Bloated well walker was released on November 16th, 2013 by Gentle Giant, LTD.