AMC’s "The Walking Dead" had its big midseason finale yesterday, and fans are understandably broken up about the death of one of the show most beloved characters, Beth Greene, played by 29-year old Emily Kinney.

But so, too, is one of the actors of the gory horror-drama who had plenty of time to see it all coming and prepare for the shock. Norman Reedus, who plays Daryl Dixon in the series, called in Entertainment Weekly Radio (SiriusXM, channel 105) and said he woke up “sad” and “depressed” this morning after watching the episode last night and having to experience Beth’s death all over again.

Of the Tom Waits-loving character who is no more, Reedus, as quoted in Entertainment Weekly, observed:

“She was such a beacon of hope, that girl. She sang and she had a positive outlook and she was hopeful. All these little slivers of hope are being taken from this group one by one.”

In an apocalyptic zombie series like "The Walking Dead" things obviously have to get really bad before getting any better.

Speaking of the current plight facing the "The Walking Dead" characters, Reedus said: “It just gets worse and worse and worse. Humanity and the goodness in people is slowly being evaporated from their world. I think she was a big beacon of hope for us, and to watch her go is just devastating.”

Emily Kinney was herself pretty shocked and devastated when she first found out that her character would bite the bullet.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, when she got the script, she had a meeting with "The Walking Dead" showrunner Scott Gimple, who didn’t explain why the beloved Beth was being killed off but said it was something he had been planning since season four.

Although according to the Daily Beast, which noted the onset absence of Kinney during the second half of the season, Beth’s death should hardly have come as a surprise; it was, in the end, one of more gratifying ways to get killed off the show, as the character honed her actions toward heroism and smiled as she helped that Noah kid escape.