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[SPOILER ALERT: Read on only if you have already watched Sunday’s “Thank You” episode of

Well, there is one person we know for sure died in that big scene from last night’s

, and his name is Nicholas. The character’s road to redemption hit a major speed bump when he and Glenn found themselves on top of a dumpster surrounded by zombies. A dazed and confused Nicholas got a moment of clarity and then blew his own brains out, causing both him and Glenn to fall to the ground where we know at least one of them was devoured.

The man who played Nicholas, Michael Traynor, called into

Radio (SiriusXM, channel 105) on Monday morning to discuss the big scene with Jessica Shaw and yours truly. And while he would not reveal whether Glenn was actually dead or alive, he provided insight and intel for why things went down the way they did, what filming that scene was like, whether Nicholas is a coward or a hero, and what memento he may have scored from the set. (Read through both pages for the entire interview, and also make sure to read our verdict on whether Glenn is really dead or alive.)

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How and when did you first find out about Nicholas’ fate here in episode 3?

MICHAEL TRAYNOR: Before we started shooting season 6, [showrunner] Scott Gimple was lovely enough and brave enough to give me a call and talk about their ideas and plans for the Nicholas story line. And I really think that was a commendable thing to do, because to tell an actor, “Hey, your time on this amazing job may be short-lived,” is a really brave thing to handle.

Nicholas lasts much longer in the comic version. Did you think you might be around a bit longer when you got this role knowing he stuck around for a while?

You always hope. It’s one of the best jobs you can imagine. But I find that in so many brilliant ways, the way that Scott pilots this show and this behemoth of a storyline — this is a really exciting deviation from the comics. I was excited to be a part of that storyline and just have Nicholas recede into the background and be another one of the army behind Rick.

I thought it was a very interesting continuation of the argument of not only is humanity an attribute that is a positive or negative in the apocalypse, but what are the elements of survival? Regardless whether you believe it, humans are inherently good or evil? What are these elements that it takes to survive in this harrowing experience? And I think you have the dichotomy of Glenn, who is always focusing on solutions, and somebody like Nicholas, who seems to have had a crisis of faith in himself and in the opportunity to survive. So I thought it was an interesting talking point. I keep thinking this show does stir both wild fan reaction and emotion and throwing of remote controls at TVs, but it also does have that conversation: How would you survive the apocalypse? What would you do? What does it take?

This final move of Nicholas’ could be interpreted one of two ways: So why do

think he pull the trigger? Is this a cowardly move of giving up, or is he sacrificing himself for Glenn, thinking the zombies will get me and maybe he can get out of here alive?

Going into it and talking to Michael Slovis, who directed the episode beautifully, and Angela Kang, who was on set and wrote that episode — we were all chatting about this moment and this final farewell to a man who had just so graciously, almost to a fault, saved Nicholas’s life. We wanted to keep it a little ambiguous, and I feel as though there was just a moment of gratitude because what Nicholas says in that moment to Glenn is in a moment of peace. And I don’t think Nicholas has found any kind of peace since this horrible plague befell humanity. And I think what he’s doing there is saying thank you for this bit of piece and this it of clarity. As far as what his real motivations were, I think there is still room to explore that in the storyline.

How hard was it to film that and say those last words?

It was kind of beautiful because my journey on the show mirrored Nicholas’ in that so many times Steven as an actor and as an elder statement saved me and helped me, and we talked through scenes. This was a big job for me and there was a lot of personal pressure I put on myself. And also you just want to tell a good story so there’s pressure for the job. It was kind of a beautiful thing to say “thank you” on camera to Steven and have that mirror in a strange way the Nicholas–Glenn storyline.

But chaos is also the perfect word. We had hundreds of extras around us, there were multiple cameras, there was a thriving mass of death around us, and this little moment. We only did it a few times because Michael Slovis was like, “No, we got it.” He was very confident in the story he wanted to tell and he knew when he had it.  It was both a beautiful moment and rather exhilarating.

Let’s go back to the beginning of the episode where we see Nicholas having these moments where he is freezing up and zoning out. Is this him having flashbacks to his role in the previous incident where a bunch of his comrades died and this is hitting him now? Is it the pressure of being chased by a herd? Is it the proximity of the town where the incident took place? Or maybe all of that?

That’s the way I was thinking of it. There are echoes of “we have a plan,” and then when the plan starts to go wrong, how do you handle that pressure of not just executing the plan, but of dealing with the bumps and the turns and the unexpected events? And he doesn’t handle that well. Again, the idea of — do you focus on the solution? Do you adjust and stay agile, or do you focus on what’s going wrong? And I think, unfortunately, Nicholas had a proclivity for focusing on all that what goes wrong and all that being uncontrolled and unraveling.

And there are those moments in season 5 where Aiden and Nicholas talk about this mission that got screwed up and they lost other Alexandrians. And then throughout this episode Nicholas is forced to go back and relive that — even encountering the remains of one of the guys who he left behind. So I think there is a haunting and a reliving of that failed plan.

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