All good things must end. But it’s how they end that’s important.
The final eight episodes of AMC’s mega-hit The Walking Dead series will begin Oct. 2. And, despite the fact that the zombies will continue shambling in some fashion in three new spinoffs next year, the creative folks behind the mothership are concentrating on wrapping up things in the main show as neatly as possible.
When chief content officer Scott M. Gimple addressed the 11th and final season of TWD during the recent San Diego Comic Con, he said they were “going off the assumption that we were continuing to go for a while. And then things changed.” Still and all, he added, I feel that it folded into some plans nicely.”
When discussing the end of the series, Gimple said “the finale is about completing The Walking Dead story–not setting up the spinoffs. There’s room for the spinoffs, but–full-on–The Walking Dead finale concludes the story of these 11 years. We didn’t want the spinoffs to get in the way of that satisfaction.”
Showrunner Angela Kang–who co-wrote the series finale directed by Greg Nicotero–agreed with that assessment. “I think the goal is that–even if there were no spinoffs–it would feel like there is a closure to the show itself.”
The show, Kang stressed, “needs its own ending. But doors are left open–as they so often are in life–and as they were even in the ending of the comic. There’s always a story that’s continuing once the story that you tell on the screen has ended.”
The Walking Dead: The Last Episodes will air on AMC and AMC+, and the three planned spinoffs will hit the network sometime next year. Stay tuned for the exact dates. In addition, AMC will tease these new series in The Walking Dead Universe Preview live special Aug. 7.
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