The last ever Walking Dead trailer was just dropped at this years San Diego Comic Con and I don’t know if I should be sad, excited, or a little of both. On the one hand, my favorite show of the last ten years is coming to an end, but what is store for the future of the franchise has me excited. We still have the Daryl spinoff coming, Isle of the Dead (which is filming as I write this article), Fear of the Walking Dead, Rick movies (which announcements finally were released on having a Rick and Michonne spinoff show first), and Tales of The Walking Dead (which I will put out a separate article for but is debuting on August 14th), but nothing will live up to the original, flagship show, The Walking Dead. I knew this trailer was coming but it still gets me sad knowing that by the end of this year, my favorite show will be over. We got a release date for episode 17, which is October 2nd, and I assume it will appear on AMC+ on September 25th. This means that The Walking Dead will officially end on November 20th (November 13th on AMC+). My three hopes for the end of this show is to kill off as many characters that don’t fit into any possible spinoff shows, Rick Grimes to return in the series finale, and to end on a high note so we don’t have a Game of Thrones or Dexter incident that leaves a sour taste in everyone’s mouth. And before you say, this show died years ago… Yes in theory, this show died when they killed off Carl in season 8, but season 10 and 11 were the best seasons of this show since season 5, and I can’t wait what AMC and Angela Kang brings us in the last eight episodes! Cue the waterworks because they’ll definitely come sooner rather than later…
Before I unpack this trailer, having a recap of seasons 1-10 was a great touch at the beginning. It had everything from Rick’s first scene, Sophia’s death, Michonne arriving at the end of season 3, Beth’s death, Terminus, Saviors, and Whisperer’s. If that doesn’t get you ready for the last eight episodes, I don’t know what will. The main storyline of the last eight episode will be exposing the Milton’s on who they really are and how/why Lance got captured and put in jail. Connie and Kelly were working on a story in the last part to try to see what The Commonwealth is really like and has a ton of people on a list to expose the community. We will get answers to what the community is really like and I feel like Lance and Mercer will be the keys to that question. The trailer starts off with Lance held up in jail. I have no idea how he got there in the first place because we saw him take over every community in the last scene of episode 16. My prediction is he is either going to get captured by Daryl and company to help them expose The Commonwealth or he is put there by Pamela Milton because she went against her orders of wiping out the whole Oceanside community, she got pissed, threw him in jail, and this is why Lance will help the survivors. I hope Lance isn’t a character they will kill off in the series finale because I think he has the keys of the CRM and how every show will tie together for the Rick movie, and instead kill the Milton’s in the series finale. One thing to note that I thought was the best line in the trailer was by the one of the best, Negan. Someone asks him “Do you know who you are talking to” and Negan comes back with “Do you know who YOU are talking to.” Once again, Negan is saving this show with Jeffery Dean Morgan’s charisma, one line at a time.
At the end of the trailer, Aaron exposes a theory about a new walker variant that he learned about. The new walkers can climb walls and open doors… This is a callback to season 1 where Frank Darabont had walkers hold stuff but this mainly connects back to the final scene in World Beyond. Dr. Jenner believes that the walkers can evolve and already are becoming faster than they normally were in the beginning. This will be an interesting dynamic to the show because all of the communities are currently surrounded by walls and if they can just climb over them, every community is at risk. Maybe this is why the whole vibe of the last trailer was sad and emotional because as I said at the top, kill off as many characters that will not have any ties or possibility to either join a spinoff or start their own. This is why I believe a lot of characters are at risk for this season. I will do a death predictions a few weeks before episode 17 airs but I will tell you a few that I believe that will have a big probability of not making it through to the end. Pamela Milton for sure, either “Max” or Mercer, one of the people in Connie’s group, Gabriel, Elijah, one of the kids (not Judith), and either Rosita or Eugene…