The Walking Dead has gone through six separate phases over its first 114 episodes: Atlanta, Hershel’s farm, the prison, Terminus, Alexandria without Negan, and Alexandria with Negan. But although the settings have changed and the body count continues to grow (only one actor who received opening credits billing in season one, Andrew Lincoln, is still around), The Walking Dead has always been one distinct entity. But following Sunday’s season eight finale, “Wrath,” showrunner-turned-chief content officer Scott Gimple (his replacement is Angela Kang) promises AMC’s biggest hit will turn into a “new show.”
“This episode isn’t just like these 15 episodes coming to a conclusion, but Angela and myself and the writers had always talked about this in many ways being sort of the conclusion of the first eight seasons,” he explained. “This show will be very much a new show next year and with a bigger, new narrative. It was something I was really excited about getting into even before season eight. And so there was just a certain weight in the air of the kind of conclusion that we were getting closer to. It was a weird graduation for everybody.”
The end of this Walking Dead era coincides with the premiere of Fear the Walking Dead season four, including the first character crossover between the series. As for the finale, though, Gimple remarked, “With [so] many characters reaching the conclusion of the story that we’ve been laying out for them over the past few years in some regards, there’s just a lot going on, and a lot of perspectives that we’re shifting between and some very, very big emotional and philosophical movement between just some unbelievably insane things happening.” It’s not the actual series finale, however — that’s decades away.
(Via Entertainment Weekly)