Forever.
Well, not really forever, but for a long, long time. When show and comic creator Robert Kirkman wrote this introduction to The Walking Dead comic back in 2003, he envisioned a story that would cover “years of Rick Grimes’ life” in the post-apocalyptic landscape. Read this interesting tidbit from Kirkman’s intro to the series:
For me the worst part of every zombie movie is the end. I always want to know what happens next. Even when all the characters die at the end… I just want it to keep going.
More often than not zombie movies feel like a slice of a person’s life until whoever is in charge of the movie gets bored. So we get to know the character, they have an adventure and then, BOOM, as soon as things start getting good… those pesky credits start rolling.
The idea behind the The Walking Dead is to stay with the character, in this case, Rick Grimes for as long as is humanly possible. I want The Walking Dead to be a chronicle of years of Rick’s life. We will NEVER wonder what happens to Rick next, we will see it. The Walking Dead will be the zombie movie that never ends.
Well… not for a good long time at least.
So far, it’s theorized that more than 500 days have been covered in the TV show thus far which means that through five seasons of gore, we’ve seen about a year and a half of Rick’s life. If we say that Kirkman’s “years” amounts to at least three years, that means we’ll have The Walking Dead on for at least 10 seasons. And, that doesn’t include the spin-off. Realistically, TWD could really go on forever. It’s like ER, in which the settings and dilemmas create drama that a cast of revolving characters can interact with.
Another interesting item from the intro is that Rick is the true core of the series, which means that when he dies, so will the show. Does that mean the very last episode of TWD will feature Rick’s death? What do you think will happen?
