Everybody knows the dead come back to life in Robert Kirkman's world, but which fallen characters should rise from the grave all over again in Tales of The Walking Dead? The main series may be ending with season 11, yet The Walking Dead staggers on via a looming crowd of spinoffs, ranging from a Rick Grimes movie to a Daryl and Carol series. Also on the slate is anthology series, Tales of the Walking Dead.
Tales of the Walking Dead promises individual, one-off stories from across the franchise's timeline. Unrestricted to any one era (or, indeed, any one show), Tales of the Walking Dead can feature entirely new characters, current cast members and, most intriguingly, old favorites who already met their demise in the zombie apocalypse. Tales of the Walking Dead has a unique opportunity to tell fresh stories with actors whose time on the show already came to an end.
The only question is who gets an invitation. The Walking Dead is famously trigger-happy when it comes to its main cast, leaving Tales of The Walking Dead an embarrassment of riches to pick from. Which characters deserve an undead reprisal? And which parts of their journeys should Tales of the Walking Dead tell?
Glenn
Steven Yeun's Glenn Rhee would surely be the jewel in Tales of The Walking Dead's crown - if the actor can be tempted back into the horde. Despite following Robert Kirkman's original comic story, Glenn's death at the hands of Negan is arguably The Walking Dead's most controversial character exit, remembered for its brutal violence and brutally frustrating cliffhanger. After Yeun left the undead world behind, he found huge acclaim starring in Minari, proving how drastically The Walking Dead underutilized his acting chops. Glenn appearing in Tales of The Walking Dead could ease the bitter taste that death left in audience's mouths, but also offer Steven Yeun something meaty and introspective to work with.
If the age difference isn't too obvious, Tales of the Walking Dead could show Glenn's travails early in the apocalypse, before he stumbled across Rick Grimes cowering in a tank. There's certainly a story to be told in how a humble pizza delivery guy wrapped his head around the dead coming back to life, then transformed into the hero audiences know and love. Alternatively, the tentative first days of Glenn and Maggie's romance are ripe for exploration - and carry extra emotional weight now their son, Hershel, is pottering around in The Walking Dead season 11.
Tyreese & Sasha
A double-dose of wasted characters in The Walking Dead, the Williams siblings - Tyreese and Sasha - left the AMC series with considerably more still to offer. Since swapping the rural forests of Georgia for the halls of her own starship, Sonequa Martin-Green has been a revelation as Star Trek: Discovery's Michael Burnham. By contrast, Sasha's most memorable Walking Dead moment can only be her gnarly death emerging from a coffin to surprise-attack the Saviors. Chad Coleman's Tyreese, meanwhile, never found an opportunity to evolve into his mighty comic book counterpart, who served as Rick Grimes' right-hand man during The Walking Dead's prison arc.
Tales of the Walking Dead could pick up with Sasha and Tyreese before their introduction to the main show. We know they spent the first months of the zombie apocalypse sheltering in their neighbor's bunker, before heading into the wild and forming the small group Rick and co. later encounter. Exploring that period can add color to the Sasha/Tyreese sibling relationship after The Walking Dead largely ignored it.
Morales
There's a big gap in Morales' Walking Dead journey. The franchise OG and his family featured throughout The Walking Dead season 1, but departed Rick's group before they wound up at the CDC. Morales eventually returned in The Walking Dead season 8 as a member of Negan's Saviors, his wife and children dead and his psyche fractured by years alone on the road. Morales' trials and tribulations between splitting from the main cast and falling in with the Saviors represents the kind of Walking Dead mini-arc the Tales of the Walking Dead spinoff was designed for - a story of violence and tragedy that connects directly to the wider narrative. Watching Morales' Savior appearance would mean more knowing the pain he endured beforehand.
Merle
Michael Rooker's Merle became a highlight of The Walking Dead's earlier seasons - the rougher, more primal, villainous side to the Dixon brother coin. Abandoned by Rick Grimes' group in season 1, the hard-nosed, bigoted thug returned as one of the Governor's soldiers in The Walking Dead season 3, before betraying his new leader and getting shot for his troubles. While there are gaps in his post-apocalyptic timeline, Merle is one of few Walking Dead characters with an interesting enough backstory from before the outbreak that merits a Tales of the Walking Dead episode all to itself.
Merle's origin has been partially covered in digital form by The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, touching upon his time in the military and unsavory involvement in crystal meth. That colorful past serves as the perfect foundation for an anthology offering, reuniting Michael Rooker with Norman Reedus and taking a deep-dive into the Dixon brothers' relationship, as well as their troubled upbringing, all to give Walking Dead fans a better understanding of how they became the men they did.
Abraham
Michael Cudlitz's Abraham Ford is a natural pick for a Tales of the Walking Dead venture. Debuting in The Walking Dead season 4, Abraham immediately established himself among the leading cast until his untimely demise alongside Glenn during the season 6 finale Lucillegate incident. Since moving away from onscreen duties, however, Michael Cudlitz has remained tied to the Walking Dead world, directing episodes of the main show, as well as AMC's World Beyond spinoff. Still an intrinsic member of the franchise in 2022, it's high time Cudlitz dusted off his vest to give Abraham a final day in the sun.
Abraham Ford already has an oven-ready anthology story waiting to be told. Flashback scenes in The Walking Dead season 5 showed how the fiery-mustached veteran lost his family early in the apocalypse, then found direction protecting Eugene, who lied about being a scientist with knowledge on how to stop the outbreak. They later met up with Rosita, and the trio undoubtedly experienced many a gory adventure before first encountering Rick Grimes.
Siddiq
As the man Carl Grimes sacrificed himself to rescue, Siddiq is an absolutely vital character in The Walking Dead's long history - even if the good doctor was bumped off by an undercover Whisperer within 3 seasons. Another character with more to offer than viewers saw on The Walking Dead, Siddiq's backstory before meeting Carl offers Tales of the Walking Dead an excitingly blank slate. Very little has been revealed about Avi Cash's survivor pre-outbreak, only that he would kill zombies to "release" them, honoring his mother's wishes. That leaves years of potential undead misadventures to explore with Siddiq, and the chance to add new shades to a character that so often got pushed into the background in the main Walking Dead series.
Jesus
Paul "Jesus" Rovia is the hard-kicking, man-bun-wearing recruiter of Hilltop, memorably played by Tom Payne. Despite making an impact during his 3-and-a-bit seasons in The Walking Dead, Jesus never came close to capturing the importance and nuance of his comic book counterpart before being unceremoniously stabbed by a Whisperer. Alas, it's the relationship with Aaron that saw The Walking Dead truly drop the Jesus ball. During the 6-year time-skip following Rick Grimes' disappearance, Jesus and Aaron appeared to build some semblance of inter-community romance... but The Walking Dead barely scratched the surface of their feelings. Tales of the Walking Dead can finally add substance to whatever Aaron and Jesus built together, and how they valiantly attempted to unite Alexandria and Hilltop while the communities' respective leaders were at odds.