Can a Time Skip Fix The Walking Dead?

Warning: Possible spoilers ahead for The Walking Dead season 8

By now, most fans of The Walking Dead would have seen the first trailer for the show's eighth season released at this year's San Diego Comic Con. After showcasing a bevy of action sequences between the forces of the Saviors and the alliance of Alexandria, The Hilltop and The Kingdom, the clip threw a curveball of almighty proportions and revealed an older Rick Grimes waking up in bed with a walking cane near by.

Comic fans got the reference instantly. In the print version of The Walking Dead, the battle between Rick and Negan is immediately followed by a two-year time skip, with the protagonist now walking with a cane thanks to a particularly nasty injury sustained during the battle. Assuming the Old Man Rick scene in the trailer isn't part of a dream sequence - because let's face it, that would be terrible - it seems as if the comic time skip will be coming to the AMC adaptation of The Walking Dead in season eight.

And for some, this will come as potentially very good news. The show's most recent season had plenty going for it with an exciting new villain, a selection of fantastic action set-pieces and all the usual gripping drama fans have come to expect. Yet critical reception to The Walking Dead season seven was decidedly mixed and, perhaps more importantly, viewership drop-off between the season's premiere and finale episodes was significant. With a time skip seemingly on the horizon (potentially as early as the season premiere), can a leap into the future turn around The Walking Dead's fortunes and bring back lost viewers?

Old Man Rick

Our current best guess about what the trailer's final scene means is that, at some point in season eight, The Walking Dead's narrative will jump forward a few years. It's perhaps also worth noting that Rick looks quite a bit older in the scene than just the two years skipped in the comic books, so the TV show may possibly be heading even further into the future.

In either case, the leader of Alexandria being older and permanently injured could have a sizeable impact on the whole nature of the show. No longer will Rick be the all-action ex-cop of old, and the character's days of kicking down doors, assault rifle in hand, and redecorating rooms with the entrails of the resurrected dead look very much numbered. But if Rick can't be on the front-lines of battle, a new role surely awaits.

Rick has often struggled with leadership in The Walking Dead, taking such positions either reluctantly or forcefully but once the battle with the Saviors is settled, the time skip could see the character become a more traditional leader, somewhat akin to a politician. No doubt fans will see Grimes Sr. turn up the aggression when the situation calls for it - the comic books have shown as much - but for the most part, the older Rick will likely be involved more in power struggles and keeping his community together than in zombie killing and all out war.

This could be positive news for those unsatisfied with season seven of The Walking Dead. One of the foremost criticisms from fans was that the cycle of "enemy group appears - Rick defeats them - live in peace - repeat" was wearing a little thin and taking Rick away from his usual role as a fighting leader will surely help break up that repetition. And with characters like Daryl, Carl and Michonne on hand, the show's overall action levels wouldn't need to drop as a result.

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='The%20Negan%20Issue']

Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan in The Walking Dead with Lucille.

The Negan Issue

Many people have greatly enjoyed Jeffrey Dean Morgan's portrayal as The Walking Dead's current big baddie, Negan. The character is simultaneously charming and menacing and delivers one-liners with consistent panache. However, it's probably also fair to say that the villain hasn't quite been the game-changer producers were expecting him to be and, consequently, Negan's post-time skip fate has become difficult to predict.

In the comic series, Negan gradually becomes more of a sympathetic figure after the conclusion of All Out War and transforms into something more or less resembling a protagonist. Had TV Negan been as much of a hit as his comic counterpart (and assuming Jeffrey Dean Morgan was willing) the same would've likely occurred in the AMC series but with a number of fans struggling to connect with the character, it's difficult to say whether Negan will stick around after the time skip or whether he'll be written out, with the show cutting its losses on the character.

Although many of season seven's detractors may prefer Negan meet his demise in the coming season, having him stick around à la the comic books would arguably be a better move in terms of revitalizing the show and helping it to feel fresh. The character's turn from villain to antihero to almost-good-guy is an intriguing story waiting to be told and is a route The Walking Dead have yet to go down, with all previous main antagonists killed off or abandoned.

Negan's struggle to win over some sections of the fandom can't be blamed on the actor nor the writing and perhaps have more to do with the inherent difficulty in translating a character famous for his creatively obscene use of swearing and sexual references onto the small screen. As such, if the time skip allows Negan to return in a more sympathetic light, it won't just allow The Walking Dead to tell a fresh story but might also bring out the best in Negan's character too.

The New World

Having already allied themselves with The Hilltop and The Kingdom, the world of The Walking Dead is only going to get larger for Rick Grimes and co. after the time skip, especially if the TV jump forward is longer than two years. It's almost certain that viewers are going to see a setting much closer to civilization than has previously been used on the show. With festivals, factories and farms, many of the survivalist themes in The Walking Dead will be significantly lessened, with the focus instead on building a new world and of course, protecting it from outside threats.

Although this may help freshen up the show in the sense that the days of wandering around anonymous, tree-lined roads looking for shelter and food will be properly over, the new, larger communities may not necessarily placate those who found season seven to be lacking. Indeed, one of the biggest recent criticisms of The Walking Dead has been that the role of the zombies has diminished in favor of human-on-human conflicts. Obviously, the bigger Alexandria becomes, the less of a threat the zombies outside are, so anyone looking to see a return to prominence of the Living Dead may not find much joy post-time skip. Until The Whisperers show up, that is.

Clearly then, if The Walking Dead goes down the time skip route after the war with the Saviors, there is definitely potential for some fresh elements to be introduced. Whether that's because of Rick taking on a new role, Negan being lured away from the Dark Side or Alexandria becoming a burgeoning community, The Walking Dead is sure to have a different feel come season nine.

But some of the criticized elements will still remain. Although forthcoming villains The Whisperers are very different from Negan and the Saviors, they continue the cycle of baddies attempting to take down Rick and his gang. Having said that, the new villains will be warmly received by those who have missed zombies being the show's biggest threat. Perhaps then, even if The Walking Dead does introduce a raft of changes after the time skip, the show still won't be able to please all of the fans all of the time.