Warning: SPOILERS ahead for The Walking Dead season 11, episode 22The Walking Dead director and executive producer Greg Nicotero says the show's series finale will harken back to older episodes of the series. The series finale of The Walking Dead is set to air on Sunday, November 20th on AMC and AMC+, wrapping up the story of the show's core survivors while setting the stage for 3 upcoming spinoffs next year. The series finale promises to be an action-packed ending to the show, which has been running on AMC since 2010, marking the end of an era for the popular zombie franchise.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Nicotero teased that The Walking Dead's series finale would have a similar feel to the first 3 seasons of the show. Having teased a massive Walker herd for the episode before, the series finale director believes viewers will enjoy not only the content of the episode, but the familiar atmosphere of previous seasons as well. Check out what Nicotero had to say below:
We really wanted to pull The Walking Dead back into a season 1, 2, 3 vibe. We really wanted to make sure that the walker threat was real, that the stakes were high, and that they needed to do what they could do to save their community. There's a lot of emotion, there's some fantastic moments, there's some fun action scenes. And we even kind of upped the gore a little bit more than we usually do, which I know a lot of people like. So I do think that it feels like a bit of a throwback episode because it's propulsive and it's nonstop and it really just keeps going. And then, all of a sudden, you get to this moment where you are forced to feel something, and I'm pretty proud of it.
What Will Happen In The Walking Dead Series Finale?
With Nicotero teasing the feeling of early seasons in the show's final episode, The Walking Dead series finale is shaping up to be an exciting event, especially for longtime fans of the franchise. The most recent episode of the show saw Mercer freeing Eugene from prison, the red-armored Commonwealth commander deciding to fully commit to a revolt against Pamela Milton and her corrupt rule of his community. Season 11, episode 22 also saw Ezekiel save Negan from sacrificing himself, fully realizing the former Savior as a reformed man. These shifts in alliance from the latest Walking Dead episode mean that anything could transpire in the show's finale.
Having the series finale feel like an early episode of the show could also mean big character moments for the core survivors. Early seasons of the show hinged on the inner workings of Rick Grimes' group, both what tore them apart in some ways, and what brought them together in others. With that in mind, the series finale may have lasting, memorable moments for the show's major characters, ones that allow for their core identities to shine through. The end of the series may also set up the 3 Walking Dead spinoffs AMC has planned for 2023, using character-centric scenes to set up the future of the franchise.
The emotion mentioned by Nicotero also indicates the series finale isn't going to be an entirely happy affair. At the time of writing, the only core survivor to have died in season 11 of the show is Alden, who succumbed to an injury offscreen sometime before season 11, episode 9. Due to the lack of major, heroic character deaths in the show's final season, it's possible the series finale will have a sizable body count to make up for it. While Norman Reedus has joked The Walking Dead finale will kill everyone off, there's still the chance that major characters truly won't survive into the upcoming spinoffs. How The Walking Dead series finale plays out remains to be seen, but Nicotero's statement promises memorable bookends for the zombie franchise's flagship series.
Source: EW