‘The Walking Dead’ Showrunner Previews The Final Season: “There’s Incredible Danger And Stakes”

It’s the beginning of the end for AMC’s venerable zombie franchise The Walking Dead, as the series will begin its extended final season this Sunday on AMC+, and the Sunday after on AMC proper. Stretching over 24 episodes and two years, it’ll be a while before you have to properly say goodbye to TWD. But with Season 11 kicking off, fans will definitely be scouring every inch of footage for clues about how it’ll all wrap up.

“Doing 24 episodes, it’s a huge undertaking,” showrunner Angela Kang told Decider. “So it’s also probably a huge undertaking to watch, but hopefully it’ll be an entertaining journey.”

Split into three, eight-episode long mini-arcs, The Walking Dead Season 11 picks up where a few extra episodes from Season 10 left off. While several members of the group are being held captive by an organized group of armored soldiers who are most likely part of a community called The Commonwealth, back in Alexandria things are in ruins. After the Whisperers’ massive attack last season, most of the community is scattered, broken and desperately in need of food. Add in simmering tensions between the returning Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), the man who murdered her husband, and you’ve got the society that Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) built and believed in on the brink of collapse.

To find out more about what to expect, and which characters you might want to keep an eye on in particular, read on.

Decider: This is such a broad, expansive show and cast. So heading into the final season, whatever you can tell us about it, what’s the story that needs to be told now? And who does it need to be told about?

Angela Kang: We do have this huge cast and there are multiple stories that are informing the first block of the episodes. But a few of the major ones are centered around, for example, Carol and Aaron as they’re holding down the fort at Alexandria, because there’s such difficulty rebuilding, and they’re faced with such scarcity. And so, that becomes just part of the heart of the season, as they’re trying to hold onto some sense of home for their chosen family.

And then of course, in a much more personal sense, we have the story with Maggie and Negan that runs through the season. We’re trying to deal with these ideas of: can there be forgiveness? Can there be rehabilitation? Are people stuck in the same emotional patterns, of behavioral patterns? Can you break out of it? Can you work with people that you don’t agree with, or that are your mortal enemy in a lot of ways? What kind of trust can there be?

So those were themes that we really felt were interesting to explore. And then the other one that I’ll call out… There’s lots of others in the tapestry, obviously. But we felt like there was a chance to tell a story about Daryl, this person who has lived through so much, and survived abuse, and fallen in with hard people before, and been perceived that way… What happens when he has to use those dark elements of the past to help him do something for the people that he loves and cares about so deeply now? And so, that felt like, from a character standpoint, a good place to push Daryl into very uncomfortable territory for him, as we’re in that final set of episodes for the season, and the series.

Yeah, you touched on this a little bit, but given this is stretching over two years, and I believe three, eight-episode blocks, how much of Season 11 is one cohesive story, versus little mini arcs that build up to something bigger?

There are some mini-arcs that build up to something bigger. Doing 24 episodes, it’s a huge undertaking. So it’s also probably a huge undertaking to watch, but hopefully it’ll be an entertaining journey. We, as the writers, think the show has always kind of been like every eight episodes, we kind of go into a new cycle of story, while some stories are carrying and building across time. So that’s very much a version of the structure we have here, where you will follow an arc for a while, but another arc is rising under it. And then things crash into each other. There’s a variety of arcs that are much longer versus shorter, or sometimes even very, very self-contained

Walking Dead has always pushed this idea that “nobody is safe.” And sometimes it’s true. Sometimes it’s not. I mean, certainly there’s some characters that fans like to refer to as having plot armor, but since you’re heading into these final 24 episodes, other than Carol and Daryl, of course, who we know who are going into their own spinoff, does it allow you as a writer to really take that plot armor off and go back to that ethos?

In our world, there’s only that sense of danger that lingers. And so, hopefully, we always feel that nobody’s safe, even if it feels like there’s plot armor, because there are just so many different kinds of danger. And we know from the comic book, it’s not a story where everybody dies at the end. It’s a story that it’s more about how civilization builds itself. But within that, of course, there’s incredible danger and stakes. And so, that’s what we’re going for, as we try to stay true to the spirit of the story.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

The Walking Dead episodes stream a week early starting Sunday, August 15 on AMC+, followed by the broadcast premiere Sunday, August 22 at 9/8c on AMC.

Where to watch The Walking Dead