The Walking Dead

Even as The Walking Dead keeps Carl alive as a symbol of hope for the future, it stands to reason Chandler Riggs will eventually leave the series behind. That prospect got more immediate with word Riggs would soon be attending college, for which the Walking Dead star says of the balancing act “It wouldn’t be easy but I think that could be possible.”

It’s no secret that Seasons 6 and 7 of The Walking Dead have proven more divisive than usual, between the buildup to Negan’s arrival, the months-long wait to identify his victim(s), and subsequent brutality. Season 7 hasn’t felt the same since, and according to ratings data, enough viewers have subsequently tuned out to reach a multi-season low.

The Walking Dead finally returned us to the Hilltop with Sunday’s “Go Getters,” in the process mounting one of the more inventive action scenes of zombie carnage in several seasons. The staging itself left more than a few fans scratching their heads by the end, for which star Tom Payne now reveals that several sequences were missing from the final cut.

The Walking Dead isn’t known for elaborate fan-sleuthing (save a dumpster-dive or two), thought it seemed impossibly coincidental that placement of a Morse Code chart and an unusual Rick-Daryl interaction weren’t intentional this past week. Well, sorry to burst your Reddit bubble, but showrunner Scott Gimple says it might just have been a sunny day.

We live in an age of fan-theories, where Westworld twists might be unlocked on Reddit after one episode, though as The Walking Dead proved with #DumpsterGate last year, it isn’t always worth the wait. Some clever fans have observed at least one background detail that might put this past Sunday’s “Service” into perspective, however, and tease Rick’s plan to strike back.

AMC isn’t one to look a rotting gift horse like The Walking Dead in the mouth, extending its highest-rated series so long as creator Robert Kirkman provides comic source material. That relationship doesn’t necessarily extend both ways, however, as Kirkman acknowledges AMC has zero input or foreknowledge of any potential story shakeups.

Look, we’re all a little stressed out by the election, and seeing Trump-monsters everywhere we look. Some fans even thought The Walking Dead might have taken that notion literally this past Sunday, but fear not; no such attempts to make the zombie apocalypse great again occurred, at least intentionally, per AMC.

Chances are, you’ve heard of a few odd easter eggs linking The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad, even going so far as to posit that the zombie apocalypse occurred shortly after the events of Breaking Bad’s final season. If not, allow Netflix to literally draw those connections for you, while we purchase supplies for a giant cork board.

Jeffrey Dead Morgan is something of a TV vagabond, to the point that few expected to see him in another horror-tinged genre series while Supernatural was still airing. Now that the erstwhile papa Winchester has found a home cracking skulls on The Walking Dead, however, Supernatural star Jensen Ackles is having a bit of fun over Twitter.

Whether or not The Walking Dead justified its Season 7 guessing game by the reveal of Negan’s victim(s!) this past Sunday, few would argue the sequence itself reached a disgusting new height of gore effects, practical and otherwise. See for yourself, as new behind-the-scenes shots reveal some eye-popping makeup you’ll want to see before lunch.