'The Walking Dead' Season 8 Finale Spoilers: Fan-Favorite Character to Return
Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) will be reunited with his late son Carl in the season 8 finale of "The Walking Dead," but not in the way fans can remember Chandler Riggs' deceased character.
AMC sent out a new still photo from the season 8 finale episode titled "Wrath," showing a much-younger version of Carl while walking hand-in-hand with his father, who was wearing his sheriff uniform at that time.
The photo can remind viewers about the recollection that he mentioned in his final letter that he left Rick before his death in the midseason finale due to the wound inflicted by the walkers.
In the content of the letter that he wrote for Rick that was revealed in the previous episode, Carl can remember the time before the zombies emerged. He specifically mentioned the time when he and his father were walking in the fields, peacefully holding hands without fear of being bitten by the walkers or being threatened by the members of the Saviors.
"You holding my hand around the neighborhood, all the way to Ross' farm ... I didn't know that I remembered them, but I do," Carl wrote in the letter, as transcribed by Inverse. "Because I see the sun, and the corn, and that cow that walked up to the fence and looked me in the eye. And you told me about all that stuff, but it isn't just that stuff. It's how I felt. Holding your hand, I felt happy and special. I felt safe," he added.
While details about the upcoming finale remain scarce, Lincoln teased in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that the location where Rick and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) will have their final confrontation will not be at the Hilltop or the Savior's Sanctuary. Instead, it will happen somewhere else.
"The location we shot at was phenomenal and unusual," Lincoln stated, adding, "I hope that it's going to look on screen as good as it felt when we were shooting there." However, he did not mention exactly where the epic battle takes place and who will end up dead in the bloody war.
The actor also agreed with the previous statements from showrunner Scott M. Gimple, who said that the final moments of season 8 will wrap up the epic battle between Rick's men and the Saviors instead of ending with a cliffhanger.
"It does feel like it completes something," he also said. "But it also does feel that it offers a lot of interesting story arcs for the future, which is quite unusual," he continued.
The finale episode will also serve as Morgan's (Lennie James) last appearance for "The Walking Dead" before heading over to Texas as part of the premiere episode of the spinoff "Fear the Walking Dead's" latest season. This means that Rick's long-time friend will have to leave Alexandria and join the characters of the spinoff, with no reports yet if he will return to the parent series at the moment.
AMC is slated to air the finale of "The Walking Dead" season 8 on Sunday, April 15, at 9 p.m. EDT.