'The Walking Dead' Season 8 News, Release Date: New Installment's Premiere Will Address Aged Rick, EP Confirms
Fans of "The Walking Dead" were surprised when the trailer for season 8 showed an old Rick sporting a grey beard and lying in bed with his cane nearby. After the trailer was unveiled, there were speculations that the upcoming installment would feature a major time jump, which also happened in the original "The Walking Dead" comic books on which the AMC series is based on.
During the AMC panel at the Television Critics Association event, "The Walking Dead" executive producer Robert Kirkman confirmed that the old Rick featured in the trailer will appear in the premiere episode of the series' new season. However, he did not say if it was the result of an actual time jump, as most fans speculate.
"Or was it a time jump? I don't know. Maybe it was Rick waking up from his coma. Wouldn't that be weird?" Kirkman said. He also explained that the part where Rick is shown as an old man may be intriguing, but they included it in the plot on purpose. According to him, it was up to the fans to figure out how that scene fits into the story.
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"Comic book fans know where a scene that kind of looked like that would fall, but it also doesn't seem like we would be getting to that just yet if you were a comic book fan, so there's a mystery to that," the executive producer added.
Although Rick waking up from a coma is a plausible explanation for the old Rick scene in the trailer, it is also possible that this theory might be wrong, considering how the TV series has deviated from its original source a lot of times since its debut.
The SDCC trailer for "The Walking Dead" season 8 garnered at least 31 million views in just four days after it was released, making it the most viewed trailer for a TV series in history.
"The Walking Dead" season 8 will premiere on Oct. 22 on AMC.
