Where Does 'The Walking Dead' Go From Here?

The mid-season ending of The Walking Dead season eight proved one thing - everything we thought and expected from the series has been promptly thrown out the window.

In the last minute of fade out footage, we saw Carl slumped in a corner grasping a walker bite on his chest with Rick speechless by his side. It quickly comes to realise that in fact that not only was the entire episode a subtle homage to the young Grimes, but in fact, the season as a whole to that point had been laying the seeds of his demise.

Throughout the episode we see him penning a letter to his father, his attempt to sacrifice himself to Negan for the good of the community and even the end of his ‘gas can’ conversation with Rick which began eight episodes prior. Carl's selflessness and attempts to reinstall the humanity and greater good throughout his conversations with Rick point towards Carl actually suffering the bite two episodes earlier when attempting to save Siddiq.

This ‘gas can’ scene itself was a near shot for shot parallel of one featured way back in the first ever episode of TWD, originally showing Rick hunting for fuel, placing importance from Kirkman and the showrunners that we’ve entered a new phase of the show and that the father-son have reached their full circle.

We’d heard rumblings from actor Chandler Riggs who plays the young zombie slayer that he’d be heading to university and likely stepping back from acting, he’s since gone as far as to confirm that Carl is indeed going to be biting the big one - don’t expect any magical Glen dumpster tricks here.

So where does the show take it from here? The build of the season has been one of all-out war between the survivors and the saviours, splitting into smaller factions between Alexandria, The Hilltop and The Kingdom, the plot threads have been splayed out and it seems the future episodes of season eight will be pulling them right back in violently as the Saviours take back control and round up the remaining.

Fans of the graphic novel would know the importance of Carl's role in the future plot points on the inked pages, so with his death just one episode away there’s doubt cast over much of the shows future direction and not a great deal for us to draw reference too. Kirkman, Gimple and Nicotero have always tried to remind us that the show doesn’t necessarily follow the book's directions, hence the delivery of Daryl, but this was the largest deviation to date and one that brings a large unknown in the show's direction.

What we do know is that the war will continue, the episode nine trailer shows the battle still blazing and Carl having ‘some’ sort of role in that fact. Could he still have enough fight to go full kamikaze walker ala Sasha in the coffin? Unlikely, but we can expect him to go down swinging in some way.

We’ve already seen Rick take a deep, dark and violent path at the endangerment of Carl back in season four, this time we have the hints of hazy Rick flash forwards that seemingly show the potential two futures, one of a grizzled survivor with his family by his side, the other staring into an empty abyss under the hot Atlanta sun. The war will wage around Rick, but he’ll be somewhat of a lost soldier having had his fire taken away from him.

Perennial moral roulette wheel Morgan also has a fate somewhat sealed. Lennie James who plays the character has already been lined up to be the first character to cross over to the shows spin off series Fear The Walking Dead in the upcoming season and has filmed the completion of both shows runs. Given the shooting schedules for both, it’s highly likely the Morgan will be meeting the pointy end of Lucille at some stage soon.

Most have expected the show to eventually take itself to The Whisperers at the end of the war. For those inexperienced in the storyline, an imprisoned Negan strikes up an unlikely friendship with Carl as the group of human ‘walkers’ are introduced with an entwined love arc. It would have been logical given the shows teasing of Negan and Carl's respect and the expected ending of the war locking Negan up.

Obviously, this has taken a turn and we may have already been teased as to where to. The helicopter flying above Rick can likely only belong to one major player, the militarised community of fifty thousand in The Commonwealth.

It would be hard to see the show taking such a large time-jump to the current issues of the comics so it may be a much later season that we see this revealed, but then again as mentioned earlier, bets are off at this point when it comes to references of the comics.

Factions are plenty in the shows current format, built from the ‘A Larger World’ story in the shows earlier seasons, with both the community of gunslinging women at Oceanside and the nudist sculpting mutes of The Scavengers have an unset course though are heavily involved in the current arcs. Both have been wildly underutilised and while there’s no precedent for that changing (Remember The Wolves or The Claimers?) there’s a high potential for them to be a driving force should this truly be the end of the Saviours.

In all likelihood, the four most interesting places for the show to follow sit with Eugene, Gabriel, Negan and Enid. Both Eugene and Gabriel have a newfound strength in the beliefs for their respective causes and have had those unravel at the hands of Negan. Eugene seeing his version of survivors in the saviours, and Gabriel facing a potential death and having attempted to convert Negan. They’re both deep in the conflict and maybe walking a short plank, but for the immediate future, it’s going to be an interesting one.

Enid was once teased as an alternative Lydia from the comics, though we don’t know 100% if that’s untrue, her placement within Oceanside will fuel either a fresh player to the battle raging on or write off the female group entirely. Of course, there’s Negan, the charming psychopath who has managed to garner more of a fan following than even the strongest protagonist in the show despite being relentlessly sadistic. Even if the saviours fall, don’t expect Negan to go down with them, his character has proven to be everything glittering in The Walking Dead universe so much like The Governor before him, he will very likely score at least an extra season or two even after the war ends.

There’s an endless amount that could be speculated on but nothing will be cemented until The Walking Dead returns from its mid-season break on the Feb 25.

You can, of course, get some exclusive insider info and maybe a snippet or two by heading along to Australia's first ever Walker Stalker con, hitting Sydney on Feb 3 — 4, then Melbourne on Feb 10 — 11.

Next month's events will feature one of the biggest character line-ups the convention has ever seen worldwide available for panels, photos and autographs, including Norman Reedus (Daryl), Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Negan), Michael Rooker (Merle), Chandler Riggs (Carl), Tom Payne (Jesus) and many, many more.

For more details and tickets, click here.