The death of ‘The Walking Dead’
Inside the eleventh — and final — season of the post-apocalyptic pop-culture phenomenon
Zombies have been stalking around the pop-culture landscape for decades, but no piece of media has defined them on a mass scale quite like “The Walking Dead.” For the last decade, the show has been a phenomenon, garnering tens of millions of views per episode, who remained hooked on the show’s brutal depiction of survival in an apocalyptic landscape.
Now in its eleventh season — airing weekly on FoxHD on BeIN in the region — and approaching 177 episodes, the show is coming to an end, leaving its stars mourning one last death: the show’s own.
“It’s wild to me. It’s been such a big part of my life for so long,” Norman Reedus, who stars as Daryl Dixon, tells Arab News.
Set in a world that zombies — called ‘walkers’ on the show — have already taken over and in which few humans remain, “The Walking Dead” is less about the dead themselves and more about what the trying circumstances bring out in the survivors, leading average people to become heroes, or murderous villains.
“I love the depths of the questions that the dead — and living with the dead — brings up because it makes us look at everything through a
3D, meaningful lens,” says Lauren Cohan, who stars as Maggie Greene.
Because of the unexpected nature of the show, most of the stars never knew if their own roles would survive past a few episodes, but they are now able to marvel at how far their characters have come and how much they have developed.
“I did not think I would be on the show for more than three episodes,” Seth Gillam admits. “I thought that Father Gabriel would be walker bait, and that he would get into some situation where he would need to be rescued and another major character would wind up losing their lives, and then he would just end up getting eaten the next week anyway. I’ve been filled with wonderment because I had no idea who he would become over the last seven years.”
No character has evolved quite like Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan, who joined the show in season six as its most terrifying villain and has morphed into something more, finding some of his humanity again. For Morgan, the show is returning to its glory days in terms of quality.
“I actually watched the first two episodes (of the season) two days ago — which doesn’t always happen, honestly — and I was so happy with how it turned out. I think Kevin Dowling who directed the episodes and Angela and Jim Barnes who wrote them did such a great job. The start of season
11 is bringing back elements of this show that I loved as a viewer before I was even on it. It has the horror and the tension that I love as a fan,” says Morgan.
Cohan, who joined the show as Maggie in its second season, stepped away in 2018 before agreeing to come back for the final run. Her return has been emotional, as scenes are often haunted by the actors she worked with whose characters did not survive, including Maggie’s husband Glenn, played by Academy Award nominee Steven Yeun. So Maggie’s sense of loss and nostalgia, are often rooted in ones Cohan herself is really experiencing.
“There are certain locations we’ve repurposed that conjure up a lot of feeling,” she says.
“In one scene recently, I’d had a conversation with another character, and I felt myself flooded with the images of another person while I was talking to somebody else. I thought, ‘That’s real life right there. That’s what it’s really like.’ It’s so rich and nourishing to
have all those memories to draw from both on screen and off, the years we spent with each other down here in Georgia.”
It was actually Negan who beat Glenn to death in front of Maggie back in the season seven premiere, and a key aspect of the final season is the interplay between Morgan and Cohan.
“I love what is happening with Negan and Maggie. I think that using that as a jumping off point for the beginning of the end of the show is great and it’s only going to get better. I’m very excited,” says Morgan.
Eleanor Matsuura, who plays Yumiko in the series, has not even accepted that this may be the end of her character, and who can blame her? While the main series is definitely coming to an end, there are still spinoffs planned, as well as films. “The Walking Dead” may end, but can the undead really ever die?
“I feel like to get to season 11 is such an achievement. Who knows if this ending will be forever, because this universe will just go on and on, but I feel like it’s quite timely that it’s ending,” Matsuura says. “It’s going to be sad, but I’m just really humbled to be a part of it.”