‘The Walking Dead’ showrunner reveals how coronavirus changed the season finale

"The studio asked us to pivot"

The Walking Dead showrunner Angela Kang has opened-up about how the coronavirus pandemic changed the season 10 finale.

The series finally aired the season’s long-awaited final episode, ‘A Certain Doom’, last night (October 4) after delays due to the ongoing pandemic.

However, it seems the delays instigated a number of changes to the planned episode, including how it connected to the 11th and final season.

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“We were deep into writing season 11 and, you know, we’d been planning a big season opener, as we always do, with hundreds of zombie extras and people, just smashed up against each other’s faces,” she told media (via Digital Spy).

The Walking Dead season 10 finale
Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon in ‘The Walking Dead’. Credit: Jackson Lee Davis/AMC

“It became really clear that it was not really feasible, smart or responsible to shoot that right away, in the midst of everything that’s going on. So the studio asked us to pivot to doing some stories that could extend out of season 10 and bridge us between what had been our planned finale and where we want to pick up next season.”

“The episodes are designed to have fewer people per episode,” Kang added as she teased the upcoming six extra episodes that will bridge the gap between seasons. “We do really deep dives into character. They kind of came out of the circumstances that the world is facing, but in a way creatively, we’ve really enjoyed the challenge.”

The Walking Dead
Lauren Cohan returns to ‘The Walking Dead’ as Maggie in the season 10 finale ‘A Certain Doom’. Credit: Alamy

Lauren Cohan, who plays Maggie Rhee, added: “The first episode of the ‘bridge’ is, for me, the most exciting Walking Dead episode I’ve ever read. I was terrified.

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“I was like, ‘OK, this is amazing’. These COVID restrictions are creating really scary episodes. It’s very, very, very detailed. I’m on the verge of spoiling something, but yeah, it’s so great.”

The Walking Dead is set to conclude in 2022 with season 11, with the first half of the final 24 episodes airing next year.

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