Let’s face it: If you’re a fan of hit AMC show, you started thinking about The Walking Dead season 8 release date the second the season 7 finale ended. OK, maybe after you dealt with all the emotional fallout.
*NOTE: Skip ahead to the bottom if you haven’t seen season 7 and don’t want anything spoiled for you before you get a chance to binge watch until you’re caught up. Spoilers ahead.
We all knew season 7 was going to be rough based on where the season 6 finale of the show left us, and The Walking Dead season 7 premiere sure did deliver, on the gore at least. Although readers of the graphic novels were one step ahead of the rest of the viewers of the post-apocalyptic show, the deaths of Glenn and Abraham were still a bold, brutal beginning to the most recent season. At the very least, habitual watchers of the walker-studded show had been emotionally prepared for the loss of Glenn with another season 6 episode that left everyone thinking the pure-hearted hero was collateral damage in Nicholas’ untimely suicide.
But were you prepared for The Walking Dead season 7 to say goodbye to Sasha? We can only hope that the announcement that actress Sonequa Martin-Green had landed a role in Star Trek Discovery was enough of a hint that fans were able to steel themselves for her end.
The core group is dwindling by the season, and the series shows no signs of slowing the bloodshed. Most of the killing may be at the hands of fellow healthy humans (physically healthy, at least) rather than walkers, but The Walking Dead season 8 will be no exception.
“Season 7 was all about building up and getting everyone ready to fight against Negan, and this season there’s going to be lots of explosions, lots of killing, a lot more Negan,” Chandler Riggs, who plays Carl Grimes, told Triple J, Australia’s national radio station. Sounds like we all have some more steeling our hearts — and stomachs — to do if the death and violence of season 7 was just a lead up for The Walking Dead season 8.
This is far from the first interview from the AMC actors that could lead fans to bite their nails in anticipation. Steven Ogg, who plays Simon in the series, previously alluded to the fact that season 8 will “thin the herd” in an interview with Comic Book.com.
The Walking Dead season 8 release date
So when does The Walking Dead season 8 start? Find out if they’ll kick off the newest season with as big of an emotional stomach-punch as season 7 when The Walking Dead returns for season 8 (which includes their 100th episode) on October 22.
