There are certain big TV events that advertisers really want to be involved in. The Walking Dead's finale was prime time for ads to grab a huge audience, and one particular set gave TWD fans a little treat for sitting through the break in the finale’s action. While the show had some surprises left to deliver, fans hadn’t expected to see dead characters, Andrea, Milton, Rodney, and Gareth returning. These long-dead characters had one more Walking Dead appearance thanks to a series of Autodesk, Deloitte, DoorDash, MTNT, and Ring advertisements. Check out the ads below:

The ingenious ad campaign was put together by Ryan Reynolds’ Maximum Effort production company along with AMC Networks Content Room and Kimmelot’s Dan Sanborn. The narratives featured in the ads perfectly grabbed the opportunity to make the ad breaks almost as interesting as the show they were featured in, and it was great for fans to see old favorites like Andrea again, with Laurie Holden reprising the role she left back in season 3. Her return was exciting as actress Holden wasn’t particularly pleased with her departure from the show, which came much earlier than her character’s comic book death.

Speaking about the ad project, Deadline reported Ryan Reynolds saying:

“Ads should be fun. The Walking Dead has generated more cultural conversation over the last decade than any other property and we wanted to honor that by bringing a few characters back from the dead in some fun contextual ads. [Commercials] can be a part of the cultural conversation as they once so frequently were. They just need a little more love, attention and mischief.”

Related: The Walking Dead: Best Performances in the Series, Ranked

Why Was Andrea’s Walking Dead Death Controversial?

Andrea death scene walking dead
AMC

Over The Walking Dead’s 11 seasons, there have been several changes to the source material, some more controversial than others. While the main narrative of the story has continued in line with Robert Kirkman’s comic books, there have been some notable alterations, including the introduction of Daryl Dixon – a character that doesn’t exist in the comics – and the premature deaths/assumed deaths of major characters including Shane, Rick, and Andrea among them.

While many of the early departures have been driven by the actors’ decision to move on, when it comes to Lauren Holden’s Andrea, neither the actress nor the fans were quite ready to see her leave the show only three seasons into the show, something the still stands as one of the most significant departures from the source narrative.

In the end, Holden had to accept her fate, and at the time, expressed her wish to have stayed on the show longer, but was ultimately grateful for the experience. However, the character did make a surprise reappearance in 2020 during a scene where Michonne hallucinated her, but the actress was not brought back. Instead, old footage of her was used to manufacture the scene. Her new appearance, albeit part of an associated ad campaign, has been a welcome addition to her Walking Dead journey.