After 12 years of zombie-filled drama, The Walking Dead is heading into its final run with showrunner Anglea Kang, star Lauren Cohan and others announcing that filming has now wrapped on the third part of season 11, which will bring the show to a close after 177 episodes. While the mammoth 24 episode season will be the conclusion of the flagship series, fans should not be too disappointed as there are a number of spin-offs already in production that will make it seem like The Walking Dead is very much alive and kicking.
On her Instagram, Angela Kang shared an image of herself with star Lauren Cohan, commenting, “Last day of filming on #TheWalkingDead. Thanks to everyone who’s sent well wishes to those of us who work on the show today. It’s been an amazing ride (+ Love you, @laurencohan).”
Lauren Cohan, who will be seen again as Maggie in the spin-off series Isle of the Dead with Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan, added her own post to mark the occasion, saying, “I don’t have the words right now, but I want to raise my cup to the crew of The Walking Dead. Thank You. 11 seasons. My heart is full.”
At the same time, series finale director and SFX make-up designer Greg Nicotero appeared in his own post in a video with Norman Reedus. In the clip he said, “Here we are, the last day. 12 years. You remember we were babies when we started this show, with short hair?. It’s hard, but 12 hours from now the world’s going to be a different place.” Reedus added, “Thank you for everything, it’s been a real joy. I think my brain is short circuiting now, I can’t even get my head around it.”
And Norman Reedus himself shared a throwback video featuring a tuneful little ditty about his character Daryl and Melissa McBride’s Carol, who will be teaming up on another of the planned spinoffs currently in active development. On his post, Reedus echoed other comments, saying, “That’s a wrap. 11 seasons 12 years. Never been so beat up and it was an absolute blast. Thank you to all of you that took this ride with us and what a ride it was.”
Season 11 Closes The Book On The Walking Dead, But There Are More Stories To Be Told
While the end is finally coming to The Walking Dead, just a few years on from Robert Kirkman’s surprise ending of the comics in 2019. However, fans of the zombie saga don’t need to be too sad as along with current established shows like Fear The Walking Dead, and the upcoming Tales Of The Walking Dead, which will premiere sometime in the summer, there is also the Negan/Maggie series Isle of the Dead, the Daryl/Carol series also now in development and likely to be arriving next year, and of course there is the endless promise that the Rick Grimes movie is still coming at some point.
While The Walking Dead did lose many viewers a few seasons back when the story seemed to lacking, the arrival of the Whisperers brought a new sense of urgency to the show. Season 11 has also managed to deliver some great episodes as we head towards the end. With one more batch of episodes coming to take the short to its conclusion, there are plenty of people bracing themselves for the kind of divisive finale to the series that plagued shows like Game of Thrones. Whether The Walking Dead will manage to have a bit of bite in these final episodes or will simply shamble off over the horizon is something we don’t have too much longer to wait to find out.