The Walking Dead Season 8: Release Date, Trailer, Cast, Plot, and More

The hit AMC zombie show The Walking Dead season 8 returns soon with episode 1 premiering on 22 October, marking 100 episodes of the show. Season 8 looks set to make some big changes from the slow-moving Season 7 as we see Rick take on Negan and the Saviors engage in an all out war. Chandler Riggs, who plays Carl, revealed some more about the new season to Triple J, telling them. "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. Yeah, lots of fighting, lots of cool stuff. It’s really, really fun this season."

After the somewhat disappointing season 7, it can't come soon enough. Season 7 got a lukewarm response from a lot of people and received a few complaints from fans along with a decline in viewing figures. One of which was about the characters being split apart a lot, and this looks like it will be addressed in TWD season 8.

“Because of the narrative that we're following the story this season is really spread out among all of the characters." showrunner Scott Gimple told TVLine. "The story shifts quite a bit in single episodes between lots of different characters on a consistent basis, which is a little more unusual for the show.”

Although season 7 was met with mixed reactions, The Walking Dead is still the highest rated show on TV and plenty of fans are looking forward to what The Walking Dead season 8 has to offer. You can check out a sneak peak of The Walking Dead Season 8 from from the season 8 Comic-Con Trailer above that aired in July, 2017.

The Walking Dead Season 8 Plot Revealed

The Walking Dead season 8. Photo via Entertainment Weekly. Credit: GENE PAGE/AMC

The Walking Dead season 7 got a bit of criticism from fans for dragging out the Negan storyline and delaying the all out war between Rick's gang and the Saviors—which happened long ago in the comics.

Still, the finale of season 7 set up what's to come, with Alexandria, the Kingdom and the Hilltop declaring war on Negan and the Saviours. And The Walking Dead season 8 looks like it will up the ante and be more intense than the previous season. Scott Gimple told The Talking Head's Chris Hardwick "I say, ‘It’s gonna be bigger, it’s gonna be more intense.' I always mean that, but this year it's the same thing. More intense...The first four episodes will melt people’s minds and break their televisions."

It looks like The Walking Dead Season 8 won't waste much time getting into the action either. “The turn of the story is really going to dictate the structure of the story and the speed of the story." Gimple told The Hollywood Reporter. "The things that they are getting into demand a more kinetic narrative. The pace is accelerated by virtue of the things that they’re up to. Though I don’t want to say exactly, anybody who watches the show can extrapolate that they’re now into public conflict with the Saviors; the battle lines are drawn. There isn’t quite as much time to dig into anything but prosecuting the war.”

How TWD Season 8 Plot Differs From The Comics

The Walking Dead season 8. Photo via Entertainment Weekly. Credit: GENE PAGE/AMC

Talking further about the accelerated pace of The Walking Dead season 8 Gimple said, “It’s just where the story is going to. That presents all sorts of narrative and production challenges. We’ve known we were going this way for a long while; in fact, doing season seven, I remember talking to Angela Kang [executive producer] about the difference between the structure of seasons seven and eight before we started seven. There’s aspects to talking about season nine like that. We try to reinvent the show every eight episodes and I believe the differences between season seven and eight are going to be quite pronounced just by virtue of the narrative.”

While speaking about how it might differ from the comics, Gimple noted, "There's a lot of twists and turns in All-Out War, parts one and two, and aspects of March to War that we didn't completely use. On top of that, there's the expansions within the story of characters that aren't in the book and situations that totally come from the book but yet are very different in some circumstances. By virtue of what The Walking Dead is, there is more stuff than was even in the book and stuff from earlier books that we might be dipping into, too."

One thing the season won't see though is the birth of Maggie's child. On a preview episode of Talking Dead Gimple said, "Maggie’s baby will not be born in Season 8. But anything’s possible."

The Walking Dead Season 8 Trailer - Old Rick

The trailer for the new The Walking Dead season 8 premiered at Comic Con and, while teasing the all our war that's coming, it also ended on a shot of Rick as an old man. The teasing image left many scratching their heads. But it's thought it might be a reference to a time jump showing Rick in a few year's time. In the comics there's a time jump of two years and the show may well incorporate aspects of this. The video above explores the possibilities of why the trailer ended on the 'Old Rick' scene and tries makes connections to Rick at 65, years after the war has finished and a possible (god forbid, no) sudden end to the whole Walking Dead franchise.

Speaking with THR Gimple said this about the time jumping, "For the people who read the comics, they're going to be expecting this [the time jump]. We're doing the book, we do all sorts of variations on it, and then we do things that are inspired by it and then we change things up with a remix. But I will say there are things that happen in that time jump that are referred to that are super interesting. And thus we might see some of that stuff; it might not be the same sort of jump, or we'll do that two to five years in real time."

The Walking Dead Season 8 Cast

The Walking Dead season 8. Photo via AMC. Photo by Frank Ockenfels 3/AMC

Actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan will be returning as Negan, which he confirmed months ago when he appeared on The Howard Stern show. THR also reported that the trio of Steven Ogg (Simon), Katelyn Nacon (Enid) and Pollyanna McIntosh (Jadis) all got promoted to full-time roles for The Walking Dead season 8.

Ogg plays Negan's right hand man and he's always good fun to watch, whole McIntosh is the leader of the Scavengers, those people who live in a junkyard who were introduced in season 7 episode 'Rock in the Road.' She betrayed Rick and his gang, and so is despised by fans, and likely The Walking Dead season 8 will see her and her garbage pail kids army helping Negan to take on Rick et al.

There are also going to be two new characters in The Walking Dead season 8. According to TVLine these will be someone called Dillon "a sexy, blue-collar twentysomething whose survival skills include sarcasm." And also a character named Abbud who TVLine describe as "an innately likable Muslim American whose nerves are, let’s say, jangled, because he’s flown solo for too long in zombieland."