Walking Dead Season 8 Will Feature New Character Pairings

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Walking Dead's Season 8 Will Feature New, 'Satisfying' Pairings

By Jon Arvedon

Published Sep 11, 2017

Walking Dead showrunner Scott Gimple says fans can expect to see different cast members sharing screen time together in Season 8.

When The Walking Dead returns for its eighth season — the premiere of which marks the show’s 100th episode — there's likely to be a "thinning of the herd" coming to the ever-dwindling number of survivors of the zombie apocalypse. Perhaps that's why, if only by circumstance, we're going to see some unfamiliar character pairings when the hit series shuffles its way back into AMC's Sunday night lineup.

“We’ll see characters affect one another that we haven’t seen affect one another before, or even just thrown together that we haven’t seen thrown together,” The Walking Dead showrunner Scott Gimple told TVLine. “That’s been really satisfying. Because of the narrative that we’re following, the story this season is really spread out among all of the characters. And 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.”

Strange bedfellows and unlikely duos aren't the only change fans can expect when it comes to the episode structure and character dynamics in Season 8. In April, Gimple explained that the upcoming season will stray away from entire episodes dedicated to single characters or communities in favor of progressing multiple narratives each week. "By virtue of the fact that the narrative has turned into one of pretty intense conflict, it’s going to affect the structure in ways that make it a bit more kinetic, a bit more breakneck — shifting away from entire stories in one episode, and sort of fractured over several episodes, with little pieces of each story coming together.”

The Walking Dead returns to AMC for it’s eighth season on Oct. 22. The Walking Dead is a production of Skybound Entertainment starring Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes, Chandler Riggs as Carl Grimes, Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon, Melissa McBride as Carol Peleteir, Lauren Cohan as Maggie Green and Danai Gurira as Michonne.