SDCC Walking Dead Season 8 Trailer Looks Awesome! A Breakdown

By Andrew Kennedy

Today was the second day of the San Diego Comic Convention, and it started off with a bang with the season 8 trailer of AMC’s acclaimed show The Walking Dead. Last season dragged on as we watched Rick, completely broken, obey every beck and call of Negan. It wasn’t till the last few episodes that we see Rick regain his spine and rise up and fight. Avid readers of the graphic novel know once he rose up what was coming next: the march to war–one of the novels most popular stories–and boy is it a doozy. It was full of suspense, and from what the trailer shows it seems that they will stay pretty close to the comic. That’s a nice change of pace from this last season, which in my opinion was a bit of a disappointment. If they do follow the comic that is great news for us readers but pretty bad news for a few characters that you may or may not love.

When the trailer opens we see Father Gabriel, who appears to be in distress and kneeling. Then we hear Negan saying, “I hope you have your shitting pants on.” This does not happen in the comic, so i can’t tell you what’s happening in this scene, but I can tell you this does not look good for Gabriel. We then move into a montage of the main characters in different places, showing us that all the community will be taking part in the war to come. We see Daryl sitting on the ground holding a canteen with a horde of walkers in the background. Possibly he is leading the walkers to one of Negan’s compounds? It will be interesting to see what this scene actually is. We see Tara with a gun pointed at someone but do not get to see who. After last season I am pretty excited for more development of this character.

The next thing we see is Dwight holding a piece of paper that says tomorrow. We know from last season that Dwight is sick of Negan’s regime and is helping the community take him down. I believe that this is possibly Daryl telling him when they will attack the main compound. I think this will be near the end, either the next to the last episode or the last episode. We see Aaron driving a car with metal siding. This may play a huge role in their tactics and give them a big edge when attacking the small compounds, but when they attack the factory it will do nothing, so I think that this will only appear in one episode. After a little more music montage, we hear Rick talking to the groups about when he first met Jesus and how his world was about to get a whole lot bigger. This is used to show us that Rick has got his pep back and is in the lead again, a very refreshing sight for sure.

We see a scene where Ezekiel and Jerry (more commonly known as battle ax guy) look bloody and beaten. Jerry says “Thank you.” Ezekiel replies with “For what?” to which Jerry says “For being such a cool dude.” This looks like the end for Jerry and Ezekiel? I sure hope not. “If Jerry dies we riot!” However this is a huge spoiler if they include it in the trailer, so i think this is a red herring…although…

We then see a couple of scenes of the communities attacking some buildings I am pretty positive are the smaller compounds, as that is how they attack Negan in the comic. Then we get an overhead shot of the kingdom soldiers rallying before a battle. Seeing an overhead shot shows us that their numbers are small but not super small. The music intensifies and we get to see some action shots, including Daryl being a total badass, riding a motorcycle, shooting something, and blowing it up, looking away in typical cool guy fashion. We see a couple shots of Jadis and her garbage people–boy do I hope they get what is coming to them!

Then the most exciting part for all the comic readers: we see a shot of a cane standing against the wall, then the camera pans over to a older looking, more bearded Rick. I have mixed feelings on this because in the comic after the war there is a time jump and this starts the Whispers story, the coolest story so far, and I am super excited about them getting to it. Yet I don’t want to downplay how awesome the Negan war story is, and I think that proper time should be devoted to it. The way AMC runs its shows is they do half a season then take a break and then do another half of a season; what I am dreading is that they devote half a season to doing the war and the other half introducing the Whispers. Please please please AMC for all that is holy and sacred in this world do not do this.

For the people that did not like last season I think this season will be much faster paced and full of action. I am actually excited about this season; buckle in, folks!