Following on the from the exits of both Andrew Lincoln and Lauren Cohan last year, this season of The Walking Dead will also see the farewell of Danai Gurira as Michonne. Unlike those two, however, the good news is that Gurira will be sticking around for most of season 10.
ComicBook.com notes that production on the new run is progressing very differently from previous years. Traditionally, the year’s worth of episodes would be filmed in order, but this time around the installments are being shot out of sequence. Specifically, the twelfth episode of the season is already in the can, and Gurira features in it.
They theorize that production is being framed this way in order for Michonne to appear throughout the season, albeit in the odd episode here and there. If Gurira gets all her work out of the the way first, the actress is then free to move onto other projects and the viewers won’t be starved of more of Michonne after a certain point as with Rick Grimes and Maggie Rhee, who were both written out after the fifth episode of season 9.
The reason for this production change is just speculation, however, so maybe Gurira will appear in many episodes and there’s another explanation for why the season is being shot out of order. Whatever the thinking behind the decision, we know that Michonne will last much longer into the season than we were maybe expecting.
Plus, once she’s left the parent series, reports have it that Gurira will follow Lincoln in hopping over to his spinoff movie trilogy. This hasn’t been confirmed yet, but it’s thought that Michonne will appear in the films – which we learned at Comic-Con will be exclusively released in theaters.
The 16-episode tenth season of The Walking Dead will kick off on AMC on Sunday, October 6th. Tell us, though, how are you feeling about Michonne’s upcoming exit? Join the conversation in the usual place below.