The Walking Dead has never skimped on its putrid, at-times revolting zombies.
They rule the world of AMC’s apocalyptic, after all, and the network’s effects team consistently draws praise for its incredible prosthetics, leading to some truly unforgettable walkers – be it Michonne’s mouthless pets or the creepy gas mask-wearing zombie in The Walking Dead season 3. But it turns out AMC plans to break new ground with the show’s eighth season.
Asked if the remainder of season 8 will signal any firsts for The Walking Dead, long-time producer Greg Nicotero told Entertainment Weekly that, yes, viewers can expect to clock eyes on the show’s “first fully nude walker.”
There’s an episode where we did our first fully nude walker. We’ve never done that before. I think the second half of the season, there’s much less talking about what’s going on. Clearly, the balance has shifted. Now that Negan and his group have escaped the Sanctuary, there’s not as much talking about what the ramifications are of what we’re going to do, but now our group has to be on the defensive because Negan’s out and he’s pissed and it’s definitely a different dynamic than the first half of the season.
And that’s just the walkers; with The Walking Dead season 8B, the grueling war between Negan and Rick Grimes will reach its long-anticipated conclusion, and we fully expect there to be one or two major casualties along the way.
Nicotero naturally refused to be drawn on any such speculation, but did make note of the underlying tension within Rick’s once ironclad group.
In the first half of the season, they show up outside the Sanctuary, they lay out the plan and then they head off to the satellite dishes, but I got to say, there are instances when a lot of these characters go rogue and you kind of wonder if they would have just stuck to the plan, would they have been successful? But between Rick going rogue and then Tara and Daryl going rogue, and Michonne and Rosita sort of going out there, there’s a lot of emotion involved around it.
Season 8 of The Walking Dead returns with a super-sized episode on Sunday, February 25th – fitting, really, given it’ll close the book on Carl’s storied saga.