‘The Walking Dead’ Spinoffs Explained: Everything to Know About the Current Zombie Shows
From the return of Rick and Michonne to the reteaming of Daryl and Carol, here’s what you need to know about the state of AMC’s zombie apocalypse.
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The Walking Dead is dead. Long live The Walking Dead!
Despite the flagship series airing its final episode in November 2022, the Walking Dead franchise remains alive and well in the form of a litany of different spinoff shows. There are several versions of The Walking Dead in some form of active status, while word persists that there are other entries in the series based on Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard’s award-winning comic books still in the works. For now, here’s the lineup of what’s on right now, what’s coming up and what’s been announced.
This story originally posted October 2023 and will be updated.
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‘The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon’ and ‘The Book of Carol’
Originally, the Norman Reedus-led spinoff The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon was supposed to co-star Melissa McBride as Carol, the veritable Sarah Connor of the Walking Dead universe. Instead, McBride took time away from the world of the walkers, sitting out of the first season of Daryl Dixon, save for cameo contributions. Now, not only is she coming back for season two, she’s bringing her very own name to the title, as AMC officially announced the series’ second year premiering under the subtitle, The Book of Carol.
The first season of Daryl Dixon followed — you guessed it — Daryl Dixon, venturing from America all the way to France. The series leaned into Parisian iconography, including a fight scene set beside the Eiffel Tower, as well as a smart use of the Paris Catacombs to delineate this corner of the zombie apocalypse from its American counterpart. Season two will see Carol enter the mix, ostensibly to bring Daryl home, but more likely to wind up on myriad European jaunts with her post-apocalypse bestie. (They have friendship bracelets. It’s cute!) The second season filmed in Europe as part of an agreement between the AMC and SAG-AFTRA, and is set to premiere Sept. 29, 2024. And the series has already been renewed for a third season — with both of them on board — and set to film in Spain.
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‘The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live’
Alternately known as The Walking Dead: TOWeL (if not by everyone, certainly by myself and my Walking Dead podcast colleagues), The Ones Who Live centers the long-awaited reunion between two of the most pivotal players in the entire franchise: Rick Grimes and Michonne, the long-lost lovers played by Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira. Originally designed as a series of feature films, Rick and Michonne’s story was retooled for a limited series format and released in February 2024. The ending (read spoilers here) begged the question: where does the franchise go from here?
AMC took a big swing with its first major Walking Dead successor. Okay, could have phrased that better, considering it’s the show starring baseball bat-wielding bad guy (reformed) Negan, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and “The Widow” Maggie Rhee (Lauren Cohan). Archenemies turned reluctant allies, the first season of The Walking Dead: Dead City focused on Negan and Maggie journeying across Manhattan in a bid to save Maggie’s son from a deranged enemy known as The Croat (Zeljko Ivanek, adding yet another scenery-chewing villain to his impressive rolodex).
Dead City was proof of concept that more life existed within the Walking Dead universe following the flagship’s ending. Not only did the drastic change of location serve the series well (even if native New Yorkers could tell just how much was shot across the Hudson River in New Jersey), but the resetting of two familiar faces with ancient history between them proved a worthy way into a new story with old roots. The series was renewed for a second season in July 2023, with a premiere planned for 2025.
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‘Fear the Walking Dead’: The Final Season
After eight seasons, the Walking Dead franchise’s first spinoff aired six final episodes in 2023 to bring Fear the Walking Dead to a close. The first half of season eight saw the departure of Morgan Jones, played by franchise veteran Lennie James across both Fear and the flagship Walking Dead. With his story concluded, the final six Fear installments brought about an end the story of Madison Clark (Kim Dickens), the series’ original protagonist, seemingly killed off in season four, only to return at the end of season seven.
In these final episodes, Madison takes the spotlight, with an opportunity to close the curtain on the character from co-creator and original Fear showrunner Dave Erickson’s first three seasons: Madison; daughter Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey), whose fate remained in flux after departing the series in season seven); Daniel Salazar (Ruben Blades), one of Madison’s only remaining day one allies; and Victor Strand (Colman Domingo), conspicuously absent in the final run thus far, following a hard pivot toward supervillain status in season seven.
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‘Tales of the Walking Dead’ and ‘More Tales From the Walking Dead Universe’
Anthology series Tales of the Walking Dead offered some of the best stories set within AMC’s zombie universe in years. But the six standalone episodes, airing from August through September 2022, have yet to receive any follow-up action. With that said, AMC has announced a series of shorts tentatively (and kind of amazingly) titled More Tales From the Walking Dead Universe, effectively borrowing the same premise (and most of the same title) as Tales. There’s currently no word on when to expect these shorts, but if one of these episodes doesn’t involve the alternate Walking Dead universe in which Rick Grimes gets a lightsaber and battles aliens (true story), what are we even doing here?
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Source: Hollywoodreporter
