'The Walking Dead' Series Had a Different Original Ending - Alternate Scene Details Revealed
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!
The Walking Dead almost had a very different ending.
The series just came to an end over the weekend after 11 seasons, featuring the return of Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira) to tease their spinoff series.
The duo returned as a surprise, and filmed their scenes in August, months after the series officially ended filming. Had they been unable to do those secret scenes, the show would ended differently.
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The first ending would have paid homage to the comic series, and the pilot episode from 2010.
During an interview with finale director and executive producer Greg Nicotero, he revealed the Rick and Michonne scene resulted in a cut scene from the finale.
“There was a scene that we had shot, but when it was decided to put the coda in we felt like it would conflict with the Rick and Michonne bit. So we took it out,” he told Insider.
An individual close to the series later told Insider the “cut scene” was the finale’s original ending, which would’ve jumped forward in time. A second individual corroborated the story to the outlet.
Here’s how the original ending would have went, via Insider: “After Daryl rode off, we cut forward to the Freedom Parkway, outside Atlanta — where the iconic shot of Rick rode down from the pilot. See an ethanol-modified van, with a young woman and man in the front seats (in their twenties). And through the scene, we come to realize it’s adult RJ and Judith. Other adult versions of the kids are in the back — Coco, Gracie, etc. They’re out there, looking to escort any survivors back to their communities. Continuing the legacy of their parents. As RJ speaks over the radio, he finishes with: ‘If you can hear me, answer back. This is Rick Grimes.’ (Which, of course, is his name — and the line Rick said in the pilot.) Then we end with the voice of a survivor answering back: ‘…Hello?’”
The insider said that the scene would have brought the series back full circle, adding “it’s not a ‘universe’” or a “‘world building’” ending, but “it was fitting, emotionally.”
A second individual said they thought the original ending “was canned” because it may not have made sense to “end the show on ‘new versions’ of characters we don’t really know.”
The small narrations from Judith opening the past seven episodes were also supposed to serve as a setup for the original finale.
Instead, the show only jumps forward a year and shows everyone peacefully living at one of three communities before cutting to Rick and Michonne’s extended scene. It briefly cuts once more back to Judith and R.J. in the present.
The showrunner also explained more about who died, and who returned.