What’s Next for The Walking Dead?

This article contains spoilers for The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live finale.

In some ways, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live marks the end of an era for AMC‘s long-running zombie franchise.

As fans saw in the Rick and Michonne spinoff’s sixth and final episode, the story of The Walking Dead‘s central lawman appears to have come to a satisfying conclusion (for the time being at least). Following many years in the figurative and literal wilderness, Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira) return home to Alexandria in “The Last Time” where Rick reunites with his daughter Judith (Cailey Fleming) and meets his son R.J. (Antony Azor). It’s the rarest of occasions for The Walking Dead: an honest-to-goodness happy ending.

Of course, The Walking Dead isn’t a big fan of endings, happy or otherwise. Though the flagship series concluded with its 11th season, AMC has made clear that it wants the franchise itself to last for far longer – forever if they can swing it. The ending of The Ones Who Live isn’t the ending of The Walking Dead, just as the endings of The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, and The Walking Dead: World Beyond weren’t either.

So what’s next for The Walking Dead? Allow us to walk you through it.

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Season 2?

As previously mentioned, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live season 1 concluded in a fairly complete fashion. Does that mean there’s no room whatsoever for The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live season 2? According to showrunner Scott Gimple, not necessarily.

“Never say never,” Gimple told Entertainment Weekly of the prospects for TOWL season 2. “There are other very important characters in the universe that are still wandering around and alive that I think it might be quite exciting to have them breathe the same air and see how long they survive together. But it’s a difficult one. It would have to be like this, a really exciting story.”

In the same EW interview, star and creator Andrew Lincoln said: “If [an idea] were to come out of Gimple’s or Danai’s brain, and it was irresistible, then I think that there’s infinite chance that it might happen again. But I don’t know when.”

AMC has not officially announced a second season for The Ones Who Live but based on those soundbites, it seems as though the folks involved with the series are not entirely opposed to it. It would just take the perfect idea and it wouldn’t get rolling for quite awhile. It’s probably best for fans to just assume TOWL was a one-off and then be pleasantly surprised if AMC opts to pick it up again years later.

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol

One future Walking Dead project that we don’t have to speculate about is The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 2. The finale of the series’ first season, which relocated Norman Reedus’ title character to post-apocalyptic France, all but promised a second outing. Then AMC came through with the official announcement.

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 2 will be subtitled The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol. As the name implies, this season of the show will heavily feature Daryl’s closest ally and all-around TWD badass Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride). AMC aired a sneak peek at season 2 during the night of The Ones Who Live‘s finale. Watch it below:

The description for season 2 reads: “The new season picks up where The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon left off, following fan-favorite characters Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) and Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride). They both confront old demons while she fights to find her friend and he struggles with his decision to stay in France, causing tension at the Nest.”

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol is set to premiere summer 2024.

The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2

The Walking Dead: Dead City, otherwise known as the “Maggie and Negan spinoff” beat The Walking Dead‘s Daryl Dixon spinoff to the air by three months. And yet, Daryl Dixon season 2 already has a summer 2024 release window while Dead City season 2 has … crickets.

Do not despair though, Maggie and Negan super fans. The Walking Dead: Dead City has been officially ordered by AMC and it will be arriving eventually. In March 2024, Hershel Rhee actor Logan Kim said that he would begin filming on season 2 “very soon,” per ScreenRant.

Tales of the Walking Dead Season 2

Of all the lingering Walking Dead spinoffs, it’s anthology series Tales of the Walking Dead whose fate is the most up in the air. The first batch of six self-contained episodes premiered on Aug. 14, 2022. Since then, AMC has neither canceled the series nor confirmed a second season. Though in a January 2023 interview with Collider, TWD czar Scott Gimple seemed optimistic they would eventually get around to producing more episodes.

“Oh, yeah. I hope we do,” Gimple said. “We’re focusing on these classic characters, this year. The thing with Tales, it didn’t end on this cliffhanger where you’ve gotta get back to that. It’s an anthology show. So, I’m hoping that we can get back to it, but it’s probably gonna be catch all as catch can, as far as within all the other shows.”

In April 2023, AMC announced a short form series with the working title of More Tales from the TWDU. There haven’t been any updates on that front either.