Prodigal Son’s Tom Payne Reacts to The Walking Dead’s Delayed Season 10 Finale

Former The Walking Dead star Tom Payne is sure not everyone survives its tenth season finale, and he’s just as confident the show’s cast have the “pain” of keeping those character deaths secret until the delayed season finale can air later this year. The actor, now starring in FOX crime drama Prodigal Son, is no stranger to secrets: before his character Jesus was killed off midway through Season 9 of The Walking Dead, Payne was tasked with keeping quiet about multiple major deaths, including Glenn (Steven Yeun) and Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) in Season 7 and Carl Grimes (Chandler Riggs) in Season 8. With the Walking Dead season finale indefinitely delayed, it will be a while longer before the cast can spill their guts:

“I’m pretty good [at keeping secrets],” Payne told ET Canada when asked about the surprise-filled Prodigal Son season finale airing Monday. “I spent three years on The Walking Dead, and that show is super secretive, and I had a codename. People die on that show every year, and obviously you know who they are, and you have to stay quiet about it, and you’re answering questions all the time where people are just trying to get it out of you. So I’m pretty good at all that stuff now.”

Because episodes of Prodigal Son‘s first season aired closer to when those episodes were filmed, there’s less time for the show’s stars to accidentally let spoilers slip. With Walking Dead, Payne noted, there was “a lot longer wait until the secret was out there.”

“And especially now, with their season, they were unable to finish their finale episode as far as post-production goes,” Payne said. “Actually, that was one of the first things I thought: ‘I’m sure someone dies in the finale, and everyone has to keep that a secret now for even longer.’ Which is a real pain, actually.”

When The Walking Dead Season 10 can conclude, the finale will mark the return of Payne’s former co-star Lauren Cohan and will resolve the cliffhanger that ended the penultimate episode of the season.

Prodigal Son airs its first season finale tonight at 9/8c on FOX. For all things TWD, follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter.