The Walking Dead: Maggie Returns in Season 10 Special Episode Preview

AMC has released a first look at “A Certain Doom,” The Walking Dead‘s postponed Season 10 finale now airing as a special episode later this year due to the coronavirus crisis. The planned finale for Season 10, which came to an end with a cliffhanger in Sunday’s episode 15, “The Tower,” the Greg Nicotero-directed “A Certain Doom” was indefinitely delayed when the industry-wide shutdown caused by the COVID-19 outbreak made it impossible to complete the episode’s required post-production work. Showrunner Angela Kang has since told ComicBook.com work on the episode was “very, very close to finishing” when it became clear the episode would not meet its scheduled Sunday, April 12 air date.

“Post production for those who are curious involves [visual effects], music, sound mixing and sound FX,” Nicotero wrote on Instagram shortly after AMC Networks announced the episode’s delay. “This process usually goes up to about 3 weeks from air date.” The delay is “disappointing,” Nicotero added, “but the episode will not disappoint.”

“So disappointed that it came to this but we have to keep our teams protected. When COVID hit many of the studios had to slow down so their employees would be safe. We will deliver a great finale ASAP,” tweeted visual effects supervisor Aaron McLane. “Post production usually goes on for months after filming wraps. That’s editing, VFX, music, sound design, color correction, and delivery. We work on an episode up to a few weeks before air. The finale will be amazing but we had to prioritize safety.”

“A Certain Doom” will bring back a long-missing survivor and could feature the death of a major character. Viewers will also learn the fate of fan-favorite Connie (Lauren Ridloff), who has been missing since the midseason premiere.

“I think it’s disappointing for all of us that work on the show. Everybody works so hard, our post production team, all of our vendors who are partners with us, everybody was really kind of racing against the clock,” Kang previously told Entertainment Weekly. “But as everything was unfolding worldwide, we have people around the world that work on our VFX and so people were having to start moving things remotely. But there’s just certain parts of the post-process that are very difficult to move remotely, and everything that moves remotely works slower because it’s like rendering these giant effects.”

Kang added, “If you don’t know that technical language, it’s like once they finish the stuff, the machines basically work on it to spit out a beautiful version of it, which we drop into the show. Everything just takes longer.” Certain processes still needed for the original finale could not be completed before California shut down for business.

“It just couldn’t be done,” Kang said. “And it’s people’s health and safety are first and foremost on our minds as well during all of this.”