‘The Walking Dead’ Time Jump May Still Happen

The Walking Dead showrunner Scott M. Gimple says season 8’s mid-season premiere — which revealed this season’s “flash forward” scenes to be a dying Carl Grimes’ wishful vision for the future — “definitely does not necessarily mean” the show will skip the actual time jump from the comics.

Issue #127 of Robert Kirkman’s ongoing comic book series saw The Walking Dead leap more than two years into the future following the conclusion of the All Out War storyline, currently being adapted onscreen for season 8 of the television series.

Since the season premiere in October, the series has offered infrequent peeks into what seemed to be the future — only for the mid-season premiere to reveal those glimpses to have been envisioned by a feverish Carl as he dies.

Gimple opened up to EW about idea to turn the time jump from the comic books into a “future” that may never come to pass:

It came out of the story we wanted to tell with Carl having the most idealistic approach to what was happening and thus seeing an idealized future and taking a version of what we saw in the books, after issue 127, I believe. And we know what happens after issue 127 in the book isn’t necessarily completely ideal, but when it starts, I remember when I started reading it, I was like, “Aw damn, things have really come together in this world.” I just wanted to play that out further. Because in some ways — other than the calamities that always happen within The Walking Dead — what we see in the book after issue 127 was sort of what Carl was talking about and wanted for his father in the world. So I guess it was a mishmash of these story priorities, character priorities, and then seeing something play out from the book with a lot of fidelity, and yet done completely different.

Gimple explains that decision was birthed out of the filmmakers’ desire to tell a specific story with Carl.

“We wanted to tell this story where Carl, by affecting the people around him, especially Rick, wants to change the world and change what the world is to them, and then keeping that piece of the book,” Gimple said.

“And, by the way, when I say we’re taking it, that isn’t to say that we might not get there in another way, obviously, but [it led to using] a version of what happened in the book, one of maybe many versions you could see on the show. But it very much was about Carl’s story first. It sprung from Carl’s story.”

Asked if that means the show won’t undergo an upcoming time jump, Gimple said, “Oh no, it definitely does not necessarily mean that.”

The nonlinear story being told with a red-eyed Rick — seen most recently in the final moments of the mid-season premiere — is “still playing out,” Gimple said.

“This stuff was used to embody the things that we’re playing with in the order that they’re playing out,” he explained. “Those visions very much have to do with the young man that we see interact with Siddiq initially. And what he wants. We see those visions play out very much as the Siddiq story plays out.”

Gimple remains tight-lipped about what those scenes with Rick mean, saying only “answers are coming” in the back half of the season.

Carl’s death is “going to affect Rick and the world very deeply throughout the rest of the season, and maybe not in the ways that we would expect,” Gimple said, adding the loss will weigh upon Rick and Michonne “in every scene moving forward this season.”

Gimple has since been promoted by AMC to oversee the entire Walking Dead brand, including creative involvement on sister series Fear The Walking Dead.

Writer and producer Angela Kang, who has been with The Walking Dead since its second season in 2011, assumes the position of showrunner beginning with season 9.

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.