The Walking Dead Characters Could Live On in Tales of the Walking Dead

The Walking Dead characters, both living and dead, will return in Tales of the Walking Dead, an episodic anthology series now in development at AMC. Created by chief content officer Scott Gimple, the fourth series set in TWD Universe is said to feature “individual episodes or arcs of episodes focused on new and existing characters, backstories, or other stand-alone experiences.” Gimple earlier stated the spinoff would bring back characters who have died for stories taking place earlier in the zombie apocalypse, and now Gimple reveals characters who survive the flagship series will also be appearing in Tales of the Walking Dead.

“For Tales of the Walking Dead, we very much might continue on with characters from the show, the mothership show, intermittently,” Gimple told Insider. “We’re going to fulfill that big board of stories that we want to tackle. In some ways, it’ll be a little differently than perhaps initially planned, but potentially much richer.”

The mothership show will end with an expanded, two-year final season to conclude with a series finale in late 2022. This unprecedented 24-episode sendoff season will follow a six-episode Extended Season 10 airing on AMC early next year, bringing The Walking Dead‘s total episode count to 177 episodes spanning 11 seasons.

In addition to continuing the stories of still-living characters in Tales of the Walking Dead, the spinoff will reveal the backstories of fan-favorite characters who have died throughout The Walking Dead.

Former series star Michael Cudlitz, who played U.S. Army Sargeant Abraham Ford, has strongly hinted his character will live again in Tales of the Walking Dead. And Ryan Hurst, who has played Whisperer Beta since the ninth season of the main show, has similarly hinted at Tales unmasking Beta’s tragic origin story.

Gimple also hopes to continue to expand the Walking Dead Universe with other shows to follow the untitled Daryl/Carol spinoff, a sequel series continuing the adventures of best friends Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) and Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride).

“I think there’ll be others. I hope there’ll be others,” Gimple said. “There’s ideas that we are working on right now. So, [Carol/Daryl], that’s the first one we’re doing, but we have a really cool idea around it that very much relates to this story that we’re going to be telling over the next 30 episodes.”

AMC has not set a premiere date for Tales of the Walking Dead. For all things TWD, follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter.