The Walking Dead Fans Fear for Aaron

Warning: this story contains spoilers for Sunday’s “Variant” episode of The Walking Dead. Eugene Porter (Josh McDermitt) may be the one facing a death sentence at the Commonwealth, but it’s Aaron (Ross Marquand) who might be on the proverbial chopping block. With just five episodes left of The Walking Dead following Sunday’s “Variant” — which revealed an even deadlier kind of walker in the Ohio/Virginia region — not everyone is making it out of the series finale alive. And in Walking Dead fashion, it’s feared fan-favorite Aaron won’t be making it home from the trip to Oceanside with Jerry (Cooper Andrews), Lydia (Cassady McClincy), and Elijah (Okea Eme-Akwari).

First, during a tearful hug with Gracie (Anabelle Holloway), Aaron assured his daughter he would “be back before you know it” after a trip to Oceanside. Then he reminisced about his late partner, Eric (Jordan Woods-Robinson), who was gunned down during the Savior war and left to reanimate. 

During some bonding time with Lydia — who has been growing closer to Elijah — Aaron gently nudged her to open herself up to another relationship after losing Henry (Matt Lintz). He recalls rejecting Eric for six months before eventually saying “yes.” What would follow were the happiest moments of his life in Alexandria. 

“I’d give anything to take back just one of those ‘no’s so that we could have one more day together,” Aaron said. “Lydia, loss is inevitable. It always has been. The only thing we can control is when we say ‘yes.’” 

“The way Aaron was talking, I have a feeling he might die tonight,” one fan tweeted during Sunday’s episode. Wrote another: “Aaron giving that I’m about to die speech.”

“I swear if Aaron telling Lydia that story about him and Eric and their courtship of how they met and fell in love is some sort of foreshadow that we’re about to lose Aaron in tonight’s episode. Leaving Lydia to carry their love for them. My heart will break,” reads another tweet from Sunday’s episode. One viewer tweeted of the stressful “Variant”: “Is Aaron going to die? Is Princess? Is Lydia? Omg. I have so much anxiety right now.” 

After surviving an attack by a walker variant, a trailer for the final episodes shows Aaron’s group isn’t out of the woods yet. Footage from a future episode shows — spoiler alert! — Aaron and Jerry in a dangerous situation as they use the “guts” trick to camouflage themselves from a walker herd.

“In some way, it is a throwback to some of the walkers we saw back in the very, very first season of The Walking Dead. But not everybody ever encountered those walkers,” Walking Dead executive producer and showrunner Angela Kang explained during San Diego Comic-Con.”It’s almost like it was a variant that was regional. And anytime thereis a change to the rules, that means that people just need to be thatmuch on their game because they’re realizing that the methods that theyused to survive don’t quite work the same way.”

Kang added: “Our survivors need to be very, very smart and try toadjust to that, and that is one of the many conflicts that they will bedealing with in the final block of episodes.”

Follow @CameronBonomolo and @NewsOfTheDead on Twitter for TWD Universe coverage all season long. New episodes of The Walking Dead‘s final season premiere Sundays on AMC and AMC+.