The Walking Dead Changed [Spoiler's] Death

By Cameron Bonomolo

Warning: this story contains spoilers for Sunday's "A New Deal" episode of The Walking Dead. Sebastian Milton (Teo Rapp-Olsson) bit the big one when a walker's bite ended the governor's spoiled rotten son on The Walking Dead. Max (Margot Bingham) and Eugene (Josh McDermitt) publicly exposed Governor Pamela Milton's (Laila Robins) last-surviving son during the Commonwealth's Founders Day celebration, playing a secret recording that outed what Sebastian truly believed about the community's disenfranchised citizens. When an enraged Sebastian attacked Max, throwing her into the path of a gnawing walker, Eugene intervened. His act of bravery accidentally pushed that same walker onto Sebastian, who died screaming as the Commonwealth watched.

While it was always the plan for Sebastian to "eat it" in these final episodes of The Walking Dead, showrunner Angela Kang revealed Sebastian's surprise death almost happened differently.

"So, to be honest, we had a different plan for his death, which I think also would have worked too. We always knew Sebastian had to eat it. He's just… he's Jerky McJerkface! And he has to get his due, right?" Kang told EW. "We initially thought it was going to be a different end for him, but as we were going through this, it just started to feel like, wouldn't it be great for there to really be consequences to everything that's happening at Founders Day?"

Kang explained, "And so once we went down that path, it just felt right, and it gives the episode this great punch. And what's cool about it is, sometimes when there's a turn like that, it actually unlocks other story possibilities in the next episode. So we're always kicking the story for, does it work in the context? But then, does it also do something interesting for us as a ripple effect? And when we weighed the options, it gave us so much within the episode as well as going forward."

Asked to reveal how Sebastian originally died, Kang teased: "If I say it, it spoils other stuff."

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(Photo:

Teo Rapp-Olsson as Sebastian – The Walking Dead _ Season 11, Episode 18 – Photo Credit: Jace Downs/AMC

- Jace Downs/AMC)

Read More ▸ TWD Post-Mortem with Teo Rapp-Olsson (Exclusive) ▸ The Walking Dead Comics, Explained: Sebastian Milton

How does Sebastian die in the Walking Dead comics? He doesn't. Creator Robert Kirkman's comic book ended with Sebastian still alive at the very end, serving life in Commonwealth prison for committing a shocking murder.

Actor Rapp-Olsson may not have been privy to those original plans for Sebastian's fate. He told ComicBook in an exclusive episode post-mortem, "I can't really speak to what the writer's intention was prior to this version of it."

"I've read through the comics. I obviously had my own theories and machinations of who I would kill from this," Rapp-Olsson said when asked about Sebastian's victim from the comics. "When I read through this, something that I really thought on was the fact that Walking Dead has, from a very early point, made it clear that they don't always follow the comics ... there's oftentimes little twists so that therefore comic book readers aren't going to just simply sit there and go like, 'Wow, I saw that coming from a mile away.' But in fact, actually leave you thrown for a loop."

Because comic book readers expected Sebastian to go the way of his comic counterpart, Rapp-Olsson said, the episode "leaves people quite shocked. I'd gotten a message from one fan who'd seen [the episode] on AMC+ and was just like, 'I was screaming at my TV!' And some part of me was like, 'You know what? If we elicited you screaming at your TV, I think we've done our job right.'"

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+.

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