The Walking Dead concludes for the time being, but when will it return?

With this week’s episode, The Walking Dead ends on a high note before going on hiatus. Post production for the season’s final chapter can only continue when it is safe for everyone to return to work.

The successful second half of The Walking Dead’s season 10 leaves off with an entertaining penultimate episode. First, let’s recap how we got to this point. Most of this season focused on Carol’s obsession with killing Alpha; there was an intense cat and mouse game that often saw Alpha looking down at Carol from a triumphant position. To make matters worse, Negan joined the Whisperers to form an insane supervillain team-up.

With the help of Negan, the Whisperers burned down Hilltop and had the good guys on the run. While all of this was going on, Michonne was off on a solo mission that unexpectedly led to a clue for Rick’s present whereabouts. At a time when the group could use their woman warrior, Michonne is embarking on an out of town assignment that indicates Danai Gurira’s possible exit from the series.

The Whisperers appeared to have a massive upper hand on our survivors… then comes Negan to the rescue. He turned out to have been stealthily infiltrating Alpha’s skinheads on orders from Carol. It took one villain to overcome the other and Negan shockingly beheaded Alpha. Problem solved, right? Well, Alpha’s second in command, Beta, is just as fierce and deadly, and that brings us to this week, Season 10’s fifteenth episode, entitled “The Tower”. Beta amasses an enormous walker army and leads them in the search for the people of Alexandria/Hilltop.

Even though the group confronting the Whisperers is the primary plotline of the current arc, “The Tower” is pleasing for its subplots. Daryl takes Judith to Dixon’s survival school, where the pair’s bond strengthens. Those two’s relationship is juxtaposed with Negan and Lydia’s unpleasant predicament and confused feelings about him killing her mother. Elsewhere, Ezekiel, Eugene, and Yumiko meet Princess, who is an eccentric beacon of sunshine in a gray, desolate city.

Intermittently throughout the episode, we follow Beta to Alexandria, then on his way to Oceanside, before catching the scent of civilization and correcting his course. AMC sort of showcased “The Tower” as the season’s first, of two, season finales, however there is a lot of set up leading to the next episode. As invigorating as Princess is, she is actually just a detour on Eugene’s road to Samantha, and Beta finally brings his horde to the survivor’s eponymous tower in the closing seconds, leaving fans to wait for the 16th episode’s showdown.

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The real season finale (episode 16) was originally scheduled to air this coming Sunday, April 12th. Chris Hardwick explained on Talking Dead that even though principal photography has been completed, the necessary post-production, including visual effects, were not able to wrap on the episode before Coronavirus shutdowns began. The finale will now be released on AMC as a single special episode sometime later in the year. The exact timing depends on when things start to normalize and production can safely resume.

The Walking Dead Universe’s latest spin-off series, The Walking Dead: World Beyond, was also set to premiere on April 12th after The Walking Dead season 10 finale. The show will feature a whole new set of characters in middle America, but unfortunately is also going to be rescheduled for later in 2020. It is unclear if the pilot episode is also incomplete, or if the showrunners feel they do not have enough finished episodes to make it worth starting to present any, or if they only want to introduce the show after The Walking Dead’s season 10’s final episode.

The last time The Walking Dead Universe aired two episodes on one night was when Morgan crossed over from The Walking Dead to Fear the Walking Dead, so could the producers be secretly planning a connection between The Walking Dead and World Beyond that would make it narratively essential for the former’s finale to air before the latter’s premiere?

Next. Walking Dead’s 10 greatest characters. dark

Either way, Walking Dead fans have a lot to look forward to with the season 10 finale and the series premiere of World Beyond on the horizon.

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