At long last, The Walking Dead has caught up to the “All-Out War” arc from the comics, which should please many fans. Season 7 had been slowly building to it for the past several months and with the recent finale truly setting things off, we can fully expect AMC’s hit series to dive headfirst into the storyline once it returns – that much has been confirmed already. But should we be worried that it’s going to soon pull a Game of Thrones and actually surpass the source material?
According to showrunner Scott M. Gimple, that probably won’t happen. Speaking to THR, here’s what he said when asked if we’ll soon see the television version of TWD move past the comics.
“With some plans we have for the future, I don’t think so. It’s unlikely, but it depends where the book stops.”
Given that the comic book series is still going strong, and still pretty far ahead of where we’re at on the show, we have every reason to believe what Gimple says here. It’s something which creator Robert Kirkman re-iterated, too, mentioning the following while chatting with the outlet:
“I don’t know if anyone sat down to do the math, but if the show is gaining on the comic book, it’s at a very slow pace,” he said. “We’re expanding storylines so every now and then we zip through the comic book, and then we slow down for a while and add a bunch of stuff that’s not in the comics. There’s not any danger of that happening in any way.”
“When we get to season 20, then I think we’ll be caught up,” added executive producer David Alpert. “And at that point, we’ll have to have Robert really pick up the pace [with the comics].”
So, it’s pretty clear then that The Walking Dead won’t be pulling a Game of Thrones any time soon, and with plans to continue both the TV show and comic book for some time to come, we don’t imagine it’ll ever catch up fully to the source material. As Kirkman says, they also tend to expand storylines quite often to keep such a thing from happening and so far, they’ve been doing a fairly good job with the pacing.
Admittedly, the show can be a bit meandering and plot threads can be needlessly drawn out from time to time, but overall, The Walking Dead still stands as one of the best and most exciting series on television at the moment. And with “All-Out War” now looming on the horizon, it’s only going to get better.
