Remember when series showrunner and producer Scott Gimple vowed to integrate a number of callbacks into The Walking Dead‘s season 8 premiere? Well, let’s just say “Mercy” certainly delivered.
And though the show’s long-anticipated return is yet to screen across the pond – UK viewers can expect The Walking Dead to shuffle onto Fox TV later this evening – AMC has already dropped a two-hour Talking Dead special in which Chris Hardwick and Co. presented a post-mortem of “Mercy” and all of its many developments.
Chief among them were some of the callbacks that Gimple promised, after ComicBook.com noticed that Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) cited one of Shane Walsh’s famous catchphrases when confronting Rick Grimes: “Let me ask you somethin’, Rick.” Sound familiar? It should, as it was one of Shane’s favorite phrases all throughout The Walking Dead‘s formative seasons.
Greg Nicotero, executive producer and director of “Mercy,” later confirmed the subtle callback to ComicBook.com, noting that the Shane Walsh reference is one of many Easter eggs populating The Walking Dead‘s 100th episode.
There were a lot of little things that we put in there that echoed the pilot, but then I can say throughout the course of the season, there may be other direct or indirect references to other episodes through the history of the show. Nothing too obvious because we never want to pull the audience out of the show to sit there and start analyzing the Easter eggs, but it’s really there more to pay tribute to all the cast from day one and the crew that really have almost killed themselves to make the show so good.
The Walking Dead season 8 continues next week with “The Damned,” and you can whet your appetite with AMC’s official promo. Jon Bernthal, on the other hand, will soon be back on our screens via The Punisher, which recently locked down a November 17th premiere on Netflix.
