The Walking Dead has always thrived on surprising fans and generating classic TV water cooler moments that unite viewers of the AMC zombie drama with their mutual shock at whatever twist just occurred. Unfortunately, however, some of season 9’s biggest deals have already been spoiled.
One of those is that Jon Bernthal will be returning to the show as Shane, Rick’s former best pal turned enemy, for the first time since season 2. Though the production team attempted to keep this surprise under wraps, The Punisher star was spotted in the vicinity of the TWD set in Georgia and fans managed to put two and two together.
On that note, TV Line’s Michael Ausiello caught up with The Walking Dead‘s chief creative officer Scott M. Gimple recently and tried to pick his brains about Shane’s upcoming cameo. Ausiello explained that Gimple was “bummed” that the shock return had been spoiled but he did promise that the character’s comeback will lead to some “cool, very heavy stuff,” saying:
“We tried to get something out of Scott Gimple, chief content officer for all things Dead, but he was still bummed that Jon Bernthal’s ‘surprise’ guest appearance had been spoiled when ‘photographs came out like a moment after he landed in Georgia. So all he’d say was that Shane’s appearance involves ‘some very cool, very heavy stuff.'”
It would have to be pretty “heavy,” as the last time we saw Shane he was stabbed in the heart by Rick. Just in case you were wondering if this could retconned away as a non-fatal injury, he was then reanimated as a walker and was ultimately shot in the head by Carl. There ain’t no doubt about it, Shane is very, very dead.
The most likely options, then, are that he’ll return via flashbacks or hallucination, while the reason why he’s coming back is surely to do with the other big spoiler for season 9. That being that Rick Grimes is set to meet his end as Andrew Lincoln is finally hanging up his sheriff’s hat. It would be a neat ending for the character to bring things full circle by revisiting his frenemy, don’t you think?
Whether that’ll happen or not remains to be seen, but we’ll surely find out more when The Walking Dead season 9 premieres on AMC on October 7th.
