The Walking Dead Will Officially End After Season 11

We had to wait a long time without any real updates, but we finally learned back in the summer that The Walking Dead‘s season 10 finale, which was held up due to the pandemic, is set to air on AMC next month. And while that’s certainly something to get excited about, it’ll now be tinged with a sense of sadness as the network has revealed this morning that the show will soon be coming to an end.

After a leak spoiled the news a bit ahead of schedule, AMC has officially announced that The Walking Dead will wrap up with season 11. Though the initial plan was reportedly to do 12 seasons, it seems things have changed – presumably due to the COVID-19 pandemic – and now, season 11 will be the last.

But it’s not all bad news, as the final run will be “an expanded two-year eleventh season that will span 24 episodes.” That means that there “are 30 remaining episodes of the flagship series that will run through late 2022.” So, lots to look forward to, then.

“It’s been ten years ‘gone bye;’ what lies ahead are two more to come and stories and stories to tell beyond that,” said EP Scott Gimple.

“What’s clear is that this show has been about the living, made by a passionate cast, team of writer/producers, producers, and crew, bringing to life the vision put forth by Robert Kirkman in his brilliant comic — and supported by the best fans in the world. We have a lot of thrilling story left to tell on TWD, and then, this end will be a beginning of more Walking Dead — brand new stories and characters, familiar faces and places, new voices, and new mythologies. This will be a grand finale that will lead to new premieres. Evolution is upon us. ‘The Walking Dead’ lives.”

To further soften the blow for fans, AMC has also announced that we’ll be getting a Daryl/Carol spinoff series, which will be with us in 2023. Current TWD showrunner Angela Kang will be heading that one up, though at the moment, we don’t know too much about what direction it’ll head in.

And if all that wasn’t enough for you, then the network has also revealed that there’s a new Tales of the Walking Dead series in the works, which is described as an “episodic anthology with individual episodes or arcs of episodes focused on new or existing characters, backstories or other stand-alone experiences.”

So, while the parent show may be coming to a close, there’s clearly still a lot of life left in The Walking Dead brand and AMC has no intention of just putting it on the shelf to collect dust. It’s unfortunate that the main series is ending, to be sure, but 11 seasons is a long run and we can only hope that the showrunners are able to close things out on a high after what’s been a very uneven past few years for the zombie drama.