There aren’t many Walking Dead deaths as shocking as the fate of Carl Grimes. The season 8 midseason finale revealed that Rick’s son had been bitten by a walker, with the midseason premiere then seeing him succumb to the infection and meet his end. Based on the comics, fans fully expected Carl to last until the end of the show. In fact, his death caused a lot of controversy, with petitions created in a bid to get AMC to reverse the decision to kill him off.
In the end, though, they didn’t have any affect, as that’s the last we’ve seen of Carl on the series to date. But could Chandler Riggs return to the TWDÂ universe for a cameo as Rick’s son in the future? The actor revealed that he’d love to while speaking virtually with Tommy DiDario on his Let’s Stay Together podcast, but admitted that it’s not something he can see happening within the franchise at the moment.
“Absolutely, yeah. It’d be a lot of fun,”he said. “I don’t really see it happening in any current medium of the show, but maybe hopefully in something else. I don’t know, we’ll see.”
Well, luckily for Riggs and Carl fans, there are various other spinoffs and projects in the works – one of which may leave an opening for his character to reappear. The most obvious is the Andrew Lincoln movies. Riggs could potentially return in those for a flashback to before his death or some kind of dream sequence or hallucination. For instance, our most recent glimpse of Carl on the parent series came in Danai Gurira’s last episode, where archival footage was used to reimagine various moments of the show as Michonne suffered a drug-induced trip.
Of course, we’ve previously heard that Carl could appear in one of those Rick-centric films, alongside various other TWD characters. Elsewhere, though, it’s possible Riggs could get his own shortform spinoff or miniseries, as Scott Gimple has revealed that there are several of these in the works featuring deceased characters, though none have been announced as yet.
While we wait for news on Carl’s possible comeback, The Walking Dead returns for its long-delayed season 10 finale on October 4th.
