It also left us with a few questions: Why did Deanna have to die?
Why did Rosita, Tara, and Eugene turn over their weapons and let the Wolf go?
What should we make of that cliff-hanger ending?
Credit: Gene Page/AMC
And then what of the Negan- and Saviors-introducing prologue scene that followed?
We went to the main man for answers and asked showrunner Scott M. Gimple all that and more.
SCOTT M. GIMPLE:Yeah, the books did break it up.
Its not always going to be cliff-hangers.
Its not always going to be closed-ended chapters.
It will be both and I felt like I wanted to do it that way for this.
And especially after 10.
How did you settle on that spot?
It was when each character reached their point of what their goal was or their highest point of peril.
Its the promise of watching all of those stories play out each one of them.
So why did you decide to kill off Deanna here?
She died helping Rick.
Thats exactly what happened with her.
But even the way that she faced that transformation was heroic, and she was who she always was.
So we got to return to who she was in some ways.
I m glad you brought that up, and frankly I wish thatIhad brought it up.
You know what, if you could askandanswer the questions, well do a lot better here.
I was working last night on 6B so Im a little frazzled.
And Deanna with one of her final breaths is trying to get that through to his soul.
So whats that all about?
Before attacking Carl, Ron says, Were all dead, and its your dads fault.
Its very easy for him to pull a gun on Carl when hes feeling that despondent.
For Carol and Morgan, the moment could not be more intense.
Morgan wasnt like Hey, lets fight.
Morgan was like Hey, lets talk about this.
Carol couldnt let it go and I basically sympathize with both of their points of view.
Why dont they take that shot?
Well, in my mind, I would say thats being pretty responsible.
I think Rosita had, like, an 80 percent chance of making that shot with everything going okay.
And she was like, You know what?
Im not going to play with the 20 percent here.
Theres a chance I might shoot Denise in the face.
Or that he might be able to hurt her.
For Tara, I dont know if she would have gotten him either.
I know that she probably wasnt 100 percent sure.
I do not blame them.
But you do, Dalton!
It turned out like this cool little movie.
Our post-credits sequences generally dont go that long.
For people who arent familiar with them, I dont want to say much.
And then some really cool expansions of the comic story.
Not counting flashbacks, the first half of season all took place over the course of just two days.
Is it safe to say that timeline will accelerate a bit the second half?
It accelerates quite a bit.
You mean in terms of more days, right?
I would say there are some big jumps.
Not a ton of days, but there are a couple of jumps.
Also check that toread our interview with Deanna Monroe herself, Tovah Feldshuhand ourQ&A with Andrew Lincoln.
And for more Walking Dead intel, follow Dalton on Twitter@DaltonRoss.
