The Walking Dead took a bite out of New York Comic Con on Friday, revealing a first look at the series’ second season (below) and announcing when fans can expect the season two release for spinoff Dead City.
Cast and creatives including Chief Content Officer of the Walking Dead Universe Scott M. Gimple, executive producers and stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan, as well as cast members Gaius Charles, Željko Ivanek and Dascha Polanco, were on hand for a discussion and to confirm season two will arrive sometime in spring 2025. They also unveiled a 30-second teaser, which kicked off with a single question: After everything that happened, why do you want to bring back Manhattan?
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The first look offered glimpses of what awaits fan-favorite characters Maggie (Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) as they navigate post-apocalyptic Manhattan, an island long cut off from the mainland. “You’re in for a bit of a shock,” Negan promises in the teaser before declaring “Power is power” as lights on iconic New York landmarks like Radio City light up, hinting at a growing fight for control with Negan and Maggie on opposite sides. It’s a journey that AMC and AMC+ promise is equal parts anarchy, danger, beauty and terror.
At the top of the panel, Gimple teased what awaits fans, noting that the tone of this next batch of episodes “turns it up. It takes everything that you loved about season one and it just cranks it up. There’s more discovery, there’s more characters. There’s more intensity between these two. We see corners that we’ve never thought of in New York City.”
He would return to this later, pointing to a scene in the finale as one of his favorite’s of season two. “It’s pretty much the emotional peak of the season and there’s so much going on — there’s this heartbreak and horror, there’s this intensity between these two characters. I just watch that scene over and over again because it just blew me away. In watching this series, it leads up to such an emotional conclusion. I can’t wait for you guys to see it.”
The conversation touched on the dynamic between Cohan’s Maggie and Morgan’s Negan, and the circumstances that seemingly should have prevented them from appearing in a spinoff show together: Glenn’s (Steven Yeun) death.
“Every mother’s dream, I think, is to spend the rest of her days finding friendship with a man who brutally murdered her husband, and then build a new life together and bring a whole band along,” Cohan said. “I never would have imagined when we started the show — neither one of us would — that this is where we would have the privilege of ending up, to be face-to-face and toe-to-toe with someone and maybe forgive, maybe find common ground, maybe be extremely challenged along the way, and get to ask really deep human questions and do it with a lot of fun, and action, and a huge fan base.”
Cohan also later spoke about taking on directing this season, telling the crowd that the hardest and most favorite part of the role is working with actors. “It was really incredible. It required a lot of focus, a lot of preparation, and all of that. Anybody who’s created, who’s pursued difficult things knows what it is to pursue difficult things. It’s rewarding and it’s challenging, but there are so many quiet, blissful moments of making art with your friends, that’s unparalleled.”
Added Morgan, “She was an extraordinary director. She knew exactly what she wanted every day, she gave incredible notes. And that’s hard to do. It’s hard to give notes to people that have been playing these characters for so long, but the way she could come in and communicate what she wanted, I was completely impressed.”
As for what fans can expect from Negan, Morgan promised that while Negan has facets, he’ll still be the same guy fans first met. “Believe it or not, it’s going to be yet another different side of Negan that we’re going to see this year. That’s what I love about playing him. Over the last eight or nine seasons, I find something new, the writers find something new, and so the character has evolved or devolved in some cases, but what I always like to say is Negan is always still Negan. So as much as he may evolve, that guy that we met eight years ago stepping out of a trailer, he’s still in there, which I think is kind of fun for me and the audience.”
Reflecting on getting to be part of the TWD franchise for so long, Cohan and Morgan spoke about how involved they’ve become. “It’s inspiring, more than anything else. We’ve done this for a long time and in [a certain] capacity, and then you go in and kind of just be confident with what you know and what you don’t know. “For me, it was definitely interacting with every department in a whole new way and in a meaningful way, and then having meaningful conversations about our show, how it gets promoted, how we do it, who gets to join our show. That’s one of the most exciting parts is meeting new actors and bringing them into the fold.”
Added Morgan, “It’s a year-round job, so it’s a big change. It used to just kind of walk off the set on that last day and kind of put it aside until we were back six months later, and now that that doesn’t exist, and so it’s always on the forefront. And we have so much invested in this — the show and the characters.”
As for when the duo knew their spinoff was happening, Cohan pointed to season 11. “When we came to do season 11, we knew the [original] show would either go on for four more years and we would essentially take over the old show, or we would go and do this new show, and that would be in New York.”
“They came to us both about doing like a Negan show and a Maggie show and then I think Scott was like, ‘What about the two of y’all?’” recalled Morgan. “We all thought that that made the most sense because these are two characters that you would never expect to even be in the same room, much less go and do a spin-off and have to spend real time together.”
After Dead City, cast and creatives Gimple, executive producer showrunner David Zabel, director and executive producer Greg Nicotero, executive producers and stars Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride, and cast member Louis Puech Scigliuzzi were also on hand for an almost hour-long panel discussion moderated by Robert Rodriguez for the currently airing second season of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol.
Premiering last month, attendees were privy to the opening minutes of the fourth episode (which drops on Sunday, Oct. 20, on AMC and AMC+). Season two picked up right after season one, with Daryl Dixon (Reedus) and Carol Peletier (McBride) confronting old demons as she also fights to find her friend and he grapples with staying in France.
Attendees were privy to the opening minutes of the fourth episode. Zabel kicked off the panel by talking about the inclusion of Carol into the season two storyline. “It was super exciting for everybody, especially the writers, as we were starting to anticipate season two and bringing Carol into the story. We already had this great story going with Norman in France, and then we got to inject this new energy with this character that everybody loves, of course. So we were just really psyched about building towards this reunion of them,” he said.
He added that it was also an opportunity with McBride to trust in her understanding of the character, but also ask, “How can we both be true to the history of the character and all the amazing things that she’s been through, but also move the character forward and progress forward out of that past. So we had, it was a remarkable experience,” he told the crowd.
McBride spoke about her experience so far taking on an executive producer role, telling the panel and NYCC crowd, “As an executive producer, I’m laying a little low, watching the big guys, learning, enjoying the meetings. I learned a lot from those meetings and realizing what all has been taking place before I ever became an executive producer, and the things that they talk about, I wish I’d known.”
During the panel, the team discussed Daryl’s kiss with Isabel, with Reedus noting that what fueled Daryl in the kiss was his respect for her protection of Laurent. “Her whole intention is to take care of Laurent, which is very admirable to him, I believe. This kid’s not going to make it out in the real world, but that’s her whole goal in life and I think he can relate to that,” he told the panel crowd. “That kiss, I have to tell you, was at the worst time of day. There were so many mosquitoes and bugs on our faces, and we just kept looking at each other, and there’d be a bug here, a bug here, a bug here. She’s a trooper.”
McBride also touched on Carol grappling with guilt this season, with McBride noting that fans aren’t necessarily seeing a different version of Carol while discussing what’s motivating her now. “It’s just a more desperate version triggered by — she needs her friend. She needs her best friend and he’s not there, and she’s worried about him. And I think that’s what triggers that. She will go to any lengths to find him, also becoming very manipulative.”
Later Reedus would discuss what makes the relationship between Daryl and Carol so distinct and meaningful, even getting emotional with McBride while talking. “The thing about that relationship, when we started this show, it was about Rick. It was about Rick’s journey and everybody around Rick. But these two characters were always like, ‘You OK?’ Always we’re watching out for each other the whole time,” Reedus said. “They both come from a place of abuse, and they just always had each other’s back. So when you see them on screen now, it’s earned, like it’s not actors playing the part of somebody who has known each other for a long time. It’s for real.”
Added McBride, “Norman and I don’t do a whole lot of rehearsing or talking about scenes that we’re going to do. We just show up as the character, knowing where we are in the story, and letting things happen as we shoot. And that’s what I love about working with Norman. You never know what you’re going to get, and it’s always so fun and wonderful and surprising.”
Gimple, while discussing working on multiple TWD shows, shared that the show almost didn’t film in France. “I mean the energy that Norman and Melissa have brought to this, respectively, made this happen. And I would say, especially in the first season regarding France, there was a world where France was not going to be shot in France, and Norman made his opinions be known.”
He and Zabel also discussed an Easter egg that fans can expect to see, as well as a new part of the lore that will be introduced. “Specific to this season, there’s something in there that’s really important, and I wouldn’t classify it as an Easter Egg; we’re not like putting the camera right on top of it. It’s going to be in the background, but it’s an important piece of mythology,” Gimple explained.
Nicotero also teased some new approaches to the zombies, with episode six, in particular, being a moment where a new challenging take on walkers appears. “We opened the rule book a little bit in regards to [the walkers.],” he explained. “In this season, I handled a little bit of that Asian zombie, Train to Busan vibe when they inject them, and you see the black veins coursing under the skin. We changed up the contact lenses so they have black eyes and that opening scene where the zombies are running after Carol, we shot all that… having the zombies run. We hadn’t done it before, and it was a lot of fun, because we could have them leaping through the air and tackling stunt guys. It added a 28 Days Later energy to it. There’s one more really cool one coming up.”
Check out The Walking Dead: Dead City season two first-look photos below.
