“The Walking Dead” Season 8 Spoilers: Showrunner Promises Show Will Become “Kinetic, Breakneck,” Will Do Away With Single-Character Arc Episodes; Does This Mean Rick Will Die?

In a recent interview, the showrunner of the AMC zombie drama “The Walking Dead” teased that the upcoming Season 8 will deviate from how the show has been producing its episodes.

Digital Spy said production of “The Walking Dead” started on April 25, and Scott Gimple and his team expressed excitement over doing away with the usual storytelling structure they have done in the last seven seasons.

Telling Entertainment Weekly, he said, “By virtue of the fact that the narrative has turned into one of pretty intense conflict, it’s going to affect the structure in ways that make it a bit more kinetic, a bit more breakneck — shifting away from entire stories in one episode, and sort of fractured over several episodes, with little pieces of each story coming together.”

"We knew we wanted to mix it up in 8, and we knew what 8 was going to be and how that would dictate a very different kind of structure. So, yeah, things are going to move, and possibly not have the kind of deep dives into characters in single episodes, but rather laying out the pieces as we go on," he added.

However, another interview revealed that one of those changes might mean a Rick Grimes-less season. He shared to TVLine, "Rick will suffer any loss, even his own self, to give his people and other people the life that they should live, where the world belongs to all of them and not just one person. A real life. That's the only choice, so he's willing to face the losses."

Although it is extremely unlikely Rick, played by Andrew Grimes, to get killed off in the series known to kill off major characters (think of Glenn, played by Steve Yeun, and Abraham, played by Michael Cudlitz). Cleveland.com posits that should Gimple do need to change it up, Rick Grimes’ situation in the later editions of the Robert Kirkman comics could give them an excuse to put the former sheriff out of pasture.