The Walking Dead season 8: Answer to Old Man Rick won’t come immediately

The Walking Dead season 8 created quite a stir at San Diego Comic-Con in the closing seconds of their trailer, and it’s all courtesy of Rick’s appearance. Old Man Rick, as he’s affectionately called by many, opened his eyes and immediately made us wonder if we’re getting a major time jump, if there’s some sort of dream happening, or if he is in a coma.

If you want to examine the origins of the Old Man Rick theory more, we suggest heading over to the link here! For now, show executive producer Scott M. Gimple makes it clear (per TVLine) that while you’ll get a glimpse at this Rick in the premiere episode, you’ll have to wait understand what it’s all about for a while:

“We will not get the definitive answer as to what that’s about in the premiere. That won’t come until about halfway into the season.”

If there is something effective about teasing this story, it is creating a new mystery for the show to explore that is a little bit different than what we’ve had in the past. For example, last summer we spent an extreme amount of time all collectively pondering over who Negan was going to kill. That was a terrifying cliffhanger for some, but this should serve as a reminder that there are ways to craft some other cliffhangers without necessarily just throwing out the same thing over and over again. If you continue to create life-or-death mysteries and virtually nothing else, in the process you lose a lot of dynamics. You want the show to not feel as though it’s doing the same thing over and over again.

What’s exciting here is that you know that Rick is going to make it through to the midway point of the season, but you don’t know the way or the how in terms of how he ends up there. This is a mystery that is about connecting the dots, and what we’d like to see is a little more in the way of answers pieced together over time. Don’t provide everything right away, and allow everyone to slowly make it to the point where we start to understand what’s going on.

Along the way, there are a lot of other things to focus on that are very much important, including of course the epic battle that is coming between Rick’s crew and also Negan/The Saviors. There is quite a bit to be excited about there.

What do you think is happening with the Old Man Rick mystery?

Also, are you okay with waiting for that long in order to get answers? Be sure to share in the CarterMatt comments section below!

Meanwhile, you can head over to this link in the event you do want to snag some additional news, and also see a video featuring the Walking Dead cast celebrating making it to the big 100th-episode milestone. It’s a huge deal, especially for a cable series that only makes a limited number of episodes a season. (Photo: AMC.)