Andrew Lincoln saddened over Walking Dead exit story leaking

It’s 100% official now that Andrew Lincoln is leaving The Walking Dead at some point during season 9, and that makes Lincoln himself rather sad along with fans of the show.

Was it his choice to leave the show? Absolutely, but the intention from the start was to make it a complete surprise that the actor was eventually going to depart. It probably would’ve been one of the more emotional moments in the series’ history if production had been able to keep things under wraps. Yet, we doubt that this would’ve happened. Even if the story wasn’t leaked prior to San Diego Comic-Con, we have a feeling that it would’ve come out at some other point down the road. There are so many people constantly watching the set for spoilers that someone would’ve eventually noticed that Andrew was not around as much. (He’s only going to be in a handful of upcoming episodes.)

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly in a new interview, Lincoln tried his best to explain how he’s feeling in the wake of the story getting out:

“There is a certain sense of relief this morning … But I still regret that the story broke, because I believe in story and I think it would have been… it’s gonna be a great season but it would have been greater if it was not spoiled to a degree.”

Ultimately, there is still one major element of surprise to Lincoln’s story, mostly in that no one knows why Rick Grimes is departing. It’s possible that he lives on and simply goes off into exile, but we think it’s a little likelier that the character is killed off. After all, given that so much of the story is told from Rick’s point of view, why wouldn’t you continue to follow that in some way if he was still part of this universe?

New episodes of The Walking Dead will premiere on AMC come October. If you head over to the link here, you can see the full trailer right now!

What do you want to see in terms of Lincoln’s The Walking Dead exit? Share right away now in the attached comments.

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