Bonus episodes of The Walking Dead season 10 will be character deep dives

Delayed due to the pandemic, the season 10 finale of The Walking Dead will be airing on AMC this Sunday, October 4th, about six months later than originally intended. But even though this is still being referred to as the finale, the season is going to get six bonus episodes that will fill the time while fans wait for season 11.

During a Walking Dead Universe Preview Special, showrunner Angela Kang said that those six episodes 

are all designed to be filmed safely during this pandemic that we're in. There's sort of an anthological feel to some of them. They're really deep dives into our characters, which I hope people enjoy. We've been enjoying working on something that's a little bit different from what we were doing in the main part of Season 10. We just get to feature different people and tell these little stories that all kind of add up to a picture of what our survivors are going through, and that will lead us into Season 11 eventually."

One of those bonus episodes will be focused on Maggie (played by Lauren Cohan), who is returning to The Walking Dead after exiting the show at about the halfway point of season 9.

Scott M. Gimple, chief content officer of the Walking Dead franchise, told Decider that embracing the constraints of the current situation while planning these bonus episodes 

resulted in some of the most amazing scripts the show has produced. I can't wait to see them in these episodes. And it just so happens — well, it doesn't just so happen, because they were planned for this — but they're incredibly safe to produce. Or at least, incredibly cognizant of the challenges we'll face in producing them."

The bonus episodes will air sometime in early 2021. Season 11, which will consist of 24 episodes and build to the series finale in 2022, will premiere in late 2021.