The Walking Dead midseason premiere is an 82 minute tearjerker

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

The Walking Dead's season 8 midseason finale came to an end with the shocking revelation that Carl Grimes (Chandler Riggs), a character many people predicted would be the "last man standing" on the show and who has a lot more to do in the comic book source material that will serve as the basis for future seasons, had been bitten by a zombie and would soon be succumbing to his wound.

Carl's send-off will come in the mid-season premiere when The Walking Dead returns to AMC on February 25th, and to see this character off the show is going big – the episode has an 82 minute running time.

Like so many major episodes of the show, this one was directed by executive producer Greg Nicotero, who was in tears as he watched the episode play out and compares it to another midseason premiere in the series' history, season 5's What Happened and What's Going On (which he also directed).

I think (the season 8 midseason premiere is) one of our most powerful episodes that we’ve ever produced. When I watched the first cut of this episode, tears were coming out of my eyes 20 minutes into it.

I would compare this episode very much to the episode with Chad Coleman in terms of really having some space to breathe with these characters as they process what happened."

What Happened and What's Going On was also about a character dying from a zombie bite, in that case Tyreese… and its slow, artsy style makes it rank high in the running to be my least favorite episode of the series. I think killing off Carl at this point is a bad idea to begin with, and it doesn't make me any more enthusiastic to hear that his death episode is reminiscent of What Happened and What's Going On.

Carl dies when the midseason premiere airs just one month from today.