When the back half of season eight premieres February 25, The Walking Dead will be trying to recover some lost ground. The season premiere and midseason finale were both among the lowest-rated entries of the series in the last five years, and with this Negan thing still dragging on, executive producers Scott Gimple and Greg Nicotero have to offer viewers something to revive their flagging interest. Which is presumably why, on this most-marketed of romantic days, Nicotero announced the show will debut TV’s first fully nude zombie later this season.
Entertainment Weekly spoke with the Walking Dead FX wizard and EP about what’s in store for viewers going into the second half, and (surprise) we’ll see Rick (Andrew Lincoln), Michonne (Danai Gurira), and the other Alexandria folks defend themselves from a pissed-off Negan. Nicotero reiterated the show’s central questions—“[I]t’s always, what are we fighting for? Any war in the history of mankind has always been based on what are we fighting for?—before getting into the good stuff. “There’s an episode where we did our first fully nude walker,” he told EW. “We’ve never done that before,” highlighting the modesty of the Georgian undead.
Nicotero didn’t reveal any specifics about this au naturel zombie—sorry, walker—such as whether or not there’ll be a full frontal shot. But bare-assed zombies date back to George Romero’s Night Of The Living Dead, so once again, The Walking Dead treads a familiar path.