AMC announces The Walking Dead's return, reveals it's extending season 10 by 6 episodes

The Walking Dead’s season 10 finale was slated to air on April 12, but hungry fans were left with empty bellies after the pandemic saw it pulled from the schedule. Today, during the show’s Comic Con@Home panel, Talking Dead host Chris Hardwick revealed that the season’s coup de grâce will land on October 4. Better yet, it will be followed by the premiere of the latest Walking Dead spin-off, the Gen Z-friendly World Beyond.

Interestingly, though AMC is still calling the episode the finale, the network has also announced that it’s extending season 10 by six more episodes. According to showrunner Angela Kang, those installments will air sometime in early 2021. Meanwhile, she and the writers are already working (remotely) on the show’s eleventh season.

Accompanying the announcements is an extended glimpse at the opening minutes of the “finale,” which find Seth Gilliam’s Gabriel monologuing as the rotting hordes descend on the survivors’ new, post-Alexandria haunt. Have a look below.

While some of its reveals were teased in the episode’s pre-COVID teaser, it’s still exciting to see the return of Lauren Cohan’s Maggie Rhee, who left the show during its ninth season. More interesting, however, is the “Masked Stranger” who approaches Aaron and Alden with some gnarly-looking blades in tow. As Den Of Geek notes, there’s no similar character in Robert Kirkman’s comics, though that doesn’t mean the show isn’t just hiding a familiar face behind a wall of iron.

Don’t expect many clues in the below panel, which finds a good chunk of the actors and creative team dancing around Hardwick’s questions. There’s still plenty of fun stories, though, especially regarding Cohan’s return to the set.