The Walking Dead Season 10 Adds Extra Episodes, Sets Finale Airdate

The Walking Dead's Season 10 finale was supposed to air in April as, well, the season finale, and then set up the series premiere of spin-off The Walking Dead: World Beyond, but it got delayed because it included some special effects that weren't ready when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down post-production and couldn't be finished at home. But now, all these months later, "A Certain Doom" is finally ready, and will air on AMC on Sunday, Oct. 4 at 9/8c, followed by the premiere of World Beyond. The news was announced by moderator Chris Hardwick during the show's Comic-Con@Home panel on Friday. Additionally, showrunner Angela Kang announced that Season 10 will be extended with six more episodes that are planned to arrive in early 2021. 

Additionally, AMC also revealed an extended look at the opening minutes of the episode, which will bring the Whisperer War to a close, as Beta (Ryan Hurst) leads a giant swarm of walkers against the Alexandrians, who are barricaded in an abandoned hospital. The situation looks dire, but the episode will also feature the return of Maggie (Lauren Cohan) -- as seen in the clip above -- who Angela Kang has teased will arrive in the "nick of time" after leaving during Season 9. 

Popping up halfway through the panel (it was split in two to accommodate the show's large cast), Cohan teased a bit about what fans can expect from Maggie's highly anticipated return, though it admittedly wasn't much. "The most exciting thing," she said, "is [Maggie's] coming back, it's not just a visit. It's moving from pen pals to real life friends." Cohan also noted that Maggie and Carol have been in communication.

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When asked about how things will work between Maggie and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) next season given everything that happened between them and everything that has changed since Maggie left, Kang teased a difficult path forward. "Negan killed Maggie's husband and burnt down her house! It's not gonna be an easy road, I think, for either of them," she said. "And Negan's been on this whole other journey while she's been gone, [so] it's sort of like Maggie's coming in and she hasn't seen any of that. What she knows is she comes back and Hilltop is destroyed and the guy that she left to rot in prison is out and walking around with everybody else. I think these two have to figure out how to occupy the same space."

Elsewhere, the finale will also introduce a mysterious masked figure wielding martial arts weapons, who Aaron (Ross Marquand) and Al (Callan McAuliffe) meet in the woods. Speaking on the panel, Marquand compared the upcoming scene to the introduction of another popular Walking Dead character.

"It felt to me like as much of a huge introduction to a character as we saw in Season 3 with Michonne," he said. "It felt like that. ... That reveal was just so exciting, and scary at the same time too, because he looks like something out of a horror movie." 

In addition to today's finale date reveal, Kang also announced that Season 10 would be extended and feature six extra episodes, which will air in early 2021, if all goes well. So the finale isn't quite a finale at all! Given this news, it should go without saying, but we'll say it anyway: Season 11 will not premiere in the show's usual October time slot because of the pandemic. Instead, Fear the Walking Dead will air in its place; Season 6 is set to premiere Sunday, Oct. 11.

The Walking Dead's Season 10 finale will air Sunday, Oct. 4 at 9/8c on AMC. The show has been renewed for Season 11. 

Additional reporting by Kaitlin Thomas