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The Walking Dead Season 10: Everything We Know So Far

The next chapter is coming this fall

liam-mathews
Liam Mathews

The Walking Dead will return for Season 10 on AMC on Sunday, Oct. 6. It'll be showrunner Angela Kang's second season at the helm, and Norman Reedus' first full season as the top-billed star. Executive producer and special effects guru Greg Nicotero will be back to direct and come up with gross zombies. Here's what else we know about The Walking Dead Season 10 so far.

The trailer is out. The annual San Diego Comic-Con mega-trailer is online (watch it above), and it promises some awesome action in Season 10. Michonne (Danai Gurira) kisses Ezekiel (Khary Payton) and brandishes Lucille in a shot that recreates what Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) saw right before Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) bashed his skull in; Negan, free from jail, gets drafted to help Aaron (Ross Marquand) fight; Aaron has a mace for a hand now; and we're gonna get the Carol and Daryl hangin' out and bein' friends content we crave.

It will be Danai Gurira's final season. Gurira will be exiting the series at some point during Season 10. Details about her departure are being kept under wraps for now, but considering how Michonne has not given up on looking for Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), and the journey she takes away from Alexandria in the comics, it seems like a good bet that she'll show up in the Rick Grimes movies.

"This has been one of the purest joys of my life to play this role and be amongst these people and those that are not here and amongst all of you," Gurira said while confirming her exit at San Diego Comic-Con. "I am very thankful for all the experiences that I've had in ways that I cannot express right now. TWD family is forever...[The decision to leave] was about my calling in a sense and other things I feel called to in my work...All I'm filled with is a lot of pain and a lot of gratitude about leaving this show."

"There are some things of major importance that we will learn, which have massive consequences," Kang told TVLine of Michonne's exit story. "But we'll also get to showcase good, old-fashioned Michonne being a badass."

Lauren Cohan may return. Cohan made an open-ended exit in Season 9 as Maggie left Hilltop to study civilization rebuilding with Georgie (Jayne Atkinson). The producers' hope was always for Cohan to return in some capacity, and Angela Kang told Entertainment Weekly that they're "working on it." As of September, Kang is still working on it, so we'll see.

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New folks are on board. Late-'90s/early-'00s icon Thora Birch is joining the cast as Gamma, a Whisperer sentry who's fiercely protective of Alpha (Samantha Morton). Here's the first look of Birch in her skin mask.

Thora Birch, The Walking Dead

Thora Birch, The Walking Dead

Gene Page/AMC

Kevin Carroll will play Virgil, "a highly intelligent and resourceful man who is desperately trying to get home to his family." Here's the first image of him, looking like a shipwrecked version of John Murphy from The Leftovers.

​Kevin Carroll, The Walking Dead

Kevin Carroll, The Walking Dead

Gene Page/AMC

A familiar face from the comics is joining the show. Kang told EW that comics character Dante will appear in Season 10, albeit in a different capacity. In the comics, he's a love interest for Maggie at Hilltop, but on the show he'll be at Alexandria. Kang described him as a "roguish, fast-talking, sometimes charming, sometimes annoying guy who can sometimes put his foot in his mouth, but is an interesting presence in the comics." Snowfall's Juan Javier Cardenas will be playing him.

A missing character will return. Sydney Park's character Cyndie, the former leader of now-dissolved Oceanside community, hasn't been seen or even mentioned since before the multi-year time jump that happened in Season 9, but this photo reveals that she'll be back -- with a new haircut.

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Norman Reedus, Sydney Park, Melissa McBride, Kerry Cahill, and Danai Gurira, The Walking Dead

Jackson Lee Davis/AMC

Season 10 will pick up a few months after the storm. Season 9 ended with the communities weathering a blizzard and mourning the people they lost in the Whisperer massacre. "I feel like we mark time on the show based on the children," Kang told EW. "So we saw Rosita pretty heavily pregnant at the end of last year, and I'll say that that state has changed." Congratulations, Rosita (Christian Serratos) and Siddiq (Avi Nash) and (Step)Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam)!

theboys.jpg

Seth Gilliam, Josh McDermitt, and Avi Nash, The Walking Dead

Jackson Lee Davis/AMC

Rosita's baby has a cute name. AMC revealed that Rosita's daughter will be named "Socorro," or "Coco" for short. Socorro, which is Spanish for "help" or "relief," has been passed down through several generations of women in Christian Serratos' family. (By the way, Christian Serratos may depart The Walking Dead soon, as she's reportedly been cast as Selena in an upcoming Netflix series about the Tejano pop star.)

There's a war going on. The Whisperer war will escalate throughout Season 10, but it will be different than other wars we've seen on the show. Kang described it as having a "Cold War feel," marked more by "propaganda and paranoia" than outright battling. And last time there was a war, there were still guns. But things are medieval now, which means what battles there will be different than the ones we've seen before. A very cool, slow-mo heavy teaser previews that war, with the gang vowing to "silence the whispers."

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Negan is free. After being cooped up in his jail cell for most of Season 9, Negan will be given more room to roam in Season 10. After he saved Daryl's dog and Judith (Cailey Fleming) in the Season 9 finale, it sounds like Michonne is finally paroling him. "I think after his heroic rescue of Judith, people might've noticed that when he was in that bed in the infirmary, he was not tied up or cuffed," Kang told EW. "So we're dealing with the next stage of what things are for Negan. I think for people who have been wanting us to release the Negan, there will be some satisfaction there." His newfound freedom will allow him to get involved with the Whisperers in an important way, as comics readers know.

That voice on the radio will be important. In the final moments of Season 9, a woman's voice was heard over the radio Eugene (Josh McDermitt) had set up saying "Hello? Hello? Calling out live on the open air. Is anybody out there?" Obviously that voice will be heard again in Season 10, and from this photo from the season premiere shared via EW, Eugene will be the one to answer the call. When this Eugene scene happened in the comics, it introduced the Commonwealth, an immensely important community with more advanced technology. Kang would neither confirm nor deny the show was introducing the Commonwealth, but we think it could either be that community or the helicopter people, who could possibly be one and the same.

Josh McDermitt, The Walking Dead

Josh McDermitt, The Walking Dead

Jackson Lee Davis/AMC

Andrew Lincoln won't return ... to direct. After leaving the series in Season 9, star Andrew Lincoln told Entertainment Weekly that he would come back to the show to direct in Season 10. About that: EW reported on July 19 that Lincoln's schedule couldn't align with the Walking Dead production timeline. Maybe next year.

There's key art. It features the Big 3. Check it out.

The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead

AMC

More will be revealed at New York Comic Con. The Walking Dead is doing things a little different at New York Comic Con this year. There will be a "Walking Dead Universe" panel in the morning on Saturday, Oct. 5 that will include the upcoming spin-off and mayyybe some news about the Rick Grimes movie as well as previewing Season 10. The panelists are TBD, but you can bet on Danai Gurira getting a long standing ovation.

The Walking Dead Season 10 will premiere Sunday, Oct. 6 at 9/8c on AMC.