The Walking Dead has come to an end after 11 seasons. For more than 12 years, for 177 episodes, we were rooting for who would survive the zombie apocalypse and whether the survivors would find a safe haven that would last. Now we have the answers. In Germany you can stream the finale on Disney+ *.
How emotional the ending of The Walking Dead was, we have broken it down for you here. If you canceled the series before season 11 but still want to know how it ends, you’ve come to the right place. And if you’re just incredibly curious, of course, too. A fat spoiler warning goes without saying at this point.
The Walking Dead Season 11: This is the ending in a nutshell
The 24th episode of The Walking Dead season 11, titled Rest In Peace, not only ends the Commonwealth arc but also the series. The running time is almost 65 minutes the emotional farewell of numerous characters – although we’ll see some of them in new spin-off series soon.
For all the impatient here the short version: The finale pulls out all the stops, with zombie crowds, gore, tragic deaths, and plenty of references to the beginning of the series. (Read here who dies in the finale and who survives.) But The Walking Dead doesn’t end in shock and sorrow, but rather with moments of hope and optimism.
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The Grimes family looks to a new future
The survivors live by one 1 year time skip no longer in fear and divided between the two communities Commonwealth and Alexandria. Some characters embark on new adventures and at the end we finally get to know how Michonne and Rick Grimes are doing. They are alive and will have to find each other again in their own spin-off series.
Thus ends the Commonwealth conflict
With season 11, The Walking Dead presented us with the largest community to date. The Commonwealth is a place that belongs to the 50,000 people resident. Like many others before it, this system is doomed to fail. A strict class system, riots against the authorities, and a zombie invasion threaten to bring down this safe zone, as has happened several times throughout the series.
The survivors, however, can amidst the devastating zombie catastrophe remove the corrupt core of the Commonwealth, who was just about ready to sacrifice ordinary citizens to protect the elite. thanks one Coups by General Mercer Governor Pamela Milton (Laila Robins) is deposed and imprisoned. With combined forces, the Commonwealth can be purged of the vast horde of undead.
But before the characters can devote themselves to the reconstruction, a sad farewell ahead. Rosita (Christian Serratos) was bitten on the shoulder by a walker while rescuing her daughter Coco. After a joint feast with her closest friends, she says goodbye to her family before she peacefully falls asleep and dies.
Time Warp: A New Future for Alexandria, Hilltop and the Commonwealth
Though the final battle brought tragic casualties, most characters look forward to a more peaceful and secure future. After a time jump of a year, numerous figures come together for a commemoration in the Commonwealth, where we also find it new leadership get to see, which consists of three people:
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The new Commonwealth
Also Alexandria is once again a thriving community, after the Sanctuary was last repurposed from the Commonwealth to the prison camp called Outpost 22 in Season 11. Among others, Aaron (Ross Marquand), Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) and Jerry (Cooper Andrews) now live here with their families. Maggie (Lauren Cohan), on the other hand, leads the way rebuilt Hilltop colony on.
At the end, The Walking Dead ventures a glimpse into the future
The Walking Dead may be over, but the series universe goes on. In the coming year, three new spin-off series will be launched, which are already being tentatively prepared in the finale:
Even before the time jump, a tearful conversation ensues between Maggie and Negan, in which she explains to her husband’s killer Glenn why harmonious coexistence is still impossible in the future. Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and his pregnant wife Annie (whom we sadly don’t see in the finale) appear to be looking for another home.
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Maggie can’t forgive
But the two will be reunited in The Walking Dead: Dead City — in New York. How Maggie gets there indirectly sets the stage for the ending. She wants to talk to Carol and Daryl about the future. Because there are still so many to discover more corners of the USA and possible communities, about which she and her fellow campaigners know next to nothing. And now she wants to change that.
The ways of Carol and Daryl break up Because the lone wolf wants to search the vastness of the USA for Rick and Michonne on his motorcycle. His best friend can’t join him due to her new commitments. But how Daryl ends up in France (where his soon-to-be spin-off series is set) we don’t learn.
We get an answer to The Walking Dead’s biggest mystery so far at the very end of the finale in the form of a emotionally stirring epilogue, which is also preparing what is probably the most anticipated spin-off. After this rick (Andrew Lincoln) since season 9 and michonne (Danai Gurira) have not been seen since Season 10, they are now allowed to return and wrap up the series.
Epilogue: There’s no end without Rick Grimes and Michonne
Separated by time and space, The Walking Dead couple are nonetheless forever connected to each other and to their extended family of choice. We see how Michonne in the present writes in a journal that she found along with Rick’s boots and an iphone in season 10. Rick carries those same things with him in a scene that runs parallel, but time in the past is to be classified.
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Richonne forever
Badly wounded, Rick was escorted out of the storyline by helicopter in Season 9 and taken to the mysterious mega-community of the Civic Republic. We see how unsuccessfully trying to escape from this. Some time later, Michonne is now riding a horse with new samurai-like armor across the post-apocalyptic wasteland to search for him.
The epilogue is not just an outlook on the next chapter of The Walking Dead saga, but also one tearful farewell montage. Through diary monologues, Rick and Michonne remember all the important people who lost them, who accompanied them on their journey and who made them who they are today.
“We are the living.” is the motto that will continue to drive them in the future and which is spoken by numerous characters from 12 years of The Walking Dead. In the final shot of the series, the two Grimes children look Judith and Rick Jr. from the wall of the Commonwealth to a more colorful and less dreary world around them, whose future they will shape. Because they are the living.
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How did you like the farewell to The Walking Dead?