The Walking Dead: Dead City showrunner Seth Hoffman has revealed that there will be some surprising returning characters in season 3.
As fans already know, the third season of Dead City will include an alternate reality episode – and some of them are worried.
But speaking at the 65th annual Festival de Television de Monte-Carlo, former Walking Dead writer turned showrunner Hoffman assured viewers that they’re in safe hands.
He explained that he was a fan of the first three seasons of The Walking Dead before he began writing for it from season 4.
Hoffman told Radio Times and other press: “I hope I can look at it from a fan’s perspective and I thought, ‘One thing that fans would want to see in this spin-off is characters that maybe we haven’t seen for a long time’.
“If you were to do an alternate reality episode where the apocalypse never happened, you could invite back some characters that haven’t been part of the franchise in a long time.”
Under orders not to elaborate, Hoffman wouldn’t reveal who those returning characters are, saying: “I imagine there are probably some super fans who have some ideas about those, but I’m not at liberty to confirm or deny.”
On the Walking Dead spin-off, Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays Negan, the former leader of the Saviors, and Lauren Cohan plays Maggie, a fellow survivor of the zombie apocalypse and leader of the Bricks.
They’re enemies who in the third season are reluctantly forced to work together to build a new community in Manhattan.
Of the alternate reality episode, the showrunner added: “As I began to think about the episode more, the value from a series-wide perspective is that you get to see who Maggie and Negan would have been if the apocalypse didn’t happen.
“Despite the terrible trauma, the awful things they’ve done and the awful things that have been done to them, you get to ask the question, ‘Are these people better off having gone through the zombie apocalypse than they would have been if they hadn’t gone through it?’
“And so that’s one of the questions that we want the audience to explore when they’re watching that episode.”
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Meanwhile, Morgan promised: “This is our best season thus far. And not to give too much away, but it is moving toward a more positive future for Negan and Maggie.”
As the first two episodes shown at the festival demonstrated, Negan is emerging as more than just a villain. “He’s gotten more layers,” Morgan elaborated of a character he’s played since the sixth season of The Walking Dead itself back in 2015.
“He’s more three-dimensional now. We’ve added layers through the years and this year in particular there’s such a shift in Maggie and Negan’s relationship that it brings yet another side to him.”
Cohan said viewers can expect to see another side to her character too. “It’s interesting how much grief has defined her [in the past],” she told reporters.
“I think a huge part of what has made her relatable and what has given me a lot of pleasure and depth as an actor over the course of the show is the highs and the lows for Maggie. But this is really the first year that the trauma somehow binds these people to help them keep going.”
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The Walking Dead: Dead City will return to AMC and AMC+ on 26 July. Seasons 1 and 2 are available to watch on Sky and NOW.
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