The Walking Dead season 8 to mark biggest moment yet with feature-length episode

It will mark the final appearance of one of the show's longest-standing characters

The Walking Dead season 8 will return with a feature-length episode that will see the death of the show's main characters.

Back in December, the latest run of the US drama revealed it was killing off Carl (Chandler Riggs) following the revelation he had been bitten by a walker a few episodes previous, a twist that shocked and confused fans including the actor's very own father who claimed producers "fired" his son.

Riggs later confirmed he was departing the series following one more episode which will air next month - and to mark the momentous event, the runtime has been extended from 60 to 82 minutes.

The shock regarding this particular twist largely stemmed from the assumption that Carl would take over from his father, Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), as the future of the show, heightened by the fact he's still alive in Robert Kirkman's comic book series the show is based on.

Kirkman himself reassured fans that Carl's death had been prepped in advance, telling Entertainment Weekly: “We have known these storylines have been coming for years. There are plans in place to make it all work. The loss of Carl doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re going to be losing big swaths of the comic book story. It means that there will be some differences to them. The goal is that those differences will be as exciting to the audience as they are to me.”

It was revealed earlier this month that writer Angela Kang will take over as showrunner for the newly-confirmed ninth season when Scott Gimple's tenure comes to an end. He will oversee the entire Walking Dead franchise following the news that the character of Morgan Jones (Lennie James) will be crossing over to spinoff series Fear the Walking Dead for its fourth season.

You can read our review of the midseason finale here. The trailer for the next episode appears to feature what is assumed to be Carl's grave.

The Walking Dead season 8 returns in the US on AMC February 2018 with the UK premiere arriving on FOX. It will also return on NOWTV.

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