‘The Walking Dead’ Actor, Michael Rooker, Offers A Dark Theory For The Series Finale [Video]

After seven and a half seasons, The Walking Dead is still going strong. Although ratings have fallen for the mid-season finale, 10.58 million viewers are still a very big chunk for a cable channel like AMC. But eventually, all things must end, and many are wondering what The Walking Dead series finale would look like. Now, we have one more theory, coming from none other than Michael Rooker, also known as Merle Dixon – Daryl’s brother, who first appeared all the way back in Season 1.

Rooker was speaking at the Walker Stalker Con in North Carolina this weekend, Screen Rant reports. The fan convention, dedicated to The Walking Dead fans, is held multiple times a year in different locations, with stars from the The Walking Dead’s past and present making guest appearances and talks.

Merle Dixon, as portrayed by Michael Rooker, was one of the first recurring characters on the show, introduced back in Season 1, Episode 2 of The Walking Dead. Merle, a violent, racist redneck, was one of the original group of survivors in Atlanta, who gathered together and were later joined by Rick Grimes. After being cuffed and abandoned on a rooftop filled with walkers, he managed to hacksaw his own hand and get away.

The character was then absent for most of Season 2 of The Walking Dead, (aside from a dream sequence in which Merle’s brother, Daryl, sees him in a hallucination), but then returned on Season 3 as one of the evil Governor’s men. Merle eventually redeemed himself and tried to kill the Governor, but right before the finale of Season 3, in Episode 15, he was killed violently by the Governor, turned into a zombie – and was then killed again, this time for the final time, by his brother, Daryl.

Three years later, speaking on stage at the convention, Rooker was asked to describe what The Walking Dead finale would look like. He explained that this is only his own personal theory about how it all ends – and then started describing a dramatic, sad ending.

“A Railroad track. Going on forever, into the setting sun. From behind camera, a single individual walks down the middle of the tracks, into the setting sun.”

Then, according to Rooker’s theory, we start hearing a voice-over.

“You realize that that individual is Carl, all grown up, a man of his own. No one else is with him, just him.

“And as he does his voice-over, you realize that everything, all the seasons that you’ve just seen is him reliving his past.

“So everyone on the show is dead. He’s the only survivor, and he’s on his own, and walks off into the sunset, and that’s the end of the show.”

Rooker’s dramatic description of The Walking Dead finale, as he envisions it, can be seen here.

.@RookerOnline describes how he thinks #TheWalkingDead will end #WSCCharlotte pic.twitter.com/g2nvHsxBLj

— Walker Stalker (@WalkrStalkrCon) December 18, 2016

It’s an interesting theory, and consistent with the somber atmosphere of The Walking Dead. One potential problem with this finale, though, is that during the first half of Season 7, some fans have already speculated the Carl Grimes is about to meet his end, as the actor portraying him, 17-year-old Chandler Riggs, will be going off to college soon.

Riggs denied those rumors, though, saying it is possible for him to attend college and stay on The Walking Dead at the same time.

There’s at least one man in the world who should know what The Walking Dead finale is going to look like – Robert Kirman, the creator of The Walking Dead comics. Recently, as Uproxx reports, Kirkman admitted that the comics and TV show might have two very different finales.

“I know how I want to end The Walking Dead, the book. But I can’t tell anyone, because I don’t want it on the show before I get it in the comic. So if the show were to ever end, and the comic was still going, I would have to try and come up with a new ending.”

For now, we still need to see whether Carl Grimes makes it alive through the rest of Season 7 – as his new relationship with uber-villain Negan can surely be hazardous to his health. If he does make it out alive, Michael Rooker’s imagined finale might eventually become a reality.

[Featured Image by AMC]