‘The Walking Dead’: Scott Gimple On Flashbacks, ‘Talking Dead,’ And 90-Minute Episodes

Scott Gimple appeared at San Diego Comic-Con to discuss AMC’s The Walking Dead. As one of the show’s writers, he has helped mold the show into the huge success it is today. However, as eloquent as he may be with a script, when it comes to talking about Season 6 of The Walking Dead, his answers are about as clear as mud.

Let’s have a look at what he had to say about season 6 of The Walking Dead.

• Scott Gimple admitted to twisting the Season 6 trailer so all that fans saw in the new trailer may be nothing more than creative cuts to make the viewer think a certain way, or to assume certain events will occur. For example, threats made by Rick Grimes (played by Andrew Lincoln) that look like they were directed towards Morgan (Lennie James) may not actually be towards him at all.
• Flashbacks. Initially, Scott Gimple said there would be a few flashbacks in Season 6 of The Walking Dead. However, further on in the panel, he retracted that statement, instead admitting he was currently working on a Season 6 episode that dealt almost exclusively with a flashback. He puts his memory lapse down to just forgetting things in front of the large crowd. However, Hardwick questioned whether he was actually telling the truth this time or previously.
• Speaking of Chris Hardwick, he discussed how being the host for the Walking Dead talk show, Talking Dead takes more of a toll on him than he initially expected — especially when a favorite character died. He likened himself to the “zombie therapist” on his show and had to help work the audience through all the bad times on The Walking Dead. Scott Gimple pointed out that whenever they cut an edit of a particularly harrowing segment of The Walking Dead, they always thought about Hardwick and how he would cope with the fallout on Talking Dead.
• The season 5 finale of The Walking Dead ended up a 90-minute episode thanks to Scott Gimple’s script. Greg Nicotero (who directed the episode) announced that thanks to the precedence set, there would be a “supersized episode right out of the gate,” with the Season 6 premiere episode also clocking in at 90 minutes.

The full panel for The Walking Dead were Scott Gimple, Gale Anne Hurd, Dave Alpert, Greg Nicotero, Andrew Lincoln (who plays Rick Grimes), Steven Yeun (Glenn Rhee), Chandler Riggs (Carl Grimes), Danai Gurira (Michonne), Michael Cudlitz (Abraham), Melissa McBride (who plays Carol and brought cookies along to Comic-Con. No one was game enough to eat them), Lennie James (Morgan), Sonequa Martin-Green (Sasha), and Norman Reedus (who plays fan favorite Daryl Dixon and took phone video of the audience as he entered).

The Walking Dead will return for Season 6 on Sunday October 11, 2015, on AMC. You can view the Comic-Con trailer for Season 6 here.

Are you looking forward to flashbacks in Season 6 of The Walking Dead? Let us know by commenting below.

[Image credit: San Diego Comic Con 2015 screen capture]