‘The Walking Dead’ Cannot Match The Comic’s Ending In Season 11

The Walking Dead is pacing through its last few episodes to end the series after 11 seasons. But we’ve seen some discussion about how the show may or may not mirror the end of the comics, which concluded with the Commonwealth arc.

Our readers realize just how much has changed where the show will be just miles and miles away from the end of the comics, and it really should not resemble the finale of Kirkman’s story at all. Let’s go through this:

Rick Grimes has left the show, when he was the central character in the last arc, and actually was killed in the final issues by Milton’s son.
Carl Grimes was killed off years ago, the other main character in this arc.
Michonne left the show to go find Rick, and has essentially be replaced by Kumiko in this arc.
Dwight, a major death in the comics, when Rick is forced to kill him to protect Pamela Milton, left for Fear the Walking Dead years ago and will not be returning.

Daryl, the main character of the entire series now, did not exist in the comics at all. It’s already been said he will not take Rick’s place in the ending, something that should be obvious, given that we know he’s getting his own spin-off after this and cannot end up dead.
Carol died in the first few dozen issues of the comics and her current version is a totally transformed character.
Ezekiel and Rosita are not supposed to be alive at this point at all, as they died long ago in the comics, two of the Whisperer heads on pikes.
Judith Grimes died as a baby in the comics. Rick and Michonne never were a couple and never had a son.

Even if Rick and Michonne return for cameos, we know they’ll survive due to their spin-off. Daryl, Negan and Maggie will all survive , based on their own spin-offs as well.
As of tonight, you’ll realize that another key player for the end of the comics storyline has been taken off the board, but I won’t go into that yet.
Given all the spin-offs, it’s extremely unlikely we will see a huge time jump like we saw with Carl in the final issue, given that the show does not want to leap that far into the future with all the spin-offs still needing to happen. Plus, those have to be set up to a certain extent.

In short, while the show and comics have had similarities and differences in the past, all these changes have created a butterfly effect that here in the finale, the show really cannot look remotely like the end of the comics.

Almost every single main character in the comic Commonwealth arc is gone. And some of the characters that seemingly replaced them are destined for their own spin-offs after this, so there cannot be some sort of fixed ending to their story. I’m expecting very, very little about the finale to resemble the comics, and even the show itself seems a bit confused, as they reported recently they had to change their ending scene that they originally had planned. I’m guessing it’s something Rick spin-off related, as there’s a zero percent change the show will end without showing him, even if he’s not showing up in person to meet up with his old crew (which would not make much sense for his spin-off).