The Walking Dead Season 8: 9 Things We Learned From SDCC 2017

2. The Time Jump

The Walking Dead Old Man Rick Grimes
AMC

The major talking point of the trailer comes right at the very end, with a blurry shot of a visibly aged Rick Grimes. Some have inevitably jumped on this as being a big hint towards the Rick coma theory being confirmed, but instead what we're seeing - as many have already stated - is a time jump.

This is something that happens at the end of All Out War, as we jump a few years into the future. It's been a big question over whether the show will include this or not, given the potential character moments you skip past in doing so, but the trailer confirms that it is happening in some way. This could well occur in the mid-season finale or premiere, or the season finale itself, depending on how fast they move through the war storyline.

The alternative is that they don't do the time jump as such, but instead this is a flash-forward. That would mean the show having its cake and eating it, as it'd show us events in the future, while hitting some of the present day character beats too.

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NCTJ-qualified journalist. Most definitely not a racing driver. Drink too much tea; eat too much peanut butter; watch too much TV. Sadly only the latter paying off so far. A mix of wise-old man in a young man's body with a child-like wonder about him and a great otherworldly sensibility.