The Walking Dead Season 5: 10 Things We Learned From The New Trailer

The end of July means something different for everybody. For the young, it means that school will soon resume. For the overheated, it means that the crispness of fall thankfully approaches. For those who are already shivering at the thought of the upcoming cooler weather, it is the dreaded beginning of the end of summer. For those of slightly nerdier dispositions, however, the end of July means one very big thing: San Diego Comic-Con, and the releases of trailers for upcoming movies and TV shows. As exciting as they are for viewers starved for new information, first trailers for high-profile television shows are generally designed to mislead and misdirect as much as preview. We viewers usually get just enough to whet our appetites and remind of us why we loved the show in the first place, but not nearly enough to map out very much of the upcoming season. For instance, the Walking Dead Comic-Con trailer for Season 4 seemed to indicate that there was a mass-murderer picking off survivors at the prison for pleasure, Walkers were somehow breaching the walls, and main characters were fleeing their former fortress. Instead, the first few episodes of the season would show a sickness ravaging the ranks, two people being murdered in an attempt to stall the spread of the disease, Walkers coming from within the cell blocks rather than without, and main characters leaving the prison to find medicine. Ultimately, not much of the upcoming season was given away. Not at first glance, anyway. Last year€™s trailer may not have had too many obvious giveaways, but there were some easily-overlooked nuggets that would come back in very big ways later on. Daryl and Beth are shown sharing an embrace. Carol is shown giving weaponry lessons to the children. Lizzie is shown clutching a knife. The garbled message of a sanctuary base is transmitted. Looking back, a close viewing of the trailer could have told us a lot more than we might have thought. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4GAs9TJVjM This year's fast-paced three minute preview may have raised more questions than it answered with regard to Gareth's role in the upcoming season, and we may not have any clue what to think about some of these new characters, but an investigation of the material can give us more to go on than we might think. So, bearing in mind the lessons of the 2013 preview, here are 10 things that we definitively learned from the Comic-Con trailer for the first four episodes of Season 5 of The Walking Dead. Note: No Extended Spoilers.