With one day to go until the fifth season premiere of “The Walking Dead” on October 12, AMC’s New York Comic-Con panel was pitched to a frenzy by the time the cast hit the biggest stage in the Javits Center. Moderator Chris Hardwick showed off a scene from the fifth season premiere, and welcomed the cast and crew for a spirited chat in front of a standing ovation crowd.
Here’s everything we learned from the footage – and panel.
1. Terminus Is…
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spoiler It’s people. The first scene from the season premiere was shown off, and yup, the “sanctuary” of Terminus is full of cannibals. Also noteworthy? “Gotham” break out star Robin Lord Taylor is the first one to bite it due to the hungry Terminus denizens.
“Everything you’ve felt for the past four years, you will feel in one episode,” Director Greg Nicotero said of the premiere.
2. It’s A Matter Of Time
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The new season will be playing with time to get deeper into the characters, something that was teased in the premiere’s opening scene.
“It’s going to be more recent past, there’s something about ‘The Walking Dead’ that deals with the present,” showrunner Scott Gimple said. “We’re also going to play with time a bit. We’re going to get to delve into these characters.”
3. Comic, But Not Funny
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Season 5 will be more based on the comic than usual, according to series creator Robert Kirkman – to the point that the plot and visuals will sometimes closely match.
“There’s going to be a lot of things from the comic we’re going to pull in this season,” Kirkman noted. “We’re still going to be changing things up a bit. This season is going to follow the comics more than in the past.”
“Even from a visual stand point,” Gimple added. “When Greg [Nicotero] directs he has panels from the comic books in his notebook.”
However, they both noted it’s still not going to be very funny, as the season will be heartbreaking.
“I want to cut to a ‘Talking Dead’ promo and Chris is just crying,” Kirkman said to Hardwick.
4. Norman Reedus Has A Bunch Of Cameras
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The whole cast got a standing ovation when they entered, but the biggest screams were left for Norman Reedus… Who entered with a cell phone, AND a camera on a stick taking pictures of himself and the crowd. Dude loves social media. Spoiler.
5. The Season 5.5 Premiere Is…
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The fifth season hasn’t even premiered yet, but AMC officially announced that the second half will hit your televisions on February 8, 2015.
6. “Dead Trek III: The Search For Beth”
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Lauren Cohan revealed that now that the cast has all reunited, the next step for her character Maggie is the search for her sister Beth (Emily Kinney) – if she survives Terminus, of course.
7. Let’s Save The World
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Things are about to get very big, according to Michael Cudlitz, who plays Abraham.
“It’s saving about the world,” Cudlitz said. “Eugene holds the cure to saving the world, and it’s a matter of getting to Washington, D.C.”
8. All The Feels
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When asked about the evolution of Carol, actress Melissa McBride was brought to tears
“it’s been amazing, and if I keep going I’ll cry… Because I love her,” McBride said, tears streaming down her face – which led to Reedus getting up and giving her a tissue.
9. Daryl Has A New Catchphrase
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Not being able to hear over the screaming crowd, Reedus kept saying an elongated, confused, “Whaaaat?” to which Gimple said, “That’s Daryl’s catchphrase this season.”
“All right, all right, all right,” Reedus said, breaking reality in half.
10. They’re F–king With The Wrong Line
Season four ended with Andrew Lincoln’s Rick saying, “They’re screwing with the wrong people,” while the actual line was, “They’re f–king with the wrong people.” Turns out, that was in the original script, and Lincoln refused to do the alternate take more than once, because that wasn’t the way the line was intended.
Because of that, Gimple and company ended up trying different dips to silence to see if they could get away with the line – AMC doesn’t bleep, they remove sound for cursing – but ultimately they couldn’t make it work and went with the alt take.
11. If A Horse Offers You A Coke, You Say, “Yes”
The most bizarre moment of the entire panel was when a zombie in a horse head mask, bummed that star Chandler Riggs (who plays Carl Grimes) wasn’t there, offered Lincoln a can of Coke. Showing far too much trust, first Hardwick and then Lincoln jumped off stage to grab the Coke.
Lincoln popped it open, and then promptly fell out of his chair, pretending to fall unconscious.
There’s so many things we don’t understand about this moment, but hey, it happened.
Are you looking forward to “The Walking Dead” premiere? And if a horse offered you a Coke, wwhat would you say?
Alex Zalben
Writer/Editor at MTV News. You can follow him on Twitter, but not in real life because that would be weird.
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