The Walking Dead is ready to bombard us with extra content, including origin stories. But whose past is interesting enough to make the cut?
We’ve got three Rick Grimes TV movies in the pipeline, and an unknown amount of digital series, spin-off series, and origin stories. While it’s definitely cool to see the universe expanding, in some ways the most interesting thing would be for the series to expand inwards.
The Walking Dead cast has become so large, it’s impossible for every character to get substantial development. Some of the best characters lack screen time, and even more of those characters are already dead. Below are five groups of characters we’d love to see get their own season to show their backstory.
Negan and the Saviors
If there were ever someone to rival Rick’s authoritative and commanding presence, it’d be Negan. He’s awful, but impossible to look away from and not hang on his every word. Having been introduced six seasons into The Walking Dead, there’s much about Negan’s past prior to and after the outbreak we don’t know. But we’d certainly like to know.
When and how did Negan find a baseball bat and decide to call it ‘Lucille’? At what point of the apocalypse did Negan stumble upon the Sanctuary? Who was the leader before him? What did Negan do to become leader (though we can probably guess)? Did the Sanctuary change after Negan took over, or were the Saviors always so brutal? How did he and the Saviors take command of other communities like Hilltop and the Kingdom?
It could also be worth seeing what Negan was like long before the dead started walking. According to Negan actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Negan has always been brutal in some form, even as a teenager. It’d be worthwhile to see that not all bad guys have a tragic backstory. Some people are just nasty people, and when put in extreme circumstances and positions of power, their brutality intensifies. Let’s see the real Negan, not the sad sap who cries because he can’t have his favorite bat.
Eugene, Abraham, and Rosita
There’s hardly a more entertaining ensemble than that of Eugene, Abraham, and Rosita. By the time we’re introduced to them in season 4, they’ve an established relationship that only grows over time. Before they were a trio, however, they each started as individuals in separate groups.
An origin story of Eugene, Abraham, and Rosita would easily fill at least one spinoff season. They’re three unique characters who’ve fallen by the wayside on The Walking Dead (particularly because one of them is dead), so it’d be great to have a spin off series dedicated to them.
We don’t know much about Eugene and Rosita’s pasts, their lives before the outbreak. It’d be worthwhile to see how Eugene became a walking Google, and how Rosita is such an engineer whiz. As for Abraham, we know he has a dramatic backstory that befits a television arc.
After establishing each of their individual backstories, let’s see them meet, how they end up in the same group, and ultimately how that group falls after their fateful departure leading Eugene to the capital. Abraham may be dead, but this trio is rife with history, so there’s still plenty of opportunity for story with them.
Rick’s group during Rick’s coma
Fear the Walking Dead showed us the beginning of the outbreak in Los Angeles, and how quickly the city fell apart. But we’ve never seen the onset of the apocalypse in Georgia. Up to this point, The Walking Dead has been from Rick’s perspective, and Rick was locked in a hospital room in a coma for about a month when the outbreak began. If Fear, and LA, is anything to go by, a lot can happen in a month. So what did happen during the time Rick was missing in action?
Related: From sheriff to cannibal, our 5 favorite Rick Grimes on The Walking Dead
Unsurprisingly, Lori and Carl ended up with Rick’s best friend, but how did the rest find each other? At what point did Daryl, Carol, Dale, Andrea, T-Dog, and Glenn find each other and end up with Shane and Lori? What transpired to Shane and Lori prior to them leaving the city? Rick may have only been comatose for a month, but Atlanta fell apart in that time and it’d be interesting to see it all go down.
Daryl and Merle
If The Walking Dead is bold enough, there could be a one season origin story completely absent of the undead.
Daryl and Merle Dixon have one of the most interesting relationships that’s ever been on The Walking Dead. Not to mention they’re two of the most popular characters. One you love, the other you loved to hate. Through dialogue we already know a lot about their past, and it’s eventful to say the least. It’d be easy to make a family drama genre show about the Dixon’s past, if people would be open to potentially watching it without Norman Reedus or Michael Rooker.
The Dixon story includes a fatal house fire, a child lost in the woods, abuse, and drugs. There’s enough plot, character dynamic, and tragedy to keep at least one season going.
Sasha and Tyreese
Another sibling pair we’d love to see more of are Sasha and Tyreese. We don’t know a lot about their past before walkers roamed the earth, so a one-off season would be a great opportunity to see what transpired that ended them up in the prison.
What we do know is that Sasha and Tyreese lived in a neighbor’s backyard for many months before venturing out. It’d be different to see The Walking Dead spend an extended period of time at a house, and how people could survive there for so long.
Of course they ended up leaving the backyard and found another group that met a grisly fate. What was that group like? What kind of people were they? Did they have a camp, or were they nomadic? It’s a whole other group we know nothing about, and a lot of potential for seeing a different way of coping with the end of the world.