After a summer full of big and exciting praises from the cast and crew, The Walking Dead will soon be back in our lives on a weekly basis to show us the heavily hyped All Out War between Team Rick and Team Negan in Season 8. And with both real life and TV, wars bring casualties on all sides of the line. A show like The Walking Dead doesn't even need a war to kill off its characters willy nilly, so you just know that some big changes are coming.
As such, here are eight characters who are most likely to die horrendous deaths in The Walking Dead Season 8. Negan's arrival last year rocked the boat when it came to losing big characters, and we expect this upcoming batch of episodes to be no different. Let's start off with one of the drama's most morally flippant heroes, shall we? (First, though, be warned that there are some comic book spoilers in this list that may or may not become relevant for the show.)
Morgan
The Walking Dead's Morgan is a character like no other. He's an O.G. survivor who met Rick back in the early days. He disappeared for a while, resurfacing first in his "going clear" mania and then again after becoming a more zen-ified soul who chose not to kill anyone. But we all saw that no-murder clause expire in the back half of Season 7, and when Season 8 kicks off, we can expect to see him possibly getting his hands as dirty as ever, as Team Family aims to take out Negan's Saviors in any way possible.
And if he's back to being as vengeful as everyone else, then Morgan loses part of what makes him a distinct survivor, and that's never a good thing within the world of The Walking Dead. Especially for a bigger character. As such, there's a pretty decent chance that Morgan will become a clear casualty of All Out War by the time the dust settles.
Eric
Here, we're going with a character that isn't as popular or as impactful in the story as Morgan is, but let's not act as if Eric is just a background decoration or anything. He and Aaron were responsible for bringing Rick & Co. into Alexandria (for better or worse), and following his leg injury and some brief hesitation about sticking with Rick, Eric was right there in the heat of the battle, and often alongside Aaron.
Because Aaron is the more important character, though, it would make perfect sense for Eric to be killed off early in the All Out War, so that it could provide Aaron with an even larger urge to take down Negan and his evil squadron. Plus, Eric's live-action death could make way for the comic book romance between Aaron and Jesus that comes to the page a little later in the timeline.
Jadis
One of the more surprising new characters to enter The Walking Dead in recent years, Jadis arrived without any initial ties to any other characters beyond her junkyard-dwelling Scavengers, though it later became clear that she was just using the extravagantly gullible Rick in order to attain weapons. And for that deception, she will certainly be a target for Team Family when Season 8 arrives.
Considering she doesn't have any expansive allegiance to Negan and the Saviors, Jadis is still a wild card in this world, and even though actress Pollyanna McIntosh was promoted to series regular this year, I can't help but think that's just meant to give Jadis a bit more screentime to cause mayhem before someone takes her down for good. As far as what will happen to her massive group of underlings, I have no idea, I'm guessing they'll side with whoever wasn't responsible for her death.
Gregory
Oddly enough, perhaps, Gregory was absent for the end run of The Walking Dead Season 7, as he'd aken off from the Hilltop Colony after getting smacked by Maggie and having his leadership ridiculed by others. It's pretty obvious that he's going to try and make a deal with the Saviors to keep Hilltop aligned with Negan's agreement, but he's one of the only community members who actually wants that.
Assuming Gregory largely sticks to his comic arc, then we can expect him to make some other truly evil choices in the near future, and ones that will be worthy of a most deadly quest for vengeance. But even if that doesn't play out accordingly, Gregory almost has to bite the bullet soon. His cowardly ways offer Negan even less than they offered Rick and Maggie, and he won't be able to save himself in a fight. So he should either move to a new community, or he should update his will.
Tara
First introduced back in Season 4, Tara has had an interesting run in The Walking Dead, having initially showed up as part of The Governor's story. She then offered Glenn some standalone assistance before tagging along with Abraham's group ahead of being fully incorporated into Team Family. Tara is also the character who discovered the Oceanside community, and was there in the moments after Heath disappeared. Even though it might be hard to remember a lot of extremely specific moments from Tara's journey so far, she's been around for just about everything in the past three seasons and then some.
And so, because she's not the most important character in Team Family, she is in a good position to get killed off at some point during the All Out War. Actress Alanna Masterson has spoken up recently about Tara getting more active and tough in the near future, which is also a pretty decent sign that she's doomed. Hopefully something happens with that "PPP" card she found of Heath's before she dies, though, because WTF was that?
Jared
A war is going to take out a lot of bad guys, and there are more than enough nameless Saviors for Team Family to dispatch before the important folks come up. And while we don't think Negan or Simon is necessarily going to get offed in Season 8, the same cannot be said for Jared. To many fans, Jared is the WORST of the worst. He's a bully to just about everyone, and it seems like he would have been Negan's best buddy before the apocalypse came along.
We don't think that Negan will go down for the count in Season 8 -- with beliefs buoyed by the comic storyline -- and Simon is too charismatic to kill off just yet. So the empathy-free Jared is almost definitely going to be on the chopping block in Season 8. Here's hoping it comes sooner than later, too.
Father Gabriel
Since first being introduced in Season 5, Father Gabriel has come a long way in terms of fan enjoyment, if not necessarily story importance. Starting off as a wimpy threat to Rick's leadership within Alexandria, Gabriel has come around to the main method of survival, and he's now as dependable as anyone else in the wide swath of protagonists.
Which, of course, means that he's now just as likely to meet his maker as anyone else in Season 8. Even though the comics' Father Gabriel manages to survive long beyond the All Out War, he does eventually face a very disturbing end, and it's one that fans were pretty pissed about. Perhaps the TV show will be the place for the character to take on a death that's more befitting of his stature.
Daryl
Every year, it seems like Daryl is toeing the line for the proverbial firing squad to completely take him out of The Walking Dead universe, and every year, he manages to squeak by any and all threats to live another day. But those previous days did not include a full-on war with a pack of villains who specifically want Daryl dead, which is definitely the case with the Saviors, as Negan wants to punish him for making his grand escape from the dog food diet of the Sanctuary.
Already, Daryl had to stay in hiding after making it back to Team Family, and it's going to be hard for him to take the target off his back when he's out (possibly on his own) seeking revenge. So even though the fans would riot if Daryl gets killed off, the threat is looming as large as it ever has, and it'll be interesting to see if showrunner Scott Gimple will decide to take Daryl out in Season 8. If so, I hope it involves explosions.
So there you have it, Walking Dead fans. No guarantees about any of these characters dying, of course, but none of their deaths would be too surprising to us. Find out if any will get cycled out of the storyline when The Walking Dead Season 8 premieres on AMC on Sunday, October 22, at 9:00 p.m. ET. To see when other new and returning shows will hit the small screen soon, head to our fall TV premiere schedule.
