The Walking Dead: Why no Eugene in season 8 trailer?

It was great to see so many of our fan favorites from The Walking Dead in the season 8 trailer released at San Diego Comic-Con. But where was Eugene?

The historically duplicitous Eugene Porter was noticeably absent from the The Walking Dead season 8 trailer. It has me wondering why. These are purely my own speculations and not tied to the comics in any way as I am not a comic reader (gasp!). Here are some of the possibilities I have considered.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan, Josh McDermitt as Dr. Eugene Porter – The Walking Dead _ Season 7, Episode 16 – Photo Credit: Gene Page/AMC /

Few scenes filmed?

Maybe Eugene has simply not been in many of the scenes during the first half of filming The Walking Dead season 8. We see a lot of battle preparations during the trailer. Eugene does not have a lot of experience on the front lines of battle. Perhaps his absence is merely an indication of lack of footage with the character and his signature mullet early in the season.

And now that I think about it, I do not recall any Gremblygunk sightings either in the teasers for season 8. Surely the stuffed toy will surface again eventually.

Switching sides?

Could Eugene possibly have switched sides again? Some of us have been clamoring for a potential reveal that Eugene was fooling Negan all along and has not actually betrayed his fellow Alexandrians. Others believe Eugene is most certainly a coward that is taking the path of least resistance in order to survive.

I personally think it would be a fantastic game changer if we were to find out that Eugene has been running the long con all along. While his social graces and combat skills may be lacking, I think that we can safely say that Eugene is indeed an intelligent fellow who may just have the skill set to pull one over on Negan after all.

Hiding out?

Maybe Eugene has burned bridges on both sides of the war and is actually on the run with Gremblygunk in hand. It is possible that Eugene loses favor with Negan but manages to escape his wrath.

We already know that Negan wants to know how Sasha managed to turn en route to Alexandria. Could he discover Eugene’s involvement? And if Eugene no longer has a safe place with Negan, he may also assume that he is no longer welcome at Alexandria either.

BTS, Josh McDermitt as Dr. Eugene Porter – The Walking Dead _ Season 7, Episode 11 – Photo Credit: Gene Page/AMC /

If Eugene ends up on the run, it would also be interesting if he were given asylum by one of the other communities like The Kingdom or even the Scavengers who do not know him very well. He could probably find pickles at The Kingdom and would probably enjoy creating science projects from all the junk at the Scavengers camp.

It’s fun to theorize about Eugene’s whereabouts since we did not learn anything new about him in the recent season 8 trailer for The Walking Dead. Where do you think Eugene is? Hopefully, we will not have to wait too long after the series returns to AMC on October 22nd.

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