AMC ensured that The Walking Dead was given a new lease on life whenever the original series came to a close. Yes, in one of the ultimate cases of TV irony, the franchise about the dead literally rising will, quite simply, never die, as it persists through multiple spinoffs designed to tell new stories in the legendary shared universe. And these spinoffs aren't afraid to bring back some of the OG show's heaviest hitters.
While spinoffs have been a part of the TWD Universe since 2015 (when prequel series Fear The Walking Dead launched), the new wave that came after the conclusion of the mothership series has brought back a lot of familiar faces from the franchise. Daryl Dixon is led by TWD veterans Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride, while Dead City also relies on Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. And miniseries The Ones Who Live brought back Andrew Lincoln's Rick Grimes and Danai Gurira's Michonne to complete their long-standing love story. Unfortunately, there is one character who will never be able to appear in these TWD offshoots.
Carl Grimes can never appear in a TWD spinoff (and he's the one who should have lived)
It's absolutely wild to think about the fact that Carl Grimes was once considered the future of The Walking Dead. Rick Grimes' struggling son was given a lot of focus throughout the early-mid seasons of the series in a bid to showcase the bond between Carl and his parents while also potentially setting him up as a successor of sorts to Rick down the line. After all, that's what happened in the comics by Robert Kirkman; why wouldn't it have happened here?
Unfortunately, the character's unexpected death in the eighth season completely rendered any hope for the show's future moot. Although Carl sacrificed himself in a way (by putting himself in harm's way to save Siddiq), it should never have been allowed to get to that stage. Heck, the decision reportedly caught actor Chandler Riggs off-guard, so it's understandable that fans all over the world were outraged by it. And even now, a decade on, very few would argue that it was a good idea. In many ways, it's where the show was truly beyond regaining that original spark that it kept chasing in those back few seasons (and only rarely achieved).
Taking all of that into account, Carl obviously can't appear in any of The Walking Dead spinoffs. While you could technically say that this argument rings true for any of the characters who died during the original show's run, it's particularly frustrating with Carl for one simple reason: The spinoffs are all about the future of the TWD Universe. Once upon a time, Carl was that future.
Since AMC made the decision to continue the franchise with these big-budget, larger-than-life offshoots, there have been discussions among fans about what the next chapter of them will look like. And honestly, it's getting close to the time when AMC has to start asking those questions too. Right now, the franchise is focused on telling new stories with established TWD characters, but what happens after that? Do they go to the well again and choose another TWD veteran (Aaron, Gabriel, or maybe even Ezekiel?) or do they build up a new generation of survivors?
This is where a Carl spinoff would have come in real handy. Carl is an original Walking Dead character, having been there right from the beginning of the original series, but he's also young enough that he could have fronted a spinoff focused on the next generation. Perhaps he could have helped Alexandria or the Commonwealth reach out to a new community? Perhaps he could have went out on the road for supplies with his sister Judith and the pair encounter a new threat that they must take out before returning home? The possibilities could have been endless.
You might read this article and say, "well, Chandler Riggs could still make a cameo appearance in a flashback", but we're well past that now. It's been almost a decade ago since Carl died in The Walking Dead season 8, meaning that Riggs has matured a great deal since then. There would be no feasible way to insert a cameo from Carl into any future TWD spinoff - nor is there any reason to do it in the currently ongoing spinoffs Daryl Dixon and Dead City. If there were some kind of sequel series to The Ones Who Live, it would still be impossible to realistically pull off any type of cameo appearance - which is unfortunate because it's clear that fans would have loved that.
There are a lot of TWD Universe fans who keep asking for a Judith spinoff and, to be honest, that makes a lot of sense. But if Carl had still been around, we could have gotten a spinoff on both Grimes siblings. And that's just a sad reminder that The Walking Dead as a whole is still suffering from that ridiculously poor decision it made all those years ago.
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