This article discusses spoilers for the series finale of The Walking Dead.
The Walking Dead's original series ended on November 20, 2022. The series had veered from the comic book stories that influenced it many times over the years. However, for the series finale, the ultimate battle between the long-running survivors and the Commonwealth government played out in a similar method.
With that said, the change in characters surviving to the end and the need to keep things fresh for fans meant alterations took place. What is impressive about The Walking Dead series' differences in the finale and the final issues of the comics went a long way in making the TV show a little more satisfying, while also leaving it open to the spin-offs coming in 2023.
Pamela Milton Shot Judith
In the penultimate issue of The Walking Dead comics, Sebastian Milton came in and shot and killed an unsuspecting Rick Grimes. This was a shocking moment, and one that led to Carl Grimes finding his dad as a zombie and having to put him down himself. Sebastian already died in the series and Rick has been gone for a long time.
It had to change, and what changed was an interesting twist. Pamela shot Judith Grimes in a shocking moment in the penultimate episode before the finale. This meant that the huge road to vengeance was against Pamela and not her son in the finale. This made it seem a little too close to previous battles with villains like The Governor, but it worked here.
Pamela Ended Up in Prison
In the comics, after Sebastian Milton killed Rick Grimes, he was stopped. However, in an act of mercy, he lived. Instead of killing him, the Commonwealth kept the laws of the land, and he ended up sentenced to life in prison for the murder. The comics showed Pamela visiting her son in prison after she gave up her role as the governor of the powerful Commonwealth Walking Dead group.
In the finale, it was Pamela who ended up in prison. The reason was different. She still had her army on her side, although many of them defected. Instead, her army turned on her and arrested her for deserting many of her people outside the gates of her mansion to die. Her crime wasn't murder, but treason against her own people. It was better for the story than just another senseless murder.
The Explosive Finale
The biggest moments in The Walking Dead TV show were nothing like what happened in the comics. Basically, Pamela barricaded herself in her giant home behind a gate and left the people of the Commonwealth on the outside with the zombies bearing down on them.
After having Pamela arrested, the survivors got away, then lured in the zombies with loud music, and then used gasoline and dynamite to blow the entire mansion up and kill all the zombies in a moment made for a big TV finale. In the comics, it ended with Rick stopping the horde by fighting them off, but then swerved to Pamela, who ordered Rick's death, claiming he was trying to take over. It was a better climax, but too low-key for the TV series.
Rosita's Story
Rosita was dead in the comics long before the final issue. The Whisperers killed her and left her head on a spike while she was pregnant. This was a horrific moment, and The Walking Dead TV show saved her and carried her to the finale.
She had her baby, and she began lovingly raising her when everything went wrong in the Commonwealth. This led to a fan-favorite moment where it looked like the zombie horde was eating her and the baby. A fighting mother, she exploded out of the horde and fought them off, saving herself and Coco. Sadly, she ended up infected from the attack and died in the end, but Coco survived.
Carol and Daryl
Two people who got a satisfying ending in The Walking Dead season finale were Carol and Daryl. The fan dream couple parted as friends, with Daryl leaving to find Rick and Michonne and Carol saying she was staying behind in the Commonwealth.
They clearly created this for the TV show since neither of these characters really existed in the comics. The TV show created Daryl as an original character and Carol wasn't anything like the comics' version that died in the prison. She was more like Andrea, but in the end, she was an original character as well. Yet the two were main Walking Dead characters on TV by the end.
Negan and Maggie
In the comics, Negan and Maggie had the same tough relationship as they did in The Walking Dead series. The difference between the TV show and the comics was that Negan was in a very different place. In the comics, he lived as a hermit outside the Commonwealth, completely alone.
In the TV show, he had a new wife (Annie), and he was there to help Maggie when she set out to kill Pamela. The two had a similar talk in the comics, about how she couldn't forgive him, but it felt different because Negan didn't end up completely alone in the AMC series.
Ezekiel Is the New Governor
In The Walking Dead comics, Maggie became the new governor of The Commonwealth and ruled it fairly but strictly. She had Michonne there to help keep the justice level. However, in the TV series, there was no room for Maggie to govern this land. She wanted nothing to do with it.
Instead, Ezekiel was named the new governor. In the comics, Ezekiel was dead, with his head on a spike thanks to the Whisperers. In the TV show, he lived and ended up in charge. It was deserved because, of everyone in The Walking Dead, he always governed his people fairly. This change was for the better, and he even got Mercer as his lieutenant governor to help sell everyone on the change.
Michonne Was Long Gone by The Walking Dead Finale
In the comics, Michonne moved to the Commonwealth, found her daughter there, still alive, and ended up as the judge of the town. She got her happy ending, and she ended up saving Carl when he went on trial for killing the zombies Hershel owned.
This couldn't happen in The Walking Dead finale. The difference from the comics was that Michonne showed up surprisingly in the ending shots, as she is still looking for Rick Grimes, who is also still alive, and trying to get back to find his family. This officially makes Rick the longest surviving character on The Walking Dead.
There Was No Jump Far into The Future
One of the more disappointing differences between The Walking Dead finale and the comics is that there was no jump way into the future to show how society had grown. In the future, Maggie's son had grown up and began keeping "pet" zombies he used in a carnival, and this put him at odds with an adult Carl Grimes, who lived on his own outside of town.
The TV show didn't care about this. Carl is dead and Judith doesn't need that conflict. Instead, the show ended with a motto that they are the ones who lived, and it ended with hope for the future. There will be spin-offs expanding the world, including one with Rick and Michonne, so this comic ending was not possible, anyway.
There Was No Story Written for Future Generations
On top of not jumping far into the future, The Walking Dead finale differed from the comics in not making the entire story one told from one generation to the next. At the very end of the comics, Carl Grimes sat with his daughter in his lap and told her the story of his dad leading the people to a new beginning.
With Carl dead, many comic fans thought Judith would fill this role. It didn't happen. Judith was still a kid in the end of the TV show since it ended one year later. It showed a new beginning, but it eliminated the storybook ending. That was the biggest disappointment.