‘The Walking Dead’ Brought Back a Familiar Face From Season 1 Tonight

Season 8 of The Walking Dead is only just gearing up, but this week’s episode already had fans losing their minds. A much beloved character that we haven't seen since Season 1, and who many probably thought had died, reappeared at the very last minute. If you don't want to find out who it is, don't keep reading, because there will be many spoilers below!

The anticipation for some kind of big revelation had been building for quite some time before this episode, though. Tonight’s episode of The Walking Dead is titled “The Damned.” The official synopsis is the following:

That “familiar face” could be a “character that we may have thought was dead," Greg Nicotero, the executive producer of the show, told Yahoo.

Speaking of “The Damned,” Nicotero said he was excited for the episode. “It’s a direct continuation of the war and the attack on the satellite [outpost], which is exciting," Nicotero said. "And it’s possible that there may be a character that we may have thought was dead pop up. Who knows?,” he added, which is a funny thing to say because is anyone should know, it would be him, the executive producer.

The identity of this mystery character was kept a secret until the very last minute, though. And there were quite a few possibilities; after all, Nicotero’s words were pretty cryptic. On the one hand, a character we had long presumed dead is not, in fact, dead, but on the other, since this is a zombie show, it could also simply mean we’ll see a zombie version of one of the many characters who have died.

Even the official The Walking Dead Twitter account was teasing the big surprise. 

Even though the show kept the surprise the very end of the episode, it still struck a chord with fans on social media. Morales, the fan-favorite character all the way from Season 1, returned tonight. He was last seen choosing to head to Birmingham, Alabama rather than Atlanta to explore the CDC. Since then, he and his family were long thought dead. But it appears the years away from his friends have hardened him, and he's not the same Morales that everyone used to know.