"To finish the story of The Walking Dead, we needed Rick and Michonne," Gimple continued during his interview with EW. "And to show Rick and Michonne, we had to show them in circumstances that they're in. And it really was like, no matter where these characters are, the situations they're in, whether they're living or dead, they're forever connected by their time with each other. That they are part of a family that is unbreakable. And that is in some ways one long life, which is something thematically we have invoked throughout the series and in the even earlier moments of this finale. And that's what we started with."