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The Walking Dead: We Now Know How Long It's Been Since The Zombie Apocalypse Began


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Credit: Heavy Spoilers/YouTube screenshot

It's not always that the long-running AMC series goes back in time, but flashbacks were a key focus of The Walking Dead Season 10's origin episode, Here's Negan, which even provided a look at the world before the zombie virus outbreak.

Now, The Walking Dead has officially revealed how many years have gone since the zombie apocalypse began in the show's storyline.

When did the First Zombies Emerge in TWD?

Apparently, the planet began to fall apart about 12 years ago. The revelation came in The Walking Dead Season 10's long-awaited origin story episode for one of its most beloved characters, Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan).

Negan turned out to be a jobless ex-gym instructor who was also having an affair with one of his wife's friends. One of his biggest issues was that he had to keep his potentially violent temper under control. When the zombie apocalypse began and his wife died of cancer, he lost his inhibitions and turned into a villain.

The flashbacks provided a clear frame of reference for when these terrible events occurred in Negan's life prior to The Walking Dead, as well as a rough estimate of how many years had gone by in TWD's narrative.

It's intriguing that the show didn't nail down a clear timeframe for how many years have passed until the final episode before the 11th and final season. It was a little more open to interpretation up until now.

The most significant clues were discovered by analyzing the aging of characters such as Carl and totaling up all of the specified time skips that have occurred thus far. These issues had to be addressed because the characters in The Walking Dead have never discussed how many years had passed.

The scene in which Negan is beaten up by a criminal takes place 12 years before TWD's late-Season 10 and early-Season 11 timelines. Zombies were already in plenty at this point. The show then flashed back six weeks to him attempting to help Lucille (Hillarie Burton Morgan) with her cancer treatments while simultaneously attempting to keep their home safe from the walkers outside.

Later, a flashback to a time in Lucille's life seven months before the treatments saw the two living together in the days leading up to the apocalypse on The Walking Dead. As of TWD Season 11, the show's characters have been fighting zombies for 12 to 13 years.

Years Between TWD and Fear The Walking Dead

While The Walking Dead's official timeline now covers nearly 13 years, Fear the Walking Dead pushes it back a bit.

Fear the Walking Dead's origins in Season 1 depict the first days of its timeline, with the pilot episode taking place just a few weeks before TWD's Rick-centric timeline begins.

Since the official timelines began in 2010, there has been a total of around 13 years between The Walking Dead and Fear The Walking Dead.

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