Robert Kirkman may have loved The Walking Dead but if he could turn back time, he’d leave the CDC & that big reveal buried with the walkers.

We have all probably, at least once in our lives, wondered if we would survive a zombie apocalypse. Well, if you want to know the answer to that age-old question, just tune in to the eleven seasons of The Walking Dead, and you’ll have your answer. Would you succumb to the undead or rise as a badass survivor? Here, friendships are put to the test, enemies are everywhere, and hope? That’s the rarest resource of all.

The hit AMC show is based on the namesake comic book series by Robert Kirkman. While Robert Kirkman seems satisfied with the adaptation, there is one thing he wishes was done differently in the first season of the show – the finale.

The Walking Dead Season 1, episode 6 | Credits: AMC

Robert Kirkman’s honest opinion on The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead season one ended in just six episodes, with the season finale titled TS-19. During the episode, Dr. Edwin Jenner unveils the results of an infected patient’s brain scan, confirming that the disease was incurable. Viewers get an insight into the virus and learn that the French were probably the closest to finding a cure.

Noah Emmerich and Andrew Lincoln’s Dr. Jenner and Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead | Credits: AMC

While the episode was an interesting turn in events, comic book creator Robert Kirkman admits that he would rather have had the storyline go in a different direction. For context, TS-19 wasn’t a part of the OG comics and was a creative decision made by the show.

Talking to The Hollywood Reporter almost a decade ago, Kirkman stated that if he could go back in time and do The Walking Dead all over again, he would probably not do the CDC episode so early on in the show. This is in reference to Rick Grimes and the group seeking shelter at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only to find no cure for the growing pandemic.

He stated, “If I had to do it again, I wouldn’t have done the CDC episode [at the end of season one.]” In the episode, Doctor Edwin Jenner tells Andrew Lincoln‘s Rick that everyone had already been infected – a huge reveal at very early stages of the show. Kirkman added, “It possibly gave away too much information and was such a big change very early on in the series.”

While he loved the character of Dr. Jenner, he believes that season one could have ended in a better way. He said,

I feel like there might have been a better way to wrap up the first season. It ended up being a fun episode. I love the character of Dr. Jenner and thought Noah [Emmerich] did an amazing job. But there were things in that episode that I think seem very much not of ‘The Walking Dead’ world.

There you go. Even though The Walking Dead will remain iconic for ages to come, Kirkman’s disappointment with the season finale is valid. At the end of the day, it was his vision coming to life, and the CDC arc was something he probably didn’t expect.

How did the reveal happen in the comics?

Tyreese and Julie in The Walking Dead comics | Credits: Image Comics

While Dr. Jenner tells Rick and his group that everyone is infected, this huge reveal was completely different in the comics by Kirkman. For starters, Tyreese’s daughter, Julie, makes a suicide pact with her boyfriend, Chris. After they make love for the first time, they prepare to carry out their plan, which didn’t go exactly as they had planned.

The thing is, they were supposed to shoot each other at the same time, but Chris ended up pulling the trigger much faster than Julie, fatally shooting his girlfriend. Hearing the loud noise, Tyreese rushes to her side only to find her lifeless body and a stunned Chris.

Chris says things like, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this…we were supposed to be together forever…it was going to work…” As the distraught father hugged his dead daughter, he pleaded with her to come back. To this, Rick tries to be the voice of reason and tells him that Julie won’t be coming back since she wasn’t bitten before her death. Or so they thought.

Julie comes back to life as a walker, much to their surprise. This is how they learned that everyone was infected, and you didn’t need to be bitten to revive as a walker. You can see the entire scene from the comics play out on Reddit.

This is clearly quite different from how the reveal happened in the show. Moreover, the TV counterpart of Tyreese (Chad L. Coleman) didn’t even have a daughter to begin with, meaning that Julie was never a part of the live-action universe, and neither was her boyfriend.

The Walking Dead is available to stream on Netflix.