If you blinked (or were watching on AMC+) then you might have missed it. Gareth made a surprise appearance on The Walking Dead finale, and fans can’t quit talking about it. Here’s a look at what happened in case you missed it, and what fans are saying.
This article has minor spoilers for TWD finale.
Gareth Appeared During the Finale
If you watched the finale on AMC Plus without commercials (or fast-forwarded during the commercials later), then you missed a lot of surprise zombie commercials. During one of the ads, Gareth made a surprise appearance.
In case you don’t remember, Gareth was a leader of Terminus and was a big antagonist in Season 4 and Season 5. (You can read more about him in The Walking Dead wiki.) He invited people to live at Terminus and used to be a good person, before he became the horrific leader that we knew so well. He died in the episode “Four Walls and a Roof.” Bob revealed to Gareth that he had been bitten, and they had been eating infected meat. Rick then ambushed Gareth, who begged him to let him live. But Rick hacked Gareth to death with a red machete.
So Gareth isn’t actually coming back as a zombie at any point in the real Walking Dead universe. But he did make an appearance as a zombie in a Ring commercial that ran tonight during The Walking Dead finale.
During the commercial, Gareth tries to fend off solicitors coming to his door, and can use the Ring camera to do so. “I would literally rather die again,” he says in the ad.
Here’s a photo one fan shared from the ad, writing: “Best part of the Walking Dead finale: The zombie ads. A great reminder that creativity is the best sales tool. That’s a lesson often forgotten in these days of clicks and keywords. We can all be more creative.”
Here’s another photo and tweet about the ad.
Fans loved the ads.
https://twitter.com/CandissNicole/status/1594521028780253185
“Wait, was that really Gareth?” one fan asked.
Waaait, was that really Gareth in that Ring commercial? #TWD
— Demarco♒️ (@DemarcoTwain) November 21, 2022
Another fan wrote, “Loving these commercials. Nice seeing Gareth and Andrea again. #TWD.”
https://twitter.com/TheLewisEffect/status/1594525837369417728
His Appearance Went Viral
In fact, fans loved the ad so much that Gareth was a viral trend when the episode ended, surpassing other trends.
Ryan Reynolds actually hinted about his appearance in a cryptic tweet released before the finale aired.
https://twitter.com/twdfamilyy_/status/1594454210577567744
Other people made surprise appearances too during the finale. Andrea (Laurie Holden) was in a Deloitte ad about taking on “meatiest challenges.”
And Rodney (with his head on a pike) also made an appearance for a DoorDash commercial.
https://twitter.com/conniestheo/status/1594512153263972353
https://twitter.com/5horizns/status/1594512239200854016
Variety reported that it cost at least $200,000 to secure a 30-second ad during the finale.
That’s a pretty big spend, but was it worth it? Likely so. The way people are reacting to the ads, it seems like they’ll be wanting to rewatch them and share them for quite some time. So any company that spent time making a creative zombie ad for the finale will likely feel that this was money well spent.
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