Why A New Walking Dead Season 11 Set Photo Has Fans Buzzing

Contains potential spoilers for the upcoming eleventh season of "The Walking Dead"

Season 11 of "The Walking Dead," which is supposed to be the series' last, will premiere on August 22. That said, rather than run continuously until its conclusion, Season 11 will be broken up into three discrete eight-episode chunks. In effect, then, "The Walking Dead" will run for eight episodes beginning on August 22 before taking a break for a currently unspecified amount of time prior to the airing of its next eight episodes. That process will then be repeated once more before "The Walking Dead" as we know it ends for good sometime in mid-to-late 2022.

Following its premiere, Season 11 will heavily involve the Commonwealth, a makeshift city that notably employs an army of armored soldiers in service of its protection, in addition to some decidedly more violent undertakings. The Commonwealth, its soldiers, and their seemingly threatening nature were all showcased in the first full-length trailer for Season 11 released in late July, just about a month prior to the season's debut episode.

While seasoned fans of "The Walking Dead" know some of what to expect from the conflict between the series' longtime protagonists and the armed forces of the Commonwealth (it's straight out of the comics), the TV series always has room to diverge from the comics' storyline, and will actually have to considering all the key characters that have been killed off. 

That's why a new behind-the-scenes look at the filming of Season 11 really has fans talking.

Reddit user u/throwaway3641023 shared an image to the "Walking Dead" subreddit of an unmasked woman sporting the body armor of the Commonwealth soldiers taken, presumably illicitly, on the set of "The Walking Dead" Season 11.

The top comment in response to the image, by Bermanator-Turkey127, reads "I'm very grateful she made it out the reaper attack." They then specified later on in the ensuing comment thread that they're presuming the armored woman to be Rosita (Christian Serratos), who has remained a member of the central cast of "The Walking Dead" since Season 4. The Reapers — a paramilitary group introduced in Season 10 — have, notably, not attacked Rosita thus far.

If the image is indeed of Rosita, then, it carries a dual significance. On one hand, her presence at the Commonwealth confirms her survival beyond the presumed upcoming Reaper conflict. On the other hand, it means that Rosita will align herself with the Commonwealth, presented as villainous in the promotional material for Season 11.

User alexkiltro is looking forward to Rosita's expected presence in the Commonwealth Army because of how the show would then differ from the comics. "Getting characters to somehow join the militia is making this story arc to look a lot more interesting than the comics already," they wrote.

The nature of the Commonwealth and how it might entice some of Alexandria's residents into its army is only one of the many things to look forward to in "The Walking Dead" Season 11.