The Walking Dead
How It's Gotta Be
TV Flash files “How It's Gotta Be” as hour 107 of 177 in the TV Flash guide — The Walking Dead (2010–2022) on AMC, season 8, episode 8, aired 2017-12-10, 88 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S08E08: listed hour 107 of 177 in the The Walking Dead guide, hour 8 of 16 in season 8. It aired 2017-12-10 (88 min). The listed hour before it is “Time for After” (S08E07). Next is “Honor” (S08E09).
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Every story and battle from the first half of the season comes crashing together in this action-packed, emotional mid-season finale.
Viewer FAQ
Where does How It's Gotta Be sit in the The Walking Dead guide?
S08E08 is listed hour 107 of 177 — hour 8 of 16 in season 8, season 8 episode 8.
When did The Walking Dead S08E08 air?
How It's Gotta Be aired 2017-12-10 and is listed at 88 minutes.
Where should I start?
Season 1, episode 1. Six hours. Then decide if you want a decade. The empty city is the sell.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Watch it for the Monday-night watercooler that ate a decade: barn debates, comic-vs-show death trials, and spinoff mitosis after the mothership closed. Horror as appointment TV. The group chat learned spoiler hygiene the hard way and still did not learn it.
So about last Monday, except last Monday was 2010 through 2022 and your group chat never recovered. AMC put a cop on a horse in an empty Atlanta and accidentally built the 2010s’ loudest watercooler. Horror as appointment TV. Ratings that made the network a personality. Then the deaths started arriving like group texts with no content warning. (I said spoiler-free. I meant the plot. The culture already litigated the barn, the baseball bat, the fair.) From here: mild. You can know the fandom without knowing who…
Filed against
- Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes
Andrew Lincoln spent a decade as Rick Grimes on The Walking Dead, turning a small-town sheriff into the grim avatar of post-apocalyptic prestige cable. His British roots vanished under that Southern drawl and blood-soaked leadership arc.…
- Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon
Norman Reedus’s Daryl Dixon became The Walking Dead’s crossbow brand — the survivor the Monday-night group chat would not let AMC bury. Zombie television ate a decade of spoiler wars. Reedus stayed the mothership’s most merchandisable…
- Danai Gurira as Michonne
Danai Gurira’s Michonne made The Walking Dead appointment cable — katana cool, found family, and leadership that outlasted seasons of zombie prestige. She turned survival into grace under gore on a Monday-night watercooler that ate a…
- Chandler Riggs as Carl Grimes
Chandler Riggs grew up as Carl Grimes on The Walking Dead — sheriff’s kid to survivor in cable’s zombie prestige decade. Public growing pains matched the apocalypse arc on a Monday-night watercooler that ate barn debates and death trials.…
- Lauren Cohan as Maggie Greene
Lauren Cohan’s Maggie Greene is The Walking Dead’s farm-to-fortress spine — AMC zombie TV as a decade-long spoiler war, barn debates, comic-versus-show death trials. Horror as Monday-night appointment. On TV Flash she is tentpole-genre…
- Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan
Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan is The Walking Dead as a Monday-night spoiler with a bat — zombie apocalypse as a decade-long group chat, comic-versus-show death trials included. AMC’s horror tentpole made appointment out of the undead. On TV…