The Walking Dead  television series took a major toll as the character Beth died in the mid-season finale of Season 5.  The zombie apocalypse show will return to AMC on February 8, 2015, leaving viewers wondering what is next for Rick Grimes and his band of survivors.

According to Deadline, the show's showrunner, Scott M. Gimple, has revealed "more pain to come for Grimes, Daryl Dixon, and the rest of the survivors" in that "they are being tested and they are being pushed and this isn't the end of that". 

We have already mentioned in a previous article that if The Walking Dead series means to follow the graphic novel source material of The Walking Dead comic, then the survivors are probably going to need to head to Washington D.C. There they will find that "safe city" where a wall has been erected to keep the zombies out, and civilization in. 

Considering that Gale Anne Hurd, executive producer of the series, promised that the characters would be going to "more suburban locations", the Alexandria Safe-Zone as seen in the comic could be that place. 

Another promise made by Robert Kirkman, executive producer of the series and co-creator of the comic, has stated that there will be a gay character from the comics joining the show in the latter part of Season 5.  In the comic book, this gay character was Aaron, who the survivors met in the Alexandria Safe-Zone. 

When Gimple was asked about the gay character, he did not reveal it to be Aaron, but "I just I'll say that in the comic there is more than one gay character so it may be the one you are thinking of or it may be another one."  There was a lot of chatter a while ago that Daryl Dixon's character was gay, but Robert Kirkman has stated that Daryl is straight, according to People Magazine. 

One other event that could occur in Season 5 is the return of Morgan Jones.  We have already talked about how Morgan has briefly shown up, but it didn't seem to go anywhere.  It is possible that this character from Rick's hometown could make an appearance, but Celebrity Dirty Laundry speculates that Morgan "will be a valuable ally and perhaps he will help Rick regain his moral compass".  Of course, Morgan has not been in the best mental state after losing his wife and son, and it seems as if he is following Rick for what could be harmful reasons. 

It will be interesting to see what AMC will do with the series when it returns next  year.  It has also been reported that there will be a spin-off series of The Walking Dead that will take place in Los Angeles.  This was just announced, so it probably won't begin filming until next year, which puts it on AMC's schedule sometime in the Fall of 2015.  Perhaps some of the plots of the spin-off show will join with Season 6 of The Walking Dead.