Aaron (Ross Marquand), Jerry (Cooper Andrews) and Co. are justifiably amazed: after hiding from a horde of zombies in the new episode of “The Walking Dead” in the abandoned site of an old medieval festival and there for the Weighed to safety at night, the place is surprisingly overrun by the undead. And that’s not all: While the group is holed up in one of the buildings, one of the zombies suddenly turns the doorknob to get in, before another climbs on the roof and picks up a rock to attack Jerry.
It is therefore only natural for Aaron to believe that they are once again dealing with remnants of the Whisperers that mingled with the Walkers. But when he wants to pull off the so-called roofer’s mask, he just rips the rotten skin from his face. He actually has a zombie in front of him here who is apparently capable of more than both the characters within the series and we as viewers are usually used to. But how is that possible?
As Aaron explains after the shocking incident, he has indeed heard that the undead are able to climb and open doors, but has so far dismissed these reports as legends – wrongly so.as has now been demonstrated and as we have seen before in “The Walking Dead” at the very beginning of the series.
To refresh the memory: In the first two episodes, Rick (Andrew Lincoln) not only has to deal with a zombie girl who appears to be deliberately picking up her teddy bear, he also watches Morgan’s undead wife return to her house and knock on the doorknob. running. In addition, we see shortly afterwards how zombies climb fences and try to break using stone discs, not to mention that they generally move a little faster here than the walkers, who later quietly join.
That something like this happened in the early “Walking Dead” days, but never materialized later (at least until now) is probably due to the fact that the creators hadn’t quite decided how exactly at the time they want the portraying zombies in their series. It wasn’t until later that people finally settled for the ones that were tumbling around completely without will and brains.
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However, now there is also an explanation within the series, namely that the unusual zombies are described as different types or – as the title of the current episode says – variants. But even that, strictly speaking, isn’t the first time in the “Walking Dead” universe. In an episode of the anthology offshoot “Tales Of The Walking Dead” (which has not yet been published in Germany), a zombie appears who kills a dog, but then leaves it to its horde to – as the episode says – act as “protector” to take care of them.
Even more important is the post-credits scene at the very end of the spin-off The Walking Dead: World Beyond. Here we learn through an old video recording, that CDC virologist Dr. Jenner (Noah Emmerich) was apparently aware of several zombie variants early onwhere the virus in question may have mutated or had slightly different effects.
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As suggested, this could also be due to attempts by French scientists, who generally seem to have something to do with the outbreak of the devastating pandemic. And that’s exactly what more will be revealed soon in a very specific new Walking Dead series.
In the spin-off “The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon”, which will start in 2023, the fan favorite of the same name (Norman Reedus) – not entirely voluntarily – ends up in France. Here Daryl will probably not only learn more about the background of the zombie plague, but also meet a new type of undead, who are also probably smarter, stronger and maybe even faster and thus should become a serious hazard, even for an experienced zombie shredder like Daryl.
Incidentally, the Daryl offshoot is not the only new spin-off from the “TWD” world that awaits us in 2023. In The Walking Dead: Dead City, Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan) go on an adventure together in New York. And the miniseries The Walking Dead: Rick & Michonne will finally bring us Rick’s long-awaited comeback.
But before that, the main series will come to an end. There are still five episodes to go. The very last episode “Walking Dead” will flicker across the screens in Germany on November 21, 2022 on Disney+ and ProSieben Fun.