Caution, spoilers! In the 19th episode of the final eleventh “Walking Dead” season we suddenly see zombies that can climb and open doors. How can this be? And does this perhaps set up the new spin-off “The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon”?
Aaron (Ross Marquand), Jerry (Cooper Andrews) and Co. are rightly astonished: After they have hidden from a zombie horde at the abandoned location of an old medieval festival in the new episode of “The Walking Dead” and have found safety there for the night, the place is surprisingly overrun by the undead. And that’s not all: as the group entrenches themselves in one of the buildings, one of the zombies suddenly turns the doorknob to get in, before another climbs onto the roof a little later and picks up a stone there to attack Jerry.
Very obviously, Aaron therefore believes that they are once again dealing with remnants of the Whisperers who have mingled with the walkers. But when he tries to pull off the roof climber’s supposed mask, he only tears the rotten skin off his face. So he really has a zombie in front of him that is apparently capable of more than both the characters within the series and we as viewers are normally used to. But how can that be?
ZOMBIE VARIANTS IN “THE WALKING DEAD “
As Aaron explains after the shocking incident, he has actually heard of undead that can climb and open doors, but dismissed these reports as legends until now – wrongly, as has now been shown and as we have actually also seen in “The Walking Dead” before, at the very beginning of the series.
To refresh the memory: In the first two episodes ever, Rick (Andrew Lincoln) not only has to deal with a zombie girl who seems to deliberately pick up her teddy bear, but he also watches Morgan’s undead wife return to their house and turn the doorknob. In addition, only shortly afterwards we see zombies climbing fences and trying to break windows with stones, not to mention that they generally move a little faster here than the later leisurely shuffling walkers.
Already in the second episode of the first
The fact that something like this happened in the early “Walking Dead” days, but never played a role again later (at least until now), may in fact be due to the fact that the creators had not quite decided how exactly they wanted to portray the zombies in their series. It was only later that they finally decided on the completely will-less and mindless specimens that stagger around.
Now, however, an explanation is provided within the series by describing the unusual zombies as other species or – as the title of the current episode says – variants. But, strictly speaking, this is not the first time in the “Walking Dead” universe. In an episode of the anthology spin-off “Tales Of The Walking Dead” (not yet published in Germany), for example, a zombie appears who kills a dog, but then leaves it to its horde in order – as it says in the episode – to care for them as a “protector”.
But even more crucial is the post-credit scene at the very end of the spin-off “The Walking Dead: World Beyond”. Here we learn through an old video recording that the CDC virologist Dr. Jenner (Noah Emmerich), known from the first “Walking Dead” season finale, apparently also knew early on about various zombie variants in which the corresponding virus may have mutated or had slightly different effects.
As is being suggested, experiments by French scientists, which generally seem to have had something to do with the outbreak of the devastating pandemic, may also be responsible for this. And that’s exactly what more will likely be revealed about soon in a very specific new “Walking Dead” series.
MORE NEW ZOMBIES IN DARYL SPIN-OFF
In the 2023 spin-off “The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon”, the titular fan favourite (Norman Reedus) will – not entirely voluntarily – move to France. Here, Daryl will not only learn more about the background of the zombie plague, but will also encounter a new kind of undead, which will probably also be smarter, stronger and perhaps even faster and thus become a serious danger even for an experienced zombie butcher like Daryl.
The Daryl spin-off 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) experience adventures together in New York. And the miniseries “The Walking Dead: Rick & Michonne” will finally give us the long-awaited Rick comeback.
But before that, the main series is coming to an end. Five episodes are still to come. The very last “Walking Dead” episode will flicker across our screens on Disney+ and ProSieben Fun on 21 November 2022.
