‘The Walking Dead’: Angela Kang on The Whisperers’ “Brutal Philosophy”
In just one month, The Walking Dead will be back with a vengeance on AMC as the latest (and perhaps most terrifying) villains make their debut – The Whisperers. Fans were given their first introduction to The Whisperers during season nine’s midseason finale when a seemingly normal walker suddenly dodged Jesus’ attack, killing him instead.
While the group was beginning to think that the walkers were evolving, the episode ended with Daryl, Michonne, and Aaron peeling a mask off of the walker to unveil that it was actually a human in disguise.
Gene Page/AMCSo, who exactly are The Whisperers and what sort of trouble is on the horizon now that they’ve arrived? Showrunner Angela Kang spoke with Entertainment Weekly and revealed quite a lot about what fans can expect from not only The Whisperers but their ruthless leader Alpha (Samantha Morton).
[row]”We’ll get to know more about this group and their brutal survival of the fittest philosophy and how that really plays out in horrifying ways. We will get to meet the amazing Samantha Morton as Alpha and Ryan Hurst as Beta, as our heroes are really grappling with how to deal with a threat that’s unlike anything they’ve ever faced with people with such a different philosophy.”[/row]
Meaning, that for nine seasons we’ve seen our group of survivors, and even the villains, strive to create an amicable and structured community to live in, but now they’re going to be facing a group who believe in a completely different way of doing things.
[row]”Part of the story will reveal — pretty early on in the back half of the season — the way that Alpha thinks and the way that she moves about the world. I think what is really interesting about them is that to put on the skin of a dead person and walk around in the world and walk around amidst walkers…it really takes a pretty brutal philosophy to believe that it’s not even worth trying to be something that approximates human in the way that we think of it.”[/row]
After Rick’s “death” and the six-year time jump, fans quickly learned that a lot of group relations had dissolved over the years. So, now that there’s this huge threat on the horizon, they’re going to have to try and figure out a way to start communicating and working together again.
[row]”They’re also just trying to figure out how they need to interact with each other in this world as they face more and more problems and challenges related to both this new threat and some of the other obstacles that they face in this world. We’ll continue to see the effects that nature has on our people, as things start to break down and they deal with the problems that come up as a result of these things.”[/row]
Throughout its run, The Walking Dead has tended to fall into this villain pattern of introducing a new “big bad” before the group defeats them and moves on. According to Kang, things won’t be as easy this time around.
[row]”They’re not a group that can be reasoned with in some of the same ways that some other villains have been that they’ve encountered in the past.”[/row]
What are your thoughts on The Whisperers? Are you excited for their arrival? You can check out the full interview here!
The Walking Dead returns to AMC on February 10th and 9/8c!
Having studied Media & Writing at James Madison University, I always knew that I wanted to do some type of creative writing, but being able to write about zombies, Starks, and superheroes on a daily basis for Fan Fest is my actual dream. While I probably shouldn’t be as proud as I am to be so similar to Nick Miller, I do hope to one day write my own “Pepperwood Chronicles’.
