‘The Walking Dead’ Aired Its Most Terrifying 65 Seconds in Years

Spoilers for The Walking Dead “Bounty” past this point.

At a certain point — and it’s different for every fan of the show — The Walking Dead hit a rut. The constant threat of zombies biting our main characters became repetitious and dulling, rather than scary. Plot armor was worn with aplomb, leading viewers to surmise characters were safe, even when they were in “danger.” But Season 9 has been a different beast entirely, after the death of Carl Grimes (Chandler Riggs) last year, the departure of Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Maggie Rhee (Lauren Cohan), and the addition of a new showrunner… The show is far less predictable than it has been in a long time.

That unpredictability led directly into tonight’s stand-out sequence, 65 seconds that were the most terrifying thing Walking Dead has done in years.

The set-up is relatively simple, and it builds slowly over the course of the first twenty-ish minutes. When we left off last week, Alpha (Samantha Morton), the leader of new villains The Whisperers, was facing off with Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus). Alpha wants her daughter Lydia (Cassady McClincy) back, and turns out she has Alden (Callan McAuliffe) and Luke (Dan Fogler) held hostage and is potentially willing to trade. Meanwhile, newcomer Connie (Lauren Ridloff) is trapped outside the Hilltop compound Daryl and folks are in, hiding in a cornfield. Complicating matters is that Connie deaf, though Luke sees her and is keeping her appraised of the situation by using sign language behind his back.

There’s one more wrinkle, and that’s a Whisperer with a baby. The baby is crying, and Daryl is pissed. You don’t bring a baby to a post-apocalyptic hostage negotiation, he reasons; though Alpha thinks otherwise. They’re animals, she says. Animals bring their babies with them. Unfortunately, the crying baby attracts walkers to the location, so with a shrug Alpha tells the Mom to leave her baby to be eaten by the zombies.

Luke signs to Connie, she rushes out of the corn to save the baby, kicks some Whisperers and runs back in the corn to presumed safety.

That’s when everyone’s knuckles turn white as we enter 65 absolutely horrifying seconds. The sound drops out to a low level like being stuck underwater as Connie, baby slung over her chest runs through the corn, pursued by both Whisperers and walkers. Sometimes we cut to Connie’s point of view, with the faces of the dead (or those wearing the faces of the dead) right up in the screen, closing in on her — and us. And she’s about to be completely overwhelmed when out rushes Daryl and a few others to save her life.

Again, it’s only (almost exactly) 65 seconds long. But the combination of dulled sound, Halloween horror maze style scares and a baby in danger make for a harrowing sequence that is cleverly built up in the script and through the direction. Each element is established gradually, so you don’t see the pieces until they all fall together. And unlike the B-plot, which finds Ezekiel (Khary Payton) and Carol (Melissa McBride) going for the requisite “well, we don’t need to go into this place, but let’s do it anyway and poke some zombies” plot, it’s in stark contrast to Walking Dead‘s usual mode of horror storytelling.

Granted, everyone gets out fine — except Lydia, who gets slapped by her mom and told to call her Alpha “like everyone else” — but it’s a classic Walking Dead sequence, and helps amp up the danger of the Whisperers in a big way. Here’s hoping there’s more like this before we wrap up Season 9.

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.

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