Is ‘The Walking Dead’ Heading Towards a Whisperer Civil War?

While the Season 10 premiere of The Walking Dead set up the new status quo for our zombie apocalypse heroes, the second episode, “We Are The End of the World,” flipped the script and focused squarely on the villains. The Whisperers, humans who wear zombie skin took center stage as we found out more about Alpha (Samantha Morton), Beta (Ryan Hurst), and met new character Gamma (Thora Birch). But all is not hunky-dory in the world of The Whisperers (well, even less hunky-dory than usual), and it seems like we might be headed towards a Whisperer Civil War.

Spoilers for The Walking Dead Season 10, Episode 2 “We Are The End Of The World” past this point.

The episode ends looping back to the end of the season premiere, with Alpha and Carol (Melissa McBride) facing off on opposite sides of a burnt out canyon, the border between their two groups looming large. But before that, we get a sense of what The Whisperers have been up to over their Summer vacation, as the mother of the child almost sacrificed to the undead last season in one of the show’s most terrifying sequences went a little bit nuts.

See, as much as she would like, she’s actually not okay with sacrificing her child, and is starting to feel her humanity and emotions a bit. That naturally leads to conflict with Alpha, and she’s punished for it… Though not as harshly as Beta might want. Basically, like a lot of decisions Alpha has been making lately, she lets the mother off with a strong warning. That comes back to haunt Alpha later when the woman sees a zombie with a Bjorn (great product placement, by the way) and flips out, removing her zombie skin mask and tackling Alpha.

Gamma throws her sister to the figurative wolves, she’s ripped apart, and a grateful Alpha dubs her Gamma — significant because Whisperers don’t have names. Oh, and for those of you confused because Alpha is “A” and Beta is “B,” Gamma is analogous with “G,” but it’s also the third letter of the Greek alphabet, so there you go. No need to wonder what happened to whatever “C” is, Delta, or Epsilon. They don’t exist. Yet.

That’s not the Civil War conflict I’m referring to, though. We get to see two key moments in the Alpha/Beta relationship over the course of the episode: one is seven years earlier, when they first met in an abandoned hospital; and the second is when Beta finally finds out that Alpha never killed her daughter, Lydia (Cassady McClincy).

In the flashback, Alpha isn’t quite the emotionless Whisperer leader we know and hate, but she’s getting there. She finds more in common with the slasher movie reject that is Beta (he’s wearing a ski mask and carrying an enormous knife like he’s waiting to audition for a Friday The 13th rip-off) than her own daughter, and tells him as much. They fight well together. They both show pain over loved ones, and feel bad about it. And together they realize they can peel the skin off zombies and wear it on their faces. Is this love???

In the present, they bond again as Alpha throws a temper tantrum after revealing Lydia is still alive — or rather, when Beta confronts her about it. She insists she’s not like her daughter, who still feels human emotion, all while screaming and breaking things. Methinks the lady doth protest too much, and that’s where the germ of this fracture in The Whisperers camp lies. Does Beta, whose face remains stoic the entire time, appreciate that Alpha is working through the emotion? Or does he know that she can never be the merciless killer he wants her to be?

Time will certainly tell, as will the addition of Gamma. Though she seems loyal to the cause, having three leaders is a recipe for disaster; good news for Carol and company, bad news for The Whisperers.

We’re left with them shambling back towards the season’s central conflict, repeating their messed up, death metal credo version of LOST’s “live together, die alone,” which suggests they’re back to being a team. But again, as much as they might deny it… They are still human.

“We walk in darkness, we are free. We bathe in blood, we are free. We know nothing, we are free. We fear nothing, we are free. We need no words, we are free. We embrace our death, we are free.”

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

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