The Walking Dead: Greg Nicotero Teases Whisperer War

The Walking Dead has seen several wars over the course of its nine completed season. There was first a civil war between Rick and Shane. Then, there was a war against the Governor and his followers hailing from Woodbury. The biggest war to date came when Rick Grimes and Alexandria were pitted against Negan and the Saviors. The human versus human conflict seems all but endless on the AMC zombie series. However, in Season 10, the survivors will be facing a different type of monster: the Whisperers. As the story goes in The Walking Dead comics, there might just be a Whisperer War upon us.

Following the terrifying sequence which saw Team Family’s heads being placed on pikes toward the end of Season 9, the Whisperers have proved they mean business. Meanwhile, the survivors are going to have to take their scary warning into consideration. “What’s interesting about the first episode is, and we’ve seen it in the trailers, is our group is rehearsing military maneuvers,” director Greg Nicotero told EW. “I think you definitely get the sense at the end of last season that some of them want to fight. But the truth of the matter is that Alpha is the most formidable villain that they have ever encountered, so I don’t know how you actively fight a woman who walks amongst the dead.”

The group is readying themselves for battle, but will they go to battle? “The first episode of the show tests all of that, because we set up this season where it’s been a couple months since the snowstorm of the finale of last year, and you see them practicing these military maneuvers,” Nicotero said. “So you get the sense that they’re preparing themselves if a war ever happens.”

While the Whisperers will be quietly in the background of the premiere episode, their presence is felt, especially by the good guys. “Alpha has laid down the law,” Nicotero said. “The big question is, are people willing to follow Alpha’s rules and at what cost? And that’s really what sets up the whole season, is the idea that there could be a pack of walkers walking down the street and you don’t know if there’s a Whisperer in there that’s watching you. You don’t know if there are patrols going up and down the border. It sets up this whole paranoid, ‘Are they watching?’ scenario, and some of our people aren’t down with that. And that’s a very, very prevalent theme in the season.”

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The Walking Dead returns for its tenth season on October 6.