Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) gets “kinky” with Alpha (Samantha Morton) during what he suspects is a Whisperer initiation in an extended sneak peek look at The Walking Dead 1011, “Morning Star.” After the events of “Stalker,” where Alpha was left bruised and bloodied from a nasty fight against Daryl (Norman Reedus), the Whisperer leader swears she’s “stronger than ever.” What was left of the relationship with estranged daughter Lydia (Cassady McClincy) ended when she refused to kill her mother and take her place as alpha of the Whisperers, and Alpha was last seen reaffirming the Whisperer mantra when reminding her followers, “We are the end of the world.”
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Alpha hands Negan a switch. “Does this mean I’ve graduated to the next level of kinky Whisperer shit?” he asks, referencing their intimate encounter during which Alpha removed everything except her mask made from walker flesh.
“You joke to hide your fear,” Alpha tells him, a remark he laughs off but doesn’t deny. Looking at the markings from her scrap with Daryl, Negan admits, “It seems to me you’ve been cut up enough.”
She tells him to begin, so he does with a wince. Alpha takes the blow with the slightest flinch. “Again.” He slashes her again, and then a third time, before rolling up his sleeve for his turn. “Does this mean we’re bonded for life?”
“It depends,” Alpha says, winding back the switch and snapping it into Negan’s arm. He laughs off the sting, and soon a masked Negan is walking with the Whisperers.
The Whisperers will next march on Hilltop, where Daryl will lead the allied communities’ militia-style fighting force into battle. King Ezekiel (Khary Payton), Jerry (Cooper Andrews), Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura), Kelly (Angel Theory), Luke (Dan Fogler), Rosita (Christian Serratos), Eugene (Josh McDermitt) and Aaron (Ross Marquand) are among the fighters assembled to defend Hilltop, which finds itself facing an army flinging flaming arrows from behind waves of the dead.
“Alpha has had this confrontation with her daughter and we heard Michonne say early in the season, ‘We got to make sure Lydia stays safe because she’s some protection for us basically.’ So now everything’s going to change, and this war with the Whisperers is really going to heat up,” showrunner Angela Kang told EW. “In the next episode, we’re going to see what happens when our people are convinced that the Whisperers are on their way and that really becomes the major story going forward. And then all of the fallout from that happens as our two societies really clash in a big way.”
“Morning Star” premieres Sunday, March 8 at 9/8c on AMC. For all things TWD, follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter.