Tales of the Walking Dead Image Unmasks Whisperer Hera
Warning: this story contains spoilers for Tales of the Walking Dead's "Dee" episode. Before Alpha, there was Dee (Samantha Morton). And before Alpha, there was Hera (Anne Beyer), the original alpha of the Whisperers. Flashing back between the events of The Walking Dead episodes "Omega" and "We Are the End of the World," last week's "Dee" fleshed out Alpha's untold origin tale. The episode ended with the first time mother and daughter Lydia (Scarlett Blum) came across the Whisperers: people who wear walker skins and live among the dead. "Don't speak. Whisper," said the woman calling herself Hera, whose face is one we've seen before — as the fleshy mask worn by Whisperer leader Alpha on The Walking Dead.
Hera unmasked herself to show her true face to Dee, who recalled as Alpha, "That was the end of Dee, and the beginning of me. And then I met you. And you showed me love." The camera cut away from the reveal of Hera's face, showing only a glimpse of the pale blonde hair beneath her mask.
Hera's human face and darkened eyes resemble the future Alpha's look in a behind-the-scenes image from the episode directed by Michael E. Satrazemis and written by showrunner Channing Powell. See it below.
As Powell plots a Whisperers origin episode of the Walking Dead anthology, Morton told ComicBook Alpha's backstory is a one-off — for now.
"I haven't heard anything," Morton said in our exclusive "Dee" post-mortem when asked if Alpha might return for a Whisperers spinoff. "So it was really nice at [San Diego] Comic-Con because I hadn't done Comic-Con before, and I arrived, and people were quite chuffed to see me-slash-Alpha, and that was really good. And there were quite a few questions like that: 'We'd like this, we'd like to see that.' And I think AMC are very busy making lots of spinoffs at the moment in regards to The Walking Dead. So I'm not sure. I haven't heard anything!"
Read More ▸ Tales of TWD Recap: Dee ▸ Walking Dead's Dee/Alpha Timeline, Explained ▸ "Dee" Post-Mortem With Samantha Morton
In a separate interview with EW, Powell revealed she "[has] plans for Alpha. So that would be a dream of mine, should we get a [Tales] season 2 or beyond."
"Obviously, that is the origin of the Whisperers story. And they do take Dee and Lydia into their community, which is different actually from the Whisperer camps that Alpha turns the Whisperers into. Their community is very different," Powell said. "Their community is a little bit more human than the way Alpha runs the Whisperers. And Hera is a really compelling, interesting lead in somebody that Dee is very, very intrigued by — not just in terms of her being a leader, but in terms of her being a potential romantic interest."
New episodes of Tales of the Walking Dead premiere Sundays on AMC and AMC+.
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