The Walking Dead Fears the Reapers in Final Season Teaser: “The End Begins”

The Reapers return as the epic end of The Walking Dead begins. The 24-episode Final Season, kicking off with a two-part season premiere August 22 on AMC, sees the collective communities living as one behind the ravaged walls of an Alexandria at risk of collapse after the Whisperer War. Among them are Maggie Rhee (Lauren Cohan) and her new group of survivors, the Wardens, who are the would-be prey of masked marauders they call the Reapers. The human-hunting villains attacked Maggie and Daryl (Norman Reedus) in “Home Sweet Home,” and the survivors will fear the Reapers when The Walking Dead lives again:

“This Attacker they meet in the woods, we know that this is part of the backstory of what Maggie’s been up to up until this point. There’s a lot of clues there about who this person is, even though he’s mysterious and doesn’t say much,” executive producer and showrunner Angela Kang said on Talking Dead of the camouflaged Reaper (Mike Whinnet) who attacks Maggie and Daryl in the extended Season 10. “But clearly [he] has a high level of training, is an excellent fighter — there’s a moment where he is shot with a bolt and he just snaps it off and keeps going — and this is one guy in the woods that takes out multiple people. He gets Maggie and Daryl, who are two of our strongest characters, into a bind in a really dangerous situation.”

“I think what’s even more terrifying than what he was able to do physically as just one man is when he actually starts talking, they’ve finally apprehended him, and he mentions: ‘Pope marked you,’” added executive producer Denise Huth on Talking Dead. “And Maggie doesn’t know what that means, we don’t know what that means, but it’s really creepy. I think it’s really interesting to see characters like Maggie, and Cole (James Devoti), and Elijah (Okea Eme-Awkwari) — they’re afraid. And for characters as strong and as good as fighters as they are, for them to be afraid, this is a whole other level of what they’re going to be up against.”

In “Acheron: Part I,” Maggie leads the survivors into a potential suicide mission to find supplies when a violent storm forces them underground into a walker-filled subway tunnel. In “Acheron: Part II,” Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and the survivors face no way out as the group’s motto shifts from “No Man Left Behind” to “We Keep Going.” The season continues with Season 11 Episode 3, “Hunted,” hinting at the return of the Reapers.

The Final Season of The Walking Dead premieres Sunday, August 22, on AMC. Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things TWD.