The Walking Dead Director Teases Biggest Threat in Zombie-Filled Season 10 Finale

The Walking Dead survivors will once again fight the dead and fear the living in the Season 10 finale, "A Certain Doom," where our heroes find themselves surrounded by the miles-long walker horde commanded by an unhinged Beta (Ryan Hurst). Hidden among this legion of zombies: knife-wielding Whisperers, human enemies who mingle with walkers by disguising themselves in the flesh of the dead. When we see them next, Daryl (Norman Reedus) and other heroes must don their own gutsy camouflage to navigate their way out of the colossal herd swarming the group's hospital tower hideout — before it's wiped out by the walker army once belonging to Whisperer leader Alpha (Samantha Morton).

"In this particular instance, our people, we know that they know how to move within the herd. We've seen it since Season 1 episode 2 ['Guts'], when they put the walker guts on themselves. But they've never had to maneuver within a herd that has human beings in it, as well," season finale director Greg Nicotero said when teasing the episode during virtual Comic-Con@Home. "So the whole challenge for them trying to figure out how they're going to get out of the situation is they can't just be as stealthy as they usually are because there's actually people, there's Whisperers in and among the herd of walkers."

This complication "ups the stakes quite a bit," added Nicotero, who previously warned of the episode's jaw-dropping ending.

The penultimate episode of the season, "The Tower," ended on a major cliffhanger of its own when Beta's army marched on our now-trapped survivors. When The Walking Dead returns in October, the season finale picks up where we left off: with Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) and other heroes scrambling to mount what may be their last stand in the final battle of the Whisperer War.

"I loved the last few shots of episode 15, where you see Beta with the thousands of walkers advancing on the tower," Nicotero said. "I really gotta give Angela [Kang, showrunner] and the writers a huge, huge thumbs up, because I felt like the trajectory of this season, the way that the season built, it just felt like every episode gave you something more than the episode before it. It felt like you were on this really great ride."

The Season 10 finale was scheduled to air Sunday, April 12 before the special effects-heavy episode was delayed due to coronavirus. "A Certain Doom" now premieres Sunday, October 4 on AMC and will be followed by the series premiere of The Walking Dead: World Beyond.

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