The Walking Dead Final Season “Ice Cream” Teaser Explained

AMC serves up a new teaser from the eleventh and final season of The Walking Dead. During last Sunday’s extended Season 10 premiere, “Home Sweet Home,” the network released a mysterious preview teasing a New World Order when The Walking Dead returns with Season 11 in the summer. In the second teaser — released during Sunday’s premiere of the flashback-heavy episode revisiting Daryl’s (Norman Reedus) search for Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) — a familiar jingle and ice cream cones recall memories of the old world, of a time before the zombie apocalypse. Here’s the scoop on what that sweet new teaser means:

The teaser might appear to be a pre-apocalypse flashback, but the survivors encounter a New World Order when they’re introduced to the Commonwealth: a sprawling network of communities home to nearly 50,000 survivors. A post-apocalyptic utopia, survivors living in the Commonwealth enjoy a host of modern amenities that includes a bakery and an events arena for concerts and sports games.

Earlier in Season 10, it was Eugene (Josh McDermitt), King Ezekiel (Khary Payton), Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura), and Princess (Paola Lázaro) who have the first encounter with the Commonwealth Army when they’re captured by white-armored soldiers in “A Certain Doom.”

“The one episode that’s coming up [extended Season 10 episode ‘Splinter’], that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a whole big story to be played,” showrunner Angela Kang teased when hinting at the Commonwealth during The Walking Dead Extended Season 10 Preview Special. “There’s more characters within that group to meet, but we will start to get into them a bit, get a sense of their vibe, what they’re about, through our characters’ perspective. But there’s so much more cool story to come in Season 11.”

One of those characters is Mercer, who will be played by franchise newcomer Michael James Shaw (Avengers: Infinity War, Blood & Treasure) in Season 11.

Revealing what those armored soldiers tells audiences about these new survivors, Kang said, “It tells you that this group is really formidable, they are organized, they have some access to the materials that you need to create in a uniform fashion, so that’s really unlike some of the groups that we’ve seen. Because our groups have only been able to do things like that on a very limited basis, like [how] Eugene was only able to make a handful of perfect bullets. But these guys have a lot more going on.”

Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things TWD. New episodes of The Walking Dead extended Season 10 premiere Sundays at 9 pm ET/8c on AMC.