The Reapers Return in The Walking Dead Season 11 Teaser: “Threatened”

The Walking Dead fears the Reapers in the latest look at The Final Season Part 1. When Maggie Rhee (Lauren Cohan) leads the survivors on what may be a suicide mission to save Alexandria, now home to her new group the Wardens, a violent storm forces our heroes underground into a zombie-filled subway tunnel. But lurking above the surface is another threat: masked marauders Maggie’s people call the Reapers, who will stop at nothing to hunt down Maggie and her friends Elijah (Okea Eme-Akwari) and Cole (James Devoti).

In The Walking Dead Season 11 teaser “Threatened,” a new look at the Reapers reveals a grim fate for their victims: unfortunate souls strung up on the side of the road. One of the Reapers already attacked Maggie and Daryl (Norman Reedus) in the extended Season 10 episode “Home Sweet Home,” where their would-be killer (Mike Whinnet) had nothing to say except for a cryptic message: “Pope marked you.”

“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,” showrunner Angela Kang previously said on Talking Dead. “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.”

Pope’s identity, why they’ve marked Maggie, and whether they’re the skull-faced frightener leading the pack are all questions to be answered after the “epic end” of The Walking Dead begins on August 22.

“Maggie doesn’t know what [‘Pope marked you’] means, we don’t know what that means, but it’s really creepy,” executive producer Denise Huth said on Talking Dead. “I think it’s really interesting to see characters like Maggie, and Cole, and Elijah — 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.”

The Final Season of The Walking Dead premieres August 15 on AMC+ and Sunday, August 22, on AMC. Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things TWD.