Walking Dead showrunner shares details on the show’s horrifying new villain

Over the course of the past eight seasons of The Walking Dead, we've been presented with many horrifying villains, but the current season has introduced us to one of its most brutal and complicated baddies – The Whisperers, a group of survivers who disguise themselves with the skin of the dead. Showrunner Angela Kang recently spoke with Entertainment Weekly to drop a few details about the Whisperers, as well as their chilling leader, Alpha (Samantha Morton), and to say that we will be learning much more about them when the series returns for the second half of its ninth season.

We really dive deeper into the story of the Whisperers. At the end of the first half, obviously, we get this reveal that these zombies are not evolving, that they are some sort of strange human threat. We’ll get to know more about this group and their brutal survival of the fittest philosophy and how that really plays out in horrifying ways.

"We will get to meet the amazing Samantha Morton as Alpha and Ryan Hurst as Beta, as our heroes are really grappling with how to deal with a threat that’s unlike anything they’ve ever faced with people with such a different philosophy," Kang continued. "They’re also just trying to figure out how they need to interact with each other in this world as they face more and more problems and challenges related to both this new threat and some of the other obstacles that they face in this world. We’ll continue to see the effects that nature has on our people, as things start to break down and they deal with the problems that come up as a result of these things."

Angela Kang said that more about Alpha and Beta will be revealed pretty early on in the back half of the ninth season "I think what is really interesting about them is that to put on the skin of a dead person and walk around in the world and walk around amidst walkers, that really takes a certain kind of a person," she said. "It’s this amazing idea from the comics and we really delve deep into what that means. It really takes a pretty brutal philosophy to believe that it’s not even worth trying to be something that approximates human in the way that we think of it. I think that really brings them right up against the things that our people are thinking about as they’re trying to rebuild something that’s like a civilization, and just the fact that this group just doesn’t even think any of that is worth preserving. It’s something that’s really dangerous for our people to grapple with." Kang was also full of praise for how Samantha Morton has handled the role of Alpha.

She’s fantastic. I’m so surprised by the things that she does, in a way where I’m like, “That’s so much better than what I imagined this woman could be.” She’s just such an interesting and deep actor. We’ve really loved having her. She’s so nice, too. Could not be a nicer person. The entire cast just loves her. The crew loves her. She’s been absolutely wonderful and such a good presence to have and very serious about what she does, in the best way. She deep-dives, man. She’s awesome.

The second half of the The Walking Dead's ninth season will return to AMC on February 10, 2019.