The Walking Dead season 11 is about to unleash a different breed of zombie horde.
During her exclusive chat to Digital Spy, showrunner Angela Kang delved into the trailer's evolved flesh-munchers and specifically why they're being introduced for the final episodes.
"There are some parts of the process that are like: it's too secret of a creative conversation that I can't get into. But what I'll say is: we're always looking for ways to kind of turn up the heat on our heroes," she began.
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"This season, one of the things that we have been doing is sort of an exploration of the past and the present. We open the season with sort of an exploration of the idea of lurkers, which are the ones that go dormant.
"Those have existed in the series for a long time. But we've never done a super deep-dive into them.
"It's sort of like that led a little organically to this idea of: we've seen other variants, too – we just haven't seen them for a very, very long time. But that doesn't mean they weren't out there at some point."
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Kang also suggested that the survivors' long-established rules for dealing with the walkers could ultimately be their downfall.
"If you've been used to one set of rules for zombies, and you haven't really encountered ones that do these other things, then some of your mechanisms for protecting yourself change," she said.
"It's just in the spirit of exploring what's out there. And for those who caught the end of World Beyond, we've seen that there may be a different variant that exists somewhere else, too. That's just part of the fun."
Daryl Dixon, especially, is in for a tough ride.
The Walking Dead season 11 airs on AMC in the US and STAR on Disney+ in the UK.
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Reporter, Digital Spy
Dan is a freelance entertainment journalist. Beginning his writing career in 2014, Dan's work first graced the pages of cult publications Starburst magazine and Little White Lies before moving onto Total Film, Digital Spy, NME and Yahoo Entertainment.
In the film and TV universe, he kneels at the altar of Jim Carrey, Daniel Plainview, Mike Ehrmantraut and Paulie Walnuts.
After teaching in England and South Korea, David turned to writing in Germany, where he covered everything from superhero movies to the Berlin Film Festival.
In 2019, David moved to London to join Digital Spy, where he could indulge his love of comics, horror and LGBTQ+ storytelling as Deputy TV Editor, and later, as Acting TV Editor.
David has spoken on numerous LGBTQ+ panels to discuss queer representation and in 2020, he created the Rainbow Crew interview series, which celebrates LGBTQ+ talent on both sides of the camera via video content and longform reads.
Beyond that, David has interviewed all your faves, including Henry Cavill, Pedro Pascal, Olivia Colman, Patrick Stewart, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Dornan, Regina King, and more — not to mention countless Drag Race legends.
As a freelance entertainment journalist, David has bylines across a range of publications including Empire Online, Radio Times, INTO, Highsnobiety, Den of Geek, The Digital Fix and Sight & Sound.
