Warning: spoilers ahead for The Walking Dead season 11
Variant zombies are already having a profound impact upon Variants have existed since The Walking Dead season 1 in some form, whether that be the surprisingly spry undead chasing Rick and Glenn through the streets of Atlanta, or Morgan's reanimated wife attempting to turn a locked door handle. These instances went unexplained for over a decade, leaving viewers to assume smarter and faster walkers were simply the product of early The Walking Dead still finding its groove. As Aaron, Jerry, Lydia and Elijah recently discovered, that assumption would be wrong.
The Walking Dead's first proper sighting of variant zombies came in The Walking Dead season 1. Although variants are certainly a late addition, the undead upgrade is already flipping The Walking Dead on its rotting head for the better.
Zombies Are Finally Dangerous Again In The Walking Dead
The Walking Dead's zombies are almost beautiful in their raw simplicity. As well as being painfully stupid, the average walker can be outrun without breaking a sweat, while their relentless drive to feast on flesh means zombies pay little heed to protecting themselves or exploiting their environment. Since The Walking Dead has maintained this zombie formula for more than 10 years, survivors and viewers alike have naturally come to perceive the undead as pesky more than predatory. Only massive herds similar to one controlled by Alpha and the Whisperers have posed any kind of threat.
A scene in The Walking Dead season 11, episode 22, "Faith," destroys that status quo forever. Aaron's group are trekking through the forest dispatching zombies as they go - virtually an episodic occurrence in The Walking Dead's post-apocalyptic universe. What usually feels mundane and commonplace, however, takes on a whole new layer of horror as Elijah warns Lydia, "Why'd you run at it? It could have been a climber." Aaron then adds, "Everybody needs to stay alert. We don't know if that was a one-time thing or not."
Aaron's fear perfectly captures how variant zombies have upended The Walking Dead. A stroll through woodland picking off a few stray corpses has been a non-event since The Walking Dead season 2, and a sight most viewers would barely unless one of the prosthetics proved particularly gruesome. The variant revelation means every single zombie poses the potential for massive risk, and no survivor truly knows whether the walker before them is a regular roamer or a volatile variant. Protagonists that had come to view the dead as glorified mosquitoes are now affording each zombie the same cautious respect they would a Savior or a Commonwealth soldier.
Variant Zombies Set Up A Bright Walking Dead Future
In the final frames of The Walking Dead season 11's "Faith", a variant hidden among a herd picks up Lydia's dropped knife, and this moment subtly teases a big role for evolved zombies in The Walking Dead's ending. The vast majority of The Walking Dead's protagonist group have not yet encountered season 11's brand-new walker breed, with Aaron and his companions unable to relay their troubling discovery beyond Luke and Jules. Assuming Aaron fails to gather his friends for a catch-up in The Walking Dead's final episodes, the likes of Daryl, Carol, Negan and Maggie will soon discover for themselves that everything they thought they knew about zombies was wrong.
The Walking Dead's series finale is promising more moments of horrifying surprise, more dumbfounded shocks, and more instances where taking a zombie for granted is liable to end badly. Rather than a relatively predictable battle against Pamela Milton over control of the Commonwealth, the presence of variants in The Walking Dead's last episodes tosses a highly unpredictable element into the climax. Just as The Walking Dead's opening episodes invited audiences to step into the zombified unknown, The Walking Dead's closing episodes lead the viewer into excitingly uncharted territory once again.
Variant zombies will inevitably enjoy a significant presence in AMC's The Walking Dead spinoffs. Maggie and Negan's New York adventure in The Walking Dead: Dead City will be complicated by zombies that can outfox them through the narrow streets, while Rick Grimes' dealings with the Civic Republic mean he may know how variants developed in his spinoff series with Michonne. However, evolved zombies will factor most heavily into Daryl Dixon, with Norman Reedus' post-apocalyptic rogue heading for , which appears to be where the outbreak started in The Walking Dead. With variants around, all three projects will feel distinct from The Walking Dead's main series.
The Walking Dead Has Only Scratched The Surface Of Variant Zombies
The Walking Dead's regular zombies were thrilling and dangerous to begin with, only for their relevance and threat to diminish over time. One might naturally question whether variant zombies will suffer the same fate after a few seasons dominating The Walking Dead spinoff material. The time may indeed come when walkers that do more than merely shuffle around and chomp at thin air lack impact, but The Walking Dead has set its variant twist up in such a way, only the tip of a very large and bloody iceberg is currently visible.
In The Walking Dead season 11, episode 22, Aaron refers to the variant he encountered as a "climber." During the incident, he also wondered aloud whether different types might also exist and, sure enough, other aberrant zombies spotted throughout The Walking Dead have done more than just climb fences. Overwhelmingly, The Walking Dead has hinted toward the existence of multiple variant categories, carving out a myriad of exciting directions for AMC's forthcoming spinoffs to take. If zombies that can scramble up walls become tired, another evolution could be lurking around the corner ready to surprise any foolish, complacent survivors.
Previously, The Walking Dead's reanimated hordes simply existed without explanation or solution. Like bad weather, characters endured as best they could without knowing how this apocalypse arose, nor whether it could be stopped. The Walking Dead: World Beyond season 2 French lab scene connected "variant cohorts" to both the outbreak itself and the search for a solution, as an unnamed French gunman claimed the zombie evolution happened accidentally while scientists searched for a cure. Whereas The Walking Dead's normal zombies quickly became little more than pungent environmental dressing, variants are intrinsically tied to the larger narrative of how the virus began, and how it might eventually end.
The Walking Dead continues Sunday on AMC.