In case the headline didn't clue you in, there will be MAJOR SPOILERS for last night's episode of The Walking Dead below. Typically, TV shows save their most shocking moments and biggest revelations for their finales, but the penultimate episode of The Walking Dead's ninth season, titled The Calm Before, dealt a horribly bloody blow to our characters.
After infiltrating the Kingdom in disguise, The Whisperers' leader Alpha (Samantha Morton) managed to capture a few residents of the community during the fair. Near the end of the episode, several characters encountered a bloodied and restrained Siddiq (Avi Nash) who led them to the top of a hill where the zombified heads of 10 characters were left on pikes to signify the boundary of the Whisperers territory. Among the dead were Tammy (Brett Butler), Enid (Katelyn Nacon), Henry (Matt Lintz), and Tara (Alanna Masterson). Fans of The Walking Dead comic knew this moment was coming, although most of the characters who met their end in the comic version of this scene were spared. Even still, quite the bloodbath.
While speaking with Entertainment Weekly, The Walking Dead show-runner Angela Kang broke down how they decided which characters would die.
You know, there were so many conversations about it, because it’s really hard to decide who dies, and any time there is death on the show, sometimes it’s just story-related, sometimes, as with Andy [Lincoln], it’s because there’s a personal factor. There are contractual things. There are all kinds of things that go on. In this case, we love all of our actors. Some of the people who are on those pikes, we knew from the time we cast them that they were gonna be on the pikes. We specifically cast Brett Butler as Tammy knowing that she would wind up in that array. And we told her that at the time we cast her.
There are other characters that have been with us for a while. And it felt like, for the various characters who were on there, for example, Tara, as the leader of Hilltop, who Alpha really has a beef with, there’s some sort of sense and a feeling of retribution specifically with that death. And then there are people that almost feel random. And then you learn that there are people that just wound up in harm’s way by virtue of trying to be heroic, like DJ and those Highwaymen.
So it’s really a mix of things. Because we think that with Alpha, in some ways, this is an act of terrorism. And the thing about it is it’s terrifying because sometimes you don’t exactly understand how or why she picked her exact victims. And so that’s a big part of it. As well as, there are certain stories that we’re planning into the future, and so sometimes we’ve swapped out characters for those reasons.
Angela Kang added that she had meetings with all of the actors at the beginning of the year to go over the whole story, and let it be known that this particular moment was coming. "So people were kind of mentally prepared for it, and everybody was absolutely lovely and professional about it," Kang said. "We do The Walking Dead. It’s in the title. It’s part of the deal when you sign on to do this show that your time in some way is going to be limited. And so everybody could not be more wonderful. And I’m excited for everybody to have great opportunities in the future, because I think everybody who’s on this show is so incredibly talented and just lovely. We had a good celebration of our long-timers time on the show in conjunction with their final episode, which was great." Kang also said that they played with comic-book fans a little by making them believe that Ezekiel, who was one of the victims in the comic, was also destined to find himself upon a pike. "Obviously, doing this show, sometimes we’re very directly adapting from the comic, but we also deviate, and everybody knows that that’s kind of part of the deal with the show. We want to pay homage to the comic and we want to kind of put in those little Easter eggs for the comic book fans. For regular viewers, they might go like, “Oh, maybe Ezekiel’s gonna die or not.” But for a comic fan, it means something different, and so it gives them a little moment to speculate as they’re watching the show, which we think is kind of fun," Kang said. As far as how the effect was pulled off, you can thank Greg Nicotero and the visual effects team for that.
It’s a mix of everything. Greg Nicotero cooked up some face molds. Really, most of the ones that you see on the pikes are actually not the face molds, the face molds were used as a basis for the addition of the effects work. And then the hair, because hair is really difficult to create digitally. The first face, there was a good base that looked quite like him, but then the actors were all filmed in zombie make-up and shot against green screen. And so those were their actual faces that were put onto the pikes. There was also digital scanning that created 3D models of their faces. So part of it is also digital replacement. It’s really kind of a combination of all the different ways that we go about doing something like this. You would be shocked at all the man hours and woman hours that went into creating this final effect.
The finale of the ninth season of The Walking Dead will air on March 31st.