- Warning: There are spoilers ahead for "The Walking Dead" season 10, episode eight, "The World Before."
- As "The Walking Dead" comes to a close for the year, showrunner Angela Kang speaks with Insider about the season so far and how they worked on the mid-season's twist since the top of the year.
- They considered adding Dante to the show a few times over the years, but thought remixing his character into a Whisperer mole would be a fun change to the character.
- Kang says there will be more of Negan and Michonne in the new year. Kang teases that things are wrapping up on Alpha's side when the show returns in 2020.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
Sunday's mid-season finale of "The Walking Dead" ended with Michonne going off to sea, Dante murdered at the hands of Father Gabriel, and many survivors trapped in a cave with Alpha's horde after crossing into enemy territory once again.
"Now that all of those boundaries have been crossed, there have been acts of war on either side. It's all going to come to a head," showrunner Angela Kang tells Insider of what fans can expect to see when the zombie drama returns to AMC next year.
Kang walks Insider through how the "Walking Dead" team came up with this half-season's big twist, how she has managed to keep the momentum of the show going while losing some of the series' big stars, what fans can expect to see when the show returns in the new year, and more.
How the season's big twist with the Whisperer mole in Alexandria came about
Kirsten Acuna: Congrats on wrapping the season this week. I'm sure many have said this, but the twist this season with Dante, it was such a good change from the comics. I want to start off asking about that, and then we'll see how much we get through. How long had this twist been mulling around in your head, and how did you come up with the idea to make such a lovely character in the comics into this villain Whisperer?
Angela Kang: You know, we started at the very beginning of the year. I came into this season feeling like, 'OK, what I want with the Whisperer War is let's play into a Cold War, and I think I said that in interviews early on in the season. And then we were like, 'Well, what are ways that we can play into those types of stories? What marks that kind of a war? And we were like, well, espionage has to be part of it, right?
Then we got into this problem of well, but our people are so smart, how do the Whisperers plant somebody? Our audience is so smart. How are we going to not have everybody just ahead of this? We started talking about who are the types of people that people trust and wouldn't assume are a Whisperer? We're like well, you know, the Whisperers seem so grungy and culty and weird, but what if the guy was a doctor? Because we tend to want to trust people in high positions, even though there's also... There's sociopaths who are CEOs and really accomplished people.
You can read more about how Juan Javier Cardenas learned about the big twist to his characters minutes before his first time on set here.
They considered adding Dante to the show years ago, but could never find the right fit.
Kang: Dante is a character that we've been wanting to introduce at various times over the past few years, but it's never been quite the right time where it felt like we had enough of a story. And we were like, you know what? Maybe if we merge these two characters and you play those aspects of Dante from the comic, which are both charming and roguish and funny, and yet if you look at it, he could also be kind of inappropriate and boundary-pushing.
But it's just doing something unexpected with this character who is actually a really fun character to read in the comic book, and playing with those twists of what if there's something darker that's underneath those little bits of personality that are slipping through that are kind of like maybe I push what I'm saying a little too far, you know? So it was all a gamble from our part, and we hope that the audience likes the twist.
Acuna: I think so. Were you guys very careful in how many details you dropped? Because there were some little crumbs to follow along in the season, but not very many. I feel like you really wanted to make sure that this was a surprise.
Kang: Yeah, I think we kind of chose to play it so much from Siddiq's point of view, and Siddiq didn't know the answer. And so I think for us it felt like the most sort of grounded way to play it is here is this friendship. And truly Dante actually likes Siddiq, so when he says he did, that's not a lie. I think that the way we were playing it, it was this character, he liked this guy, and he really was on an information-gathering and chaos-causing mission. He wouldn't have resorted to killing him if he didn't feel like there was a clear and present danger to just the whole gig being up in the moment, and so there's kind of a complicated character behind there.
And for Siddiq, all he knew was this guy just bugs me for some reason. But he had all these reasons why he thought that that was the case, which I think is true to how our minds often work, so we wanted to play it from discovering it along with Siddiq.
Did Dante have any other lingering feelings for Siddiq?
Acuna: When you say that Dante liked Siddiq, did he also maybe harbor some unspoken feelings for him? Are we supposed to read it like that? There are a few times throughout the season on the premiere he tells Siddiq just to kiss him already when he's staring at his mouth. And in the mid-season finale, he tells Rosita, he jokes around that the two of them were spending some time together.
Kang: You know, we always wrote it more like that was a bro aspect of the character. But I think always like in any performance, people can read different things into it. But yeah, it's just the way that he behaves is always a little like I'm just going to push the joke a little far. But I think that just in terms of how he felt about Siddiq, I think he saw somebody who... You know, he felt the kinship, too.
Why Father Gabriel was the one to kill Dante
Acuna: Well, Dante didn't last too long after killing Siddiq. Why have Gabriel kill Dante and not Rosita? Or why not have his fate decided by the community at large?
Kang: I think in the way that we are playing Gabriel's story, he's feeling a lot of the weight of being one of the leaders of the community and being on the council and the head of the council. We think that he felt like he might have screwed up in hesitating to act about Negan. The night that he took to think about what should Negan's fate be, which is fair and right, that it led to an opening where Negan escaped. I think in the moment he's reacting to the fact that Dante has killed a beloved member of his community and his own family, and he kind of swings in the other direction.
You can read more on what Kang and Juan Javier Cardenas have to say about Dante's death here.
Will we see more of Michonne and is this new character linked to one of the three mysterious helicopter communities?
Acuna: I want to change gears and talk about Michonne, because she sails off in this episode with a completely new character. Are we supposed to read this as Michonne's last episode or send off, or can we expect to see more of her in season 10?
Kang: There will be more. Obviously, she has limited episodes this season, but she does still have a meaty chunk of story coming up. So yeah, I hope people will tune in to see her sendoff. So it's a pause on that story, not a goodbye yet.
Acuna: Okay, that's good to hear. Well, Sunday does introduce us to this new character, Virgil. Why introduce this character now? I pay attention to all of the details. I noticed he mentioned he's on a fortified island. Are we seeing some connections to one of the three helicopter groups or the larger "Walking Dead" universe, maybe where Rick was taken off to?
Kang: That remains to be seen. We'll find out when we pick up with their story, but certainly what Michonne sees in the moment is like well, maybe there's something to going to this island, and seeing if there's something to help us end this war once and for all.
How Kang has approached the past two seasons of "The Walking Dead" as big stars have left the show.
Acuna: There's something I've been thinking about all season I want to ask you about. I feel like you had to overcome some incredible odds being against you when you took over the show. On one hand, it's fantastic to see a female showrunner leading one of the most popular shows on TV, but you only got to be showrunner as a bunch of major stars started leaving. Chandler had just left. Andrew Lincoln was leaving, now Danai. How did you overcome those obstacles and keep the momentum going to turn the show into something people are raving about? I don't know if you've seen, but it's currently the highest-rated season of the show on Rotten Tomatoes.
Kang: Somebody showed me that, which was so nice to hear. I'm really glad that it's been received well, because certainly everybody just works really hard on it and it's such a team effort. It's hard losing major characters, because these are actors that have brought so much to the show and the world, and they're people that we love, and just valued collaborators. But, at the same time, it's a show that's always been about life and death, and stakes, and the ways that people move in and out of our lives. And so I think as difficult as that is, there's also, there's so many other characters that are really compelling, and these actors are amazing.
We want to do right by these characters that we have to write an exit for, but how can we take the opportunity to tell more story with these other actors and characters that we love, too? I guess it's just that it's sort of inherent in the job of 'The Walking Dead." I don't know if that completely answers it, but we just try to have a good attitude about it and go, 'OK. There's a challenge, but in every challenge there's also an opportunity.' We're very fortunate that we have a cast that's as strong as it is, so that even as amazing people exit, there's so many amazing people that... we get to tell more of their stories as well.
Acuna: I think some of it's been the unpredictability of you being able to veer off the comics even more than the show has done in the past.
Kang: Yeah.
Acuna: Is that something that you plan to continue doing, just keeping viewers on their toes?
Kang: Yeah, I mean, I think at this point, our cast is so different from who's alive in the comics and there's ways that we've veered off. The comic is always our guiding star, and we always want to pay tribute to those moments that grabbed us as readers of the comic because all of us have read all the issues. We love it, and it's the best piece of IP imaginable. It's so rich in terms of both the plot and the characters and emotion. But it's also really fun to use that roadmap and to find ways to improvise off of it, and that's always been part of the storytelling ethos of the show.
Kirkman has certainly been behind it all the way, and I think that's always been part of the fun of it for people who are fans of the comic, to see 'OK, is this moment that I love coming? But how are they going to get there?' It's part of the joy of working on this show, and it's what we're continuing to do because the story has organically moved in some other directions, and yet there's such great material coming up ahead as well.
What fans can expect to see when the show returns next year.
Kang: The next half of the season, we saw that our group of survivors were trapped in a cave, so we got to tell the story of what happened this day. They find themselves in this impossible situation surrounded by the herd, trapped underground. You'll also see other characters who are just... there's suspicion and there's grief. And, Alpha, things are wrapping up on her side, too. The Whisperers are trying to stay a step ahead of our communities, but it feels like our people are kind of closing in on them as well. And now that Negan is a part of that mix, some really, hopefully, interesting and surprising things will happen as that story starts to play out more.
We know that Eugene has made contact with somebody outside of our communities, and so that will start to come to a head in its own way, and that was for a conflict. I think now that all of those boundaries have been crossed, there have been acts of war on either side. It's all going to come to a head, and there's some really cool stuff ahead, and I hope that our fans enjoy it.
You can follow along with our "Walking Dead" coverage here.
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