The Walking Dead season 9 episode 8: Who are the Whisperers? Talking zombies explained as new villains unmasked

*Spoilers for season 9 episode 8 follow*

In its final episode of the year, The Walking Dead fully introduced the villains that will shape the back half of its ninth season.

Famous comic book antagonists The Whisperers have finally been inducted into the show after years of debate and their arrival could be the show's most creepy yet – but who are they?

Warning: spoilers below

Essentially, the Whisperers are humans who prowl the landscape dressed in walker skin in order to catch their victims unawares. This would explain the latest episode’s final scene, which saw Jesus slain while in combat with what he believed to be a herd of the undead. Instead, Aaron, Daryl, Eugene, Michonne and Alpha watched on in horror as a walker ducked, grabbed his sword and murdered the long-haired warrior in cold blood.

“You are where you don’t belong,” his murderer whispers as Jesus – real name Paul Rovia – slumps to the floor. Moments later, Daryl avenges his death and realises the body is a human wearing a stitched-up walker mask.

Just two weeks ago, Rosita and Eugene came across the same herd and discovered they could seemingly speak actual words.

Keen-eyed viewers think they noticed a hint of their arrival in the season eight finale, which aired earlier this year. As Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) led his group to their final showdown with Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), a huge group of the undead could be seen in the distance beyond a series of poles which, to the uninitiated, seemed like nothing at all.

In Robert Kirkman’s comic book series the show is based on, poles similar to these are used as a territory-marking device by The Whisperers, a group led by a character named Alpha.

Alpha – whose path collides with the newly-freed Negan in a very big way – utilises these poles by placing the heads of any character who gets in her way, including some still alive on the show right now, atop the spikes as a warning to others.

Hints that the Whisperers have existed in the Walking Dead universe can be dated back to season three in a scene that saw Morgan (Lennie James) claim to have seen “people wearing dead people’s faces.”

Alpha will be played in the series by Minority Report star Samantha Morton with her secondary, Beta, played by Ryan Hurst (Sons of Anarchy).

The Walking Dead continues in the US on AMC in February with the simulcast airing in the UK at 2am. The episode is also available to watch on NOW TV ahead of its repeat on FOX at 9pm the following evening.

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