The Whisperers just sent a message that was loud and clear.
Suffice it to say, they came on Sunday nights episode, The Calm Before.
A disguised Alpha infiltrated the Kingdoms awkwardly titled Fair of New Beginnings and captured several Hilltop residents.
Jackson Lee Davis/AMC
Its probably right up there with issue 100 as maybe the biggest moment.
There are contractual things.
There are all kinds of things that go on.
Jackson Lee Davis/AMC
In this case, we love all of our actors.
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.
Jackson Lee Davis/AMC
There are other characters that have been with us for a while.
And then there are people that almost feel random.
So its really a mix of things.
Jackson Lee Davis/AMC
Because we think that with Alpha, in some ways, this is an act of terrorism.
And so thats a big part of it.
And I let people know that this moment was coming.
So people were kind of mentally prepared for it, and everybody was absolutely lovely and professional about it.
We doThe Walking Dead.
Its in the title.
And so everybody could not be more wonderful.
Only one of the victims, Tammy, is the same as in the comics.
I mean, thats a little bit of the fun of the show.
For regular viewers, they might go like, Oh, maybe Ezekiels gonna die or not.
What do you envision happened to these people that were kidnapped and taken?
I think it was some sort of a mix of a ruse.
Or was that something that they generated to make it kind of draw people in?
And its very much in the comics.
But she looks completely different with long hair and a flowing dress.
How did you guys do the zombie heads on the pikes?
Or did Greg Nicotero cook something up with face molds and this and that.
Whatd you do in this instance?Its a mix of everything.
Greg Nicotero cooked up some face molds.
And then the hair, because hair is really difficult to create digitally.
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.
Its 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.
(Interview continued on next page.)
I loved the Highwaymen!
ANGELA KANG:I know!
You know what though?
There are still Highwaymen out there in the world.
We brought them in and we knew that they would be some of the casualties.
We felt that there needed to be losses across the different groups.
We would have never gotten him otherwise.
And then, he was one of the ones that was here and gone.
But I really enjoyed having him.
And there will be some more Highwaymen stuff in the future, just without the lead guy.
We started this season seeing her really happy.
She had this happy family.
And obviously, a loss like this is going to have a gigantic emotional impact.
Of course, shes got strong feelings about Alpha and the Whisperers.
First Maggie leaves well see if and when she returns then we lose Jesus, now we lose Tara.
Again with Hilltop, we also saw Hilltop have a change in fortunes over the course of the season.
And thats the assumption we went on for a long time.
But as we worked on it, we found that its everybodys expectation.
And seeing a taste of it.
But again, Im gonna take a little bit of a left turn in the finale, too.
So we just thought that this would be an interesting way to go about this story.
Because weve seen our people go up against enemies.
Weve seen them go to war.
We know kind of the rhythms and what that looks like.
Whats different about if something like this happens when its the Whisperers involved?
So we thought that we wanted to tell the beginning of that aftermath here.
You all once again played with time here a bit.
You show Daryl and company leave the Kingdom and what happens to them until they are surrounded by Beta.
It starts with Carol and the King kind of splitting.
And this is a fateful moment in the timeline.
And in a lot of ways, its what makes them weaker in the moment.
Lets see what happens with group A, lets see what happens with group B.
And then it all just merges together at the end.
Did Daryl make the wrong call in taking Lydia with him?
This is the question any time that somebody takes somebody in that is in need.
Is it the right call to take in a refugee?
Or a homeless person?
And its hard to say objectively what it is or isnt.
Are there things that happened that were terrible would those same things have happened anyway?
Could it have all been avoided?
If he hadnt taken her in, what would have happened?
Alpha was pretty amped up.
So maybe if they didnt take her in, the same thing would have happened.
So its part of an interesting dilemma.
That was the movie that we could get the rights to and that we could make look really good.
The colors looked so great on the screen.
And we also thought there was some delicious irony in what the content of the movie was.
So I think they watched that cartoon and the plan was to do that and then a movie afterward.
But, you know, obviously things went very, very wrong.
Well, lets name the movie then.
Lets make some official canon here.
What movie were they planning to watch, Angela?We had been talking about the movieSullivans Travels.
For some reason, that was the movie that kept coming up from both production and the writers room.
