The Walking Dead – We Are the End of the World

By: Kelly Kearney

In a series of flashbacks we get a glimpse of how Alpha and Beta came together to form The Whisperers. The episode centers around Alpha and spans across two time periods – the present Whisperer group returning to their border at the Alexandria Safe-Zone and long ago when she met a masked man roaming the halls of an abandoned hospital. We get a peek into this life of wandering skin wearing nomads, as well as the power Alpha holds over Beta and the rest of the pack. When one rogue Whisperer puts the pack in danger, Alpha must choose between mercy and her power that seems to be showing cracks in the bald leaders armor.

When Alpha Met Beta

We begin in a flashback from seven years ago that finds a young Lydia (Havana Blum) and her mother covered in blood and running from a horde of hungry walkers. The two get lucky and find an abandoned mental hospital, but once inside they meet a strange and seemingly violent man who we later learn is Beta (Ryan Hurst). His face is covered in a DIY mask and he’s thrashing the hallways as a warning that this space is occupied, and mother and child are not welcome. Alpha (Samantha Morton), who doesn’t scare easily, refuses to leave the hospital and begrudgingly the masked man agrees to let her stay. Over time the two grow closer with Beta admitting he loves the sounds of the dead, but not really the sounds of Alpha’s singing. In fact, the dead is the only sound he ever wants to hear. He sees himself as a representative for the end of the world and Alpha echoes those thoughts with, “We are the end of the world.”

What Alpha sees in this bizarre masked man is a sort of kindred spirit, especially when she learns he’s been protecting a friend from his life before the fall of mankind. We never know why this person is so important to Beta, but we do know he stayed with them even after they turned into a walker. Alpha finds photos of the two around the hospital and in each Beta’s face is scratched out. As she’s snooping around and trying to figure out who this man actually is, the zombie friend wanders into her orbit and she’s forced to kill them. This enrages Beta whose sole purpose was sticking by his friend. Now there is nothing left for him at the hospital and yet he still refuses to leave his buddy behind. This inspires “A” (as she refers to herself) who then cuts his friends face off and convinces B (the original name she gives him) that to survive they must shed their humanity and live among the dead. The two decide to leave their former selves behind and agree to never learn each other’s real names or faces. We never get a glimpse of Beta’s face beneath the skin he wears in honor of his friend, but Alpha does and her vague and somewhat amazed reaction makes his identity all the more intriguing.

Knowing B is capable of being this fierce protector is something that draws A to him since she would stop at nothing to protect her daughter. Her maternal devotion is a far cry from the abusive mother we know her to be. In a tender moment she bathes a young Lydia while reminding her that weakness will not be tolerated. In fact, if the child doesn’t toughen up her mother will have no choice but to leave her behind and let the dead have her. A mother willing to let her child die to save her own skin says a lot about Alpha’s parenting skills. Let’s just put it this way, Alpha is not winning the “Mother of the Year” award anytime soon, even with the lullabies she sings while washing blood from Lydia’s hair.

Two Sisters

In the present Beta gets pushed aside when Alpha takes an interest in two sisters in the pack who have an uncanny knack for finding additional walkers to add to the mega-horde. We soon find out that one of the sisters, Frances (Juliet Brett), is the woman who Alpha ordered to leave her baby outside of the gates of Hilltop and she has yet to recover from her loss. Suffering from some form of PTSD and depression, the stable sister listens as a grieving Frances rambles on about the baby she gave up.  She tries to remind her sister that her pain is weakness and it could get her killed. Human emotion is hard to control in a normal world, but in a group where humanity is shunned and silence is golden it’s even harder to swallow the pain of losing a child. The distraught women chatters on about her baby to anyone who will listen, hoping the child is better being cared for in the ASZ. Alpha, who thanks to the same community has lost her own child, takes pity on Frances and holds her in a tight and extremely creepy embrace. This moment of surprising empathy does not sit well with Beta, who reminds Alpha that weakness should not be tolerated but punished by death. Alpha’s power relies on those rules and it’s already being tested by the sheer existence of ASZ and Kingtop. Some Whisperers have become intrigued by the thriving communities that exist behind the borders, which is a problem considering how tirelessly she and Beta have worked to convince them that a civilized life could never work. Cracks are beginning to form in her strong hold over the pack, but thanks to one of the sisters Alpha’s rules are enforced for her.

When the distraught sister spots a walker with a baby carrier strapped to its front she screams in agony and winds up tackling Alpha in the middle of a herd of the dead. On cue the levelheaded sister steps in and pulls an out of control Frances off their struggling leader and throws her into a group of walkers who rip her to shreds. Choosing Alpha and the pack over her sister earns this woman a place in the upper ranks of The Whisperers community. The grateful leader grants her the name Gamma (Thora Birch) and, with it, power over the others in the pack. This sparks Beta’s jealously because this was a two-person regime and three is a crowd. He’s also livid over the fact Alpha risked their survival over placating the emotions of weak woman. It’s a lesson he’s hopes she’s learned after the mayhem it almost caused.

Love is Weakness

After making his concerns to Alpha known, Beta is not trusting his partner and has noticed her sneaking off into the woods on her own on more than one occasion. He decides to follow her and discovers a secret she’s been keeping that makes him question her role as Alpha. Before they migrated the pack for Winter we know Alpha told The Whisperers that she killed her traitorous daughter when she sneaked into the Kingdom’s fair. Only she lied and couldn’t bring herself to kill Lydia (Cassady McClincy). Instead, she has been secretly hoping the girl would return. She’s even made a camp site that, to be honest, looks more like a gigantic bird’s nest in hopes Lydia can be persuaded to rejoin the group. The weird nest is never explained, but it really speaks to Alpha’s crumbling sanity and proves to Beta that she isn’t as strong as she pretends to be. Letting Lydia live (like a bird) after she chose the community life over the pack goes against everything The Whisperers stand for. Their leader is weak and a hypocrite, but Alpha insists Beta could never understand the pain of a mother’s loss. Instead of using this information against Alpha and challenging her role in the pack, Beta instead offers his partner mercy just like she offered childless sister. It’s not explained why offering her kindness sends Alpha into a rage, but she loses it and destroys the nest screaming, “She’s nothing like me!” Where Alpha is strong, Lydia is weak and this mother is done waiting for her daughter to return. For all intents and purposes, her child is dead and Beta is pleased he was able to remind the woman of their ways. The path of the dead has no place for the emotions of the living. Now Alpha has Gamma to take the place of Lydia, a stand in daughter who would shed her own blood to ensure the safety of the pack and it’s leader.

As the episode draws to a close, Beta and Alpha leave the nest to rejoin The Whisperers just as they spot a flaming streak in the sky. The satellite has crash landed and the communities crossed the border to fight the flames. We are back to where the premiere left off, a stare down between the Queen of the Dead and the former Queen turned sea dog, Carol (Melissa McBride), who will not rest until she gets revenge for her son’s murder.