The walking dead didn’t silence the Whisperers. In episode 5 of season 11 on Sunday, “Out of the Ashes”, the Alexandrians discover the Hilltop squatters: what remains of the Whisperers in skin who were once part of the pack led by Alpha (Samantha Morton) then Beta (Ryan Hurst). When the survivors of The Whisperer War which sacked Alexandria return to the Hilltop Colony, set on fire by Alpha and his army in the season 10 episode “Morning Star”, ex-Whisperer Lydia (Cassady McClincy) sees walkers in herd. The group of Aaron (Ross Marquand), Carol (Melissa McBride) and Jerry (Cooper Andrews) reunite with Keith (Brad Fleischer) in a meaty mask that the Whisperers used to walk with the dead.

“After Alpha fell, the herd dispersed,” Keith reveals. “Those who weren’t killed or burned are gone. I’m all that’s left.”

Lydia wants the Whisperer to be left alone. With Alpha dead, he doesn’t hurt anyone. But Aaron is determined to turn the whispers into screams when he finds out that Keith lied about a small group of Whisperers hiding in Hilltop’s cellar.

They’re scared and “just trying to be people again,” Lydia says, but Aaron suspects that this is a threat hidden in plain sight for an ambush. “We weren’t all monsters,” Lydia argues as Jerry finds a scarf belonging to his wife Nabila (Nadine Marissa): proof that they were part of the horde of Whisperers and walkers that Beta unleashed on Alexandria. Now their house is in tatters and their children are hungry.

Keith goes to get a knife and slashes Aaron, letting the Whisperer Stragglers escape. Aaron ties up Keith and threatens him with a biting walker, letting the zombie sink his teeth into Keith’s bound hands when he refuses to tell him if the Whisperers are still a threat.

Carol puts an end to it, telling Aaron that she is preventing him from “doing anything else you are going to regret.” The day after his disturbing nightmare, Aaron growls, “We are standing on the ashes of what the Whisperers have destroyed. Gracie is hungry because of them! The world is full of people who can no longer be saved, and I’m not going to wait for them to show up at our doorstep. “Carol tearfully warns Aaron, begging him: this is a path you don’t want to take.

Aaron gives in, and Keith’s zombie-bitten hand is cut off to prevent the infection from spreading. In the ashes of the Hilltop, Lydia apologizes. What’s left of the Whisperers has changed and Keith can prove it: He tells them that he saw the long-missing Connie (Lauren Ridloff) who disappeared with Magna (Nadia Hilker) when Carol caused a meltdown in Season 10.

Connie and Magna escaped Alpha’s cave teeming with walkers by blending into the horde, but they were separated before Magna returned to Hilltop alone in Season 10, Episode 12, “Walk With Us.” (They will follow this lead on Connie in Season 11, Episode 6.)

In the comics, it’s Aaron and Jesus who kill Beta before they find a small camp of surviving Whisperers in The walking dead number # 173. Aaron and Jesus finish off the hostile Whisperers and offer refuge to a trio of recent recruits disgusted by their rituals: Josh, his mother and father Mike.

“He thinks of all the damage the Whisperers have done, just destroying their communities, and not just moving the herd over there – some people have gone back and ransacked the place and burnt their crops, just so they may never return to Alexandria and have a safe home, ”said showrunner Angela Kang of Aaron’s actions on The Walking Dead: Episode Insider. “So I think Aaron is enemy number one. He doesn’t trust them. He feels like this guy is shady and suspicious, which he is. He’s right that the guy lies to him. ”

“And then he thinks, ‘Why wouldn’t he lie about everything else?’ Like, all we know about the Whisperers is that the vast majority of them are willing to do whatever Alpha said, and they’ve lived under that for years, ”Kang continued. “So I think he’s in that dark space. When Jerry finds out that they were definitely in Alexandria and probably helped destroy him, that rings a bell and he gets very emotional.”

Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things TWD. The Walking Dead Season 11 airs Sundays at 9 / 8c on AMC.