Before Season 11C of The Walking Dead dropped, a new trailer was released that teased at something we have not seen before in this universe: smart zombies.
It was only a small moment in the clip that showed a walker apparently climbing a fence and the suggestion that another was turning a door handle.
While this played out, Aaron (Ross Marquand) spoke out about rumors he had heard regarding these different sorts of walkers.
“I’ve heard stories,” Aaron says. “Walkers who can climb walls and open doors. I was never sure if they were just stories.”
As yet, nothing has been revealed in Episode 17, which aired last Sunday night.
However, The Walking Dead’s showrunner, Angela Kang, teases that they are certainly on their way.
Angela Kang reveals what to expect regarding smart walkers
While our favorite characters are currently dealing with a rogue Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton) in Episode 17, it is expected that these smart walkers will rear their ugly heads at some point soon as there are only seven episodes remaining of this series.
While these new walkers are scheduled to make an appearance, Angela Kang is hesitant to reveal too much just yet.
“There are some parts of the process that are like: it’s too secret of a creative conversation that I can’t get into. But what I’ll say is: we’re always looking for ways to kind of turn up the heat on our heroes,” Kang told Digital Spy.
She then went on to explain that while zombie variants have appeared previously in The Walking Dead, they haven’t been explored fully — yet.
Kang also explained that the characters might struggle to deal with any different walkers they come across.
“If you’ve been used to one set of rules for zombies, and you haven’t really encountered ones that do these other things, then some of your mechanisms for protecting yourself change,” Kang said.
Are smart zombies the same as fast ones?
As yet, it is unclear if these smart walkers have anything to do with the fast zombies that Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) will encounter when he winds up in Europe.
Daryl will wake up with no knowledge of how he got there and the assumption is by many that this will somehow tie in with the smart walkers teased for Season 11C of The Walking Dead.
This will also likely tie in with the cut scene that was shown at the conclusion of The Walking Dead: World Beyond.
Here, the introduction of fast zombies was first shown. However, it was also hinted that there were various different teams working on testing when things went down and the zombie outbreak first occurred.
With this in mind, it is possible that smart zombies and fast ones belonged to two different lab experiments.
However, with no official confirmation yet, fans will just have to wait it out until further information is revealed.
The Walking Dead airs every Sunday night at 9/8c on AMC.