The Walking Dead has grossed us out with nasty zombies on numerous occasions. It is, after all, expected in a show full of zombies. However, this week’s episode went above and beyond in the way of seriously gross walkers, thanks to Maggie and Aaron’s trip into the sewer…
In an effort to leave Alexandria and seek out Glenn, Maggie — chaperoned by Aaron — made her way through the tunnels underground. When she and Aaron were attempting to loosen a ladder that seemed to be jammed, they made the mistake of freeing a couple of really disgusting zombies that were lodged in the muck. It looks like time, darkness and dampness really took their toll on these guys…
Worse than that was the sight of Maggie sinking her hands into the skeletal chest of one of them, tearing into the thing with her fingers as it tried to sink its exposed teeth into her. Gross. Gross. Gross.
There are only a couple of times when The Walking Dead’s zombies really turned my stomach. One was the well walker…
And the other was the walker that got its head pushed through the fence. Surely there have been a few other truly disturbing zombie gore moments — the fire hose scene comes to mind, and Noah’s death, come to think of it… and Dale’s… — , but the well walker and the fence walker are the two really gory zombie scenes in The Walking Dead that stand out in my mind as being particularly heinous. And I think last night’s walkers topped them both.
Beyond the stomach-turning reaction to the sight of the sewer walkers that attacked Maggie and Aaron, last night’s episode left me wondering if there’s any point in a walker’s decomposition that they’re too rotted to attack. The walkers pictured above were barely more than skeletons, and yet they were not only mobile, but they had enough strength to pull themselves out of the muck and attack. It’s more — albeit unnecessary — proof that walkers are built to last, even if there’s little left of them.
Points to Greg Nicotero and the incredible special effects team at The Walking Dead for once again managing to take the walker gore to the next level. We knew the gore game was going to raised in Season 6, and it looks like they’re really delivering on that.
In related news to last night’s episode (spoiler alert!), is Glenn dead or not? The Walking Dead didn’t answer that question any more definitively last night than they did in the two episodes before it. But there was a major reveal about another character, which you can read about here.
