‘The Walking Dead’ Finally (!) Hints at the Origins of the Zombie Apocalypse

One very frisky walker offered a couple clues.

For nearly two decades, “The Walking Dead” creator Robert Kirkman has refused to reveal the origins of the zombie apocalypse driving the action in his comic series and its television spinoff.

“I really was never interested in dealing with the cause of the zombie outbreak,” he once wrote. “My opinion has been well-documented, but the short version is… any detailed explanation would push things too far into the realm of sci-fi for me. I think it’s better to leave it unresolved. That way, the story remains grounded.”

Fans filled that void with their own possible explanations. Was it an airborne plague, possibly created in a lab? A spore from space? An ancient curse on humanity? An alien weapon?

The comic series, which concluded in mid-2019, never bothered to clarify what exactly made the dead rise up to chomp the living. But the television series, now in its final season, offers some strong hints about the cause. Episode 11x19 (helpfully titled “Variant”) featured zombies whose behavior deviates from the established norms of the series.

A group of our survivors, including longtime characters Aaron and Jerry, are attacked by a horde of zombies (known as “walkers” in the series). They retreat into a small building that provides them some cover from the undead, who under ordinary circumstances can’t do much more than shuffle around slowly and bite. But as they attempt to barricade their sad little fortress, Jerry notices a doorknob turning — which is disconcerting when you consider the show’s zombies can’t usually open doors.

Our survivors climb onto the roof of the structure, thinking they’re safe because zombies can’t really climb. But that illusion is shattered when a zombie scales the roof and grabs a rock, ready to brain Jerry before Aaron kills it. Their initial assumption — that the unexpectedly smart zombie is a Whisperer, or a human wearing a zombie’s face — is undermined upon closer examination. The zombies are becoming a lot smarter… and a lot more agile.

As we’ve all learned from the past few years (if we didn’t know it already), viruses produce variants designed to keep pace with changing environmental conditions. By this point, the zombies of “The Walking Dead” aren’t well suited for their environment; unless they form a massive herd, they’re more of a nuisance than a threat. And so a variant emerges, faster and smarter and able to do rudimentary things like climb a single story or twist a doorknob — which doesn’t sound like much, but it’s enough to radically change the game.

The evolution of a new “variant” also reinforces the fan theories that the zombie apocalypse is caused by a virus, as opposed to aliens or a curse or anything along those lines that probably wouldn’t evolve. Whether it was grown in a lab or produced in nature is something the series may eventually tackle in its billion spin-offs and movies reportedly in the pipeline.