The Walking Dead (TV series)/WMG

So late-comers who are still getting caught up with the series can enjoy and add to WMG's as they go, please put examples in the folder where they fit.

Merle will be The Governor.

• While there isn't much evidence to suggest this, it would be interesting if Merle becomes the one to cut off Rick's hand, saying that it would be like an eye for an eye.
  • It turns out a different actor is being brought in to play The Governor.

Tyreese isn't in the series because Merle has killed him

• if Merle had set of the way the group eventually go he would have had several days head start meaning he could easily have come across tyreese's group before rick's group would have in the books.tyreese's daughter's boyfriend is white and both Merle and tyreese have very short tempers so the chances of merle saying something that leads to a fight is very high. Merle wins, tyreese dies, his daughter and her boyfriend make good on there suicide pact a little early and rick never knows they exist.

Indirect exposure to the walker bodily fluids creates a resistance to the alleged airborne strain of the virus

Anytime blood splashed on them during a walker fight they were inadvertently protecting themselves

• They are still prone to infection via scratches and/or bites but that's about it.

The Virus is the Undead Plague.

The Burning Legion found a world that only one Titan race What happens without a Lich King near indistructable zombies

Rick is a zombie.

His heart stopped, and he lay in a hospital bed for days without food or water. He's obviously a zombie that's somehow retained his intelligence.

• So why isn't he rotting?
  • Same reason Alice didn't. He got a different strain of The Virus.

Rick knows that Lori is pregnant.

• This is what Jenner had told Rick before leaving the CDC. Jenner would be in a position to know since he had taken urine samples of all of the survivors in order to screen for infection, and he could have used Lori's urine to test for pregnancy as well.
  • Jossed in the episode "Secrets"

It's the time of the Second Coming and Rick is the Messiah.

• Incorruptible Pure Pureness? Check. Post apocalyptic world? Check. Honor Before Reason? Check. Walking on water? Yet to be seen.
  • I kind of love you for this.

The Virus is airborne.

The Doc whispers something to Rick, making Rick look almost more scared than he has throughout the series. What was it? That the "Zombie Plague" isn't just transmitted through bites, but is airborne, Anyone could get infected. Alternate: That the blood tests showed someone in the group already is!

• Alternative suggestion - the blood tests reveal that Lori is pregnant (which she is). The question is, who is the father?

The Virus comes from Outer Space

The CDC failed even to identify whether it was bacterial, viral, fungal etc. This argues for a life form not of this world. May or may not be an alien bio-weapon.

• According to The Walking Dead Chronicles, this WAS the original intent for the first zombie comic Kirkman intended to make; the concept was reworked into The Walking Dead.

What the Doctor at the CDC whispered was...

Feel free to add your pet theories

• "It came from here."(The CDC that is)
• "Drink more ovaltine."
• "It Puts the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again."
• "Shane fucked your wife."
• "I fucked your wife."
• "You're a Time Lord."
• "Lori is pregnant"
• "Shane has kuru/mad cow/some other dementia-like illness,he's probably going to become really really unstable in the near future." Or a briefer version of something to that effect.
• "Yer a wizard, Rick."
• "Every living creature on earth dies alone."
• "Andrea was a double-crossing spy."
• I like turtles.
• "I killed Mufasa."
• This question was finally answered (spoiler is just when it was revealed, not what the revelation was): In the season two finale.

Dr. Jenner said, "We Are The Walking Dead - we're all infected and we're going to die."

Think about it - it doesn't matter whether or not you get bitten - you've already gotten the virus. You might drop dead first - or you might just turn around and bite someone you care about with no warning, no symptoms.

It's only a matter of time before everyone turns into a zombie. Which is why Jenner kept trying to talk them into staying. He knew that it was "only a matter of time".

And it's why he looked so surprised when Grimes said he was lying - he WAS lying. His whole backstory was a lie. His wife wasn't bitten - a so-called "healthy" person got the disease with no prior symptoms.

• • The episode Nebraska subtly support this, namely in the bar shootout. The fat guy goes down after Rick shoots him twice in the torso, and immediately afterward, Rick walks up to him and shoots him in the head. Could very well be that he was just doing it to finish him off, but supposing it's true that everyone is infected with the disease, it'd make perfect sense for Rick to shoot him in the head to make sure he doesn't come back as a walker.
  • It appears that the writers have laid out another subtle scene in "18 Miles Out" to possibly build up to The Reveal about the airborne virus. We only have it on Rick's word that the police corpses had been infected by scratching, and there has been no prior evidence that anything other than bites have infected individuals, not to mention how intact their bodies appear to be.
  • This is all but guaranteed to be The Reveal in the season two finale, after both Randall and possibly Shane became zombies without apparent infection in "Better Angels."
    • And it's confirmed - Rick just spilled the beans to the survivors. This WMG was close, but not quite on. They all have the virus, but you only go walker if you die by any means.

They're the new The Truman Show.

After the Truman Show was cancelled in the movie, the dome was re-purposed into this. Who knows if they're all oblivious or are all in on it and simply reacting to things. The reason they have spent huge swaths of time in a single spot rather than moving is because the production team is hard at work building the next set in another part of the dome. Dr. Edwin Jenner is obviously played by the actor who played Marlon in The Truman Show. Any actor who chose to leave the show at the end of season one could stay in the CDC set and "die". What Jenner whispered to Rick were production directions, not anything about the outbreak.

• How do they film "real" zombies and people getting injured and dying? A special effects wizard did it.

Dr. Jenner and/or the CDC was hiding something

• ...particularly in the realm of possibility that the plague was artificial.
• Evidenced in "TS-19" during Jenner's description of their research and findings.
  • He describes the disease as "infecting the brain like meningitis," when meningitis does not infect the brain, but the tissues around it. Possibly a cheap cover for something the others aren't meant to know (according to the government, or now what's left of it) about the disease.
    • However, possibly explained as: the disease behaves like meningitis and/or is biologically similar, but directly infects the brain, and Dr. Jenner used that as the simplest explanation.
  • More importantly, Jenner explains that they were unable to identify the cause of the disease. I repeat, THE UNITED STATES CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL with all their knowledge and technology was unable to figure out something as simple as the agent through which the disease is spread. Even as much as saying if it were viral or bacterial or otherwise should be a relatively simple task, even for as much as a pre-med student with some basic hospital equipment.
    • Again, a possible explanation here is that the plague is the result of some completely new material, that had them all baffled. This also supports the idea that it has extraterrestrial origins.

Shane will be killed by the end of Season Two."

• • Ding ding ding.

Shane is infected and he knows it.

• • The revelation that one can become a zombie by merely being scratched (as opposed to bites being the only method of transfer) seemed to rattle him a little too much, donchathink?

Scratches don't infect people and Rick knows it.

• • When Dale was killed, Rick was calling out for Hershell to help him. However, since his stomach had just been clawed open, it's safe to say that Dale's injuries would have been considered infectious if scratches really did spread the virus. Rick probably just claimed that it was scratches because he wasn't ready to admit to Shane that everybody's already infected.

Shane won't be killed by the end of Season Two.

The recently released blurb that billed the Season Two DVD/Blu-ray as having "Shane's last episode" was a hoax to influence our expectations and create a dramatic twist from something we would otherwise expect, i.e. Shane living.

• He indeed was killed.

The virus also enhances eye-hand coordination.

This explains why everyone seems to be such a crack shot.

The first outbreak killed at least half the population directly.

That's how society quickly collapsed. The "invasion" started from the inside-out, and it was already too late by the time they realized what was going on.

• I like this - it killed em mass some people who were very sensitive to the virus - those people came back as walkers before people even noticed they had died.

Carl's gunshot isn't what attracted the herd

It was the two guys yelling at each other for 20 minutes that got their attention. How could they not notice that?

Darryl will become a werewolf

The rustle in the bushes is really a werewolf. Darryl goes to investigate and gets bit. He then can not be infected cince werewolves have healing factors, becomes an even better hunter/tracker, and tears through herds of zombies every full moon.

Funeral homes, hospitals and morgues were the first to go in the outbreak.

The virus got around first, so everyone was infected already before walkers started showing up. One day, every place dead people are taken started dealing with these. That's when people started actually getting bitten. Response to these outbreaks was slow because people thought it was a joke. Naturally the police and emergency folks were first to the scene and became walkers first. Then things went downhill.

One of the future seasons will have the series turn to the alien invasion that Kirkman sold the comic as.

Just to further mess with fans of the comics.

Daryl's brother will come back in season 3

and kill that black guy whose name I can't remember.