THE WALKING DEAD’s Showrunner Talks to SciFi Mafia About the Virus


No, we’re not kidding! Yesterday afternoon, The Walking Dead‘s showrunner/executive producer/writer Glen Mazzara very kindly took the time to speak with the media about the finale of season 2, which airs this Sunday at 9/8c on AMC. He gave some wonderful insights and some nice teases, most of which will be posted here later today.

But right now we wanted to give you the scoop about what he told SciFi Mafia about THE VIRUS. Since we were told he wouldn’t spoil, I wasn’t sure what info he would give, so I asked him straight out what he could tell us about the virus, whether it was airborne, whether or not information about it was whispered in Rick’s ear at the CDC…

Glen Mazzara:       I will say that there will be answers – all I can say is there will be answers about the nature of that virus revealed in the finale.

SciFi Mafia: Okay and again I understand you may not be able to say it, but it seemed to me when that when Amy died, it took hours for the virus to take effect and now obviously it’s not, is that consistent or is that a choice you made for other reasons?

Glen Mazzara:       It’s consistent with how we internally approach how somebody becomes a zombie and what type of zombie and how – and it becomes a walk around and what type of walker they become. So in all rationale, you know, Amy was a weaker character than Shane and she was attacked, okay. Shane was, you know, is full of life – he’s in a murderous rage, there’s just more energy. So he’s obviously going to be a scarier zombie, he’s going to reanimate quicker, there’s just more life in that zombie believe it or not.

So we do have zombies of different strengths, we do have some catatonic zombies – not all zombies play the same and we do have internal rules for that, so what you saw was very, very consistent with how we approach it here. And those are rules that the writers work out and Greg Nicotero‘s involved with that and Robert Kirkman so we do take our internal logic very seriously and that was – what you saw was consistent.

[The Shakedown]

WAIT, WHAT? What TYPE of walker…? Okay kids, you read it here first. THIS is why Shane turned so quickly and why Amy didn’t. Who knew?!  So… I’m thinking that if Jim died from his bite and hasn’t sustained a head injury, he’s one of those slow movers, but Otis, if he’s walking around, is pretty peppy, since he was on the run… Well, if there’s much left of him. Eww. And if that herd that’s on its way is made up of walkers who were REALLY ANGRY when they died, our farm folk are in for an even bigger passel o’ trouble.

Yes there’s more to come, so keep your eyes on SciFi Mafia for the rest, including information about Mr. Mazzara’s plans for live tweeting during the finale and an open tweeting session after, where he will answer even more questions.

The Walking Dead Season 2 Finale airs this Sunday, March 18 at 9/8c on AMC.


Erin Willard
Written by Erin Willard

Erin is the Editor In Chief and West Coast Correspondent for SciFiMafia.com