Take cover! The Walking Dead midseason finale to feature locust swarm
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The Walking Dead wraps up its second out of three batches of final episodes on April 10 with its final midseason finale, and it promises to be a battle of biblical proportions. Look no further than the episode title, "Acts of God."
So, what gives with the title? We asked showrunner Angela Kang about the episode name and what it references. "I think there are a couple of things that it's referencing," says Kang. "With Leah and the Reapers, we showed that at various times, they really were kind of diving into their own kind of interpretation of being God's chosen ones. And so Leah feels like she is on kind of a mission from above to avenge her people."
Okay, fine. Sure. That makes sense. But then Kang dropped this little nugget: "We also have this kind of odd locust swarm." Wait, locust swarm? As in plague and wrath of God type stuff? Those kind of locusts?
The move actually plays into something Kang has been doing ever since she took over as showrunner in season 9, making weather, Mother Nature, and other external factors act as other problems our heroes have to contend with beyond zombies — including the show's first ever snowstorm back in the season 9 finale.
Jace Downs/AMC Commonwealth soldiers on 'The Walking Dead'
"We've been dealing with a lot of things that have caused incredible trouble for our people, like when Alexandria was destroyed by a rainstorm," says Kang. "And we've been showing how nature can kind of get in the way of our people's best laid plans. And so, this is another one of those moments, and it's all colliding and making their lives very, very difficult and unsustainable."
Of course, it's not just pesky locusts the folks from Alexandria and Hilltop will have to contend with. Lance Hornsby is on a rampage after being convinced Maggie and company took out his troops, and he appears to have aligned with Reapers leader Leah to help take her out. (Even though Leah also killed Commonwealth soldiers, but whatevs, I guess?)
"We are picking up pretty quickly off of the end of episode 15, says Kang of the finale. "And we know that our people have sort of kicked the hornets' nest with the Commonwealth and Hornsby. So it's really going to focus on that storyline that is outside the walls, while we're also kind of balancing story line with some people that are trying to expose some of the lies that we are learning are underlying everything at the Commonwealth. And we also know that Hornsby and Leah are now in league. And so we'll see what comes out of that unholy Alliance.
But are the Lance and Leah interests truly aligned? (Again, she murdered his troops.) "I think they are," says Kang. "It is a kind of a villainous marriage of convenience. What they have in common is they both really hate Maggie and want to see something happen there, but they also are both pretty selfish people that have their own interests that they're following as well."
As for how the midseason finale will conclude, will it wrap up an arc, act as a cliffhanger, or resolve some stories while setting up other new ones for the series' final eight episodes? "I think it's a little bit of all the things," Kang teases. "There are some threads that will come to a conclusion while there are other threads that are really just kind of continuing to ramp up in intensity."
All that… and locusts.
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