While the topic was once taboo within AMC’s post-apocalyptic franchise,The Walking Deadhas actually revealed a surprising wealth of information regarding how the zombie outbreak began.The Walking Deadhas typically made a point of avoiding the big questions that surround its zombie outbreak, with neither the comic book nor its TV adaptation addressing how the virus itself originated. Across various spinoffs, however, the status quo shifted. Although the mystery remains very far from attaining “case closed” status, the conclusions that can be drawn are vital to understandingThe Walking Dead’s timeline.
Out ofall theWalking Deadshowsto emerge from AMC’s conveyor belt, only three even attempt to begin answering where the virus came from.The Walking Dead: World Beyondseason 2’s endingdid the heavy lifting, with most of the relevant details emanating from a single post-credits sequence. Since then, however,Fear The Walking DeadandDaryl Dixonhave both dropped subtler tidbits that further illuminate what triggered the apocalypse.
By far the most salient detail revealed aboutThe Walking Dead’s zombie virusthus far is that it started courtesy of scientists based in France, as heavily implied byWorld Beyond’s aforementioned post-credits scene. Beforehand,The Walking Deadhad never confirmed whether the virus occurred naturally or was artificially created, butWorld Beyondresolved that issue and went even further by pinpointing the outbreak’s birthplace to a specific laboratory located in France.
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There are two primary pieces of evidence that France is where the outbreak started. Firstly, French graffiti inside the abandoned laboratory roughly translates to “the dead were born here.” And just to rule out the possibility of an artist with an overactive imagination, a mystery figure said to a scientist who returned to the lab in a hopeful attempt to end the outbreak, “End this? You started this!”
Exactly howThe Walking Dead’s virusescaped the laboratory remains unknown, butWorld Beyond’s lore-shattering post-credits scene offered one small hint. When talking to the stranger holding a gun to her head, the scientist explained how most of her colleagues weren’t around when the outbreak began, claiming, “They weren’t here when it happened. When you all did what you did.” The line is highly ambiguous, but may suggest that the stranger’s group were somehow responsible for unleashing whatever the scientists created. That hypothesis remains subjective, but the notion thatThe Walking Dead’s virus was crafted in Franceis hard to disagree with.
The virus might have been born in France, but one detail hints there is blame to share across the globe. According to the scientist fromThe Walking Dead: World Beyond’s post-credits scene, multiple teams were involved in its development, with Violet Team and Primrose Team both named, and Primrose seemingly leading the project. When the virus began spreading in 2010, however,Primrose Team was attending a conference in Toledo, Ohio.
As long as at least one Primrose Team member has survived, hope of curing the virus and endingThe Walking Dead’s zombie outbreak remains.
There are countless potential reasons for Primrose Team making this trip, but it is curious that a group of scientists developing a pathogen capable of bringing the dead back to life all traveled to a conference in the United States. Given what they were working on back home,one could easily infer that the virus was actually an international effortinvolving not just France, but also the United States and various other global superpowers.
As a bonus consequence of this particular detail, members of Primrose Team could potentially feature in futureThe Walking Deadprojects. If the virus' creators were in Ohio when society collapsed, and were subsequently trapped there as airports closed their doors, some of those scientists could realistically be alive 13 years later. As long as at least one Primrose Team member has survived, hope of curing the virus and endingThe Walking Dead’s zombie outbreak remains.
4Zombie Variants May Have Been Caused By The Same Scientists
When the unidentified French gunman confronted the scientist inThe Walking Dead: World Beyond’s post-credits scene, he accused her of much more than just creating the virus. After reminding his victim that she and her friends “started this,” the gunman followed up with, “Then you made it worse.” Considering how this line came immediately beforeThe Walking Dead’s first true variant zombiewas revealed and the term “variant” was coined onscreen, the overriding implication is thatPrimrose, Violet, and the other teams made the zombie virus, then developed a version where the undead are faster, stronger, and smarter.
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Based on what other shows inThe Walking Dead’s canon have revealed, the French scientists are not responsible for all variants within the franchise.Daryl Dixonshows how the Pouvoir du Vivant villain group artificially created super-charged zombies out of normal zombies using a serum that must be administered after reanimation, and the same faces were also behindThe Walking Dead’s burner zombies. Nevertheless, there is at least one kind of variant - the kind that possesses enhanced skills immediately after reanimating - that was seemingly borne from the same lab as the virus itself.
3Daryl Dixon’s Genet Believes The Wealthy Were Behind The Virus
The Walking Dead: World Beyondexposed the scientists who physically made the zombie virus, but offered nothing to explain why they did it.Daryl Dixonseason 2 is slightly more generous in that respect - albeit only slightly. Genet, the spinoff’s main villain and the leader of Pouvoir du Vivant, was a maintenance worker before the outbreak and developed strong anti-rich sentiments during her post-apocalyptic rise to power. As Genet was ranting to Carol about how the wealthy abandoned the poor when the outbreak first began, she described the undead as “the monsters they made.”
Genet would be best placed to know the real reason scientists were developing the zombie virus.
With this line,Genet appears to blame the virus on the rich and powerful, and although she may be somewhat biased, her logic is difficult to argue with. The French scientists fromWorld Beyondwould have needed funding, as well as a reason to start their research in the first place. To assume the project was ultimately the brainchild of some wealthy benefactor or a coalition of influential politicians is, therefore, entirely reasonable.
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Adding further weight to her words, Genet is effectively the leader of FrancewhenDaryl Dixonbegins inThe Walking Dead’s timeline. More than any other character, she would be best placed to know the real reason scientists were developing the zombie virus within France’s borders.
Most survivors inThe Walking Dead, especially those based in the United States, remain blissfully unaware of what started the outbreak, butFear the Walking Deadmay have confirmed that at least one group was privy to such information. InFear the Walking Deadseason 8’s “Remember What They Took From You,” the leader of the villainous organization known as PADRE argued against rebuilding civilization as it used to be, pointing out, “what we had got us into this mess.”
If the US had any involvement in the experiments taking place in France, someone once connected to PADRE could feasibly have known.
The line may have been intended in a more existential sense, but did, on face value, give the impression thatPADRE knew the story behind the virus. Not even the most deluded antagonist could claim to know how the world got “into this mess” without knowing how said mess was actually made.
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Similar to Genet’s situation,PADRE knowing aboutThe Walking Dead’s virusand the French lab makes logical sense withinThe Walking Deadcanon. PADRE began as a US government operation led by a number of high-ranking military figures. Those leaders were all dead by the time ofFear the Walking Deadseason 8, but if the US had any involvement in the experiments taking place in France, someone once connected to PADRE could feasibly have known about it.
Another major revelation fromThe Walking Dead: World Beyondaddressed where the scientists who created the virus are located during the show’s timeline. According to the unidentified gunman from season 2’s post-credits scene, his group rounded up most of the responsible parties and either imprisoned or killed them as punishment for their crimes. Some of Violet Team evidently escaped, while members of Primrose Team may still be alive in the US, but the rest appear to be dead or locked up in some French detention center for doctors with a heavy conscience.
The larger issue is figuring out precisely which group hunted down and captured these scientists. Logic would point toward the theory that the gunman works under Genet for the Pouvoir du Vivant group, given her apparent control over France, butat no point duringDaryl Dixonhas Genet ever mentioned overseeing a prison full of guilty scientists. Genet has featured extensively across two seasons ofDaryl Dixon, with the spinoff providing plenty of insight into her resources, facilities, and followers.
Daryl Dixonhas largely ignored the existence ofWorld Beyondseason 2’s post-credits scene, not once referencing the French lab, natural variants, the scientists, or the gunman.
It feels highly improbable that if Genet captured the scientists who made the zombie virus, that vital slither of information would have gone unsaid for so long. One must, therefore, conclude that an entirely different band of survivors was behind the violent roundup, although whether this unnamed group will ever resurface inThe Walking Deadis another matter entirely.
The Walking Dead
The Walking Deadis a massive multimedia franchise that began with a comic book series created by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard. The franchise gained widespread popularity with the launch of the television seriesThe Walking Deadin 2010 on AMC, which chronicles the lives of survivors in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by zombies, referred to as “walkers.” The success of the original show has led to numerous spin-offs, web series, video games, novels, and other media. The franchise explores themes of survival, human nature, and the breakdown of society in the face of an existential threat, making it one of the most successful and influential horror series of the 21st century.
