Ryan Hurst joins The Walking Dead as Whisperer Beta
By Sonya Iryna
The Walking Dead announced that Beta, a major player in The Whisperers storyline, has been cast.
It was officially announced today that The Walking Dead has cast actor Ryan Hurst as Beta, the second in command of The Whisperers. There’s been a lot of speculation about who would play Alpha’s second in command. Ryan Hurst has a long history in film and TV but fans will know him best as Opie on the FX drama Sons OF Anarchy.
The official casting of Beta completes the casting for the major Whisperer roles. Actress Samantha Morton is joining the cast as Alpha and Cassady McClincy will be playing her daughter Lydia. In the comic Lydia has a major storyline with Carl, but since Carl was killed off last season that storyline will most likely be shifted to The Kingdom’s Henry.
The casting news has been eagerly awaited by fans who are both excited and a little scared of the arrival of The Whisperers. In the comic The Whisperers are responsible for a lot of death and many fans have speculated that Rick Grimes’ upcoming exit will be related to The Whisperers. With season 9 of The Walking Dead fast approaching speculation is growing about when in the season The Whisperers will arrive and if Negan will take on a larger role in fighting The Whisperers once Rick is out of the picture.
It will be interesting to see how new showrunner Angela Kang remixed The Whisperers storyline to fit the surviving characters and how the relationships that have been building over the last nine years will be affected by the arrival of such a massive threat. The survivors have definitely never faced anything like The Whisperers before.
Who Are The Whisperers?
The Whisperers are a group of survivors that have taken the trick of being covered in walker guts to an extreme level. Instead of fighting the dead The Whisperers move among the dead wearing masks and suits of walker skin so that they always look and smell dead. They have learned to shamble like the walkers and they communicate with each other in walker snarls and whispers so that their words are drowned out by the moans of the walkers.
Next. New images from The Walking Dead season 9 offer clues. dark
The Whisperers were confirmed to be coming to the TV show in The Walking Dead season 9 trailer that dropped last month at SDCC. At the very end of the trailer Rosita and Eugene are seen running from what looks like a herd. They drop into the mud and cover themselves with mud. Above them, if you listen carefully, in amongst the walker moans and snarls there is a distinct voice snarling “Where are they?”. The herd is really The Whisperers who have swept into the area around the communities and will become a huge threat to the survivors.