Fear The Walking Dead Theory: Who Are The Stalkers?

The new season of Fear The Walking Dead has introduced us to a new threat, The Stalkers, but are they, someone we’ve already met?

The start of the newest season of Fear The Walking Dead introduced us to a lot of new people, including Strand’s new community, Will, and most importantly for our purposes, the Stalkers.

The Stalkers are a legion of radiation suit-clad hostiles who strip the dead throughout the wasteland and seem to want to attack any other survivors they see.

As if the wasteland needed something to make it more dangerous, walkers killed by the radiation pose an additional threat that pre-explosion walkers do not, radiation poisoning. And, not having seen any walkers with radiation scars or lesions, it seems like the Stalkers stripping them makes it tougher to determine which ones were radioactive and which ones aren’t, meaning the Stalkers are making the wasteland worse, twice over.

Where are the Stalkers coming from? We don’t know.
Why are they hostile? We don’t know.
Why are they stripping the dead? We don’t know.
Who ARE THEY? …We may know.

Fear The Walking Dead Theory: The Stalkers are the remains of Teddy’s cult.

Something occurred to me as I was writing my Things To Note for the season finale that I had forgotten: Not all of Teddy’s cult died in the USS Pennsylvania.

During that episode’s Dwight and Sherry segment, they are chasing down a pair of cultists who had invaded the home of an innocent family, the Larsons. These stragglers were trying to hide from the nuclear apocalypse their leader had unleashed.

Now, while these two weren’t the most devoted by evidence of their running off, if other members of the Beginners survived, who’s to say that they weren’t more devoted?

Even after the nuke launched, we saw that Riley remained loyal to the cause, trying to ensure that he took out as many outsiders as possible. In this case, Daniel, Luciana, Sarah, Charlie, Rabbi Kessner, and Wes, so that only those Teddy intended to leave behind would survive.

Now, with Teddy gone and the nuke launched, one might think that any holdovers from the Beginners would have nothing left. But, remember, Teddy had told Dakota that the reason he had his fallout shelter was so that, once the dust had settled, he could go back and launch the rest of the warheads to ensure total destruction and that his plan truly came to fruition. Who’s to say that Teddy didn’t have other subordinates dedicated to carrying out their mission as best as possible, should their plan get derailed? It’s not like they wouldn’t have noticed that things hadn’t gone entirely to plan, and, even if they couldn’t figure out how to finish launching the warheads, they could try to find ways to kill off as many other survivors in the aftermath as possible.

I think that some of Teddy’s cultists hid out after the launch to ensure that they would carry on with the mission if things went wrong. Upon discovering that new, post-launch walkers were radioactive and looked the same as regular walkers, they had found their weapon with which to do it. They sought to increase its effectiveness by making sure they looked no different than any other walker roaming the area, ensuring at least some bomb survivors would die from the walkers of those who weren’t so lucky.

Over time, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Stalkers actively attacking the rest of Morgan’s group, maybe even inadvertently bringing them all back together, perhaps even Strand. Using irradiated walkers as a weapon, hoping to wipe out everyone in Texas before moving on to the rest of the continent, with a legion of (Effectively) poisonous walkers following them, hoping to eventually kill everyone they encounter.

But, what do you think? Do you believe the Stalkers may be the remnants of Teddy’s cult? Do you think they’re stripping the walkers to make it tougher to tell which are irradiated? Do you believe the Stalkers are someone completely different? I’m curious to hear! If you enjoyed this and want to learn how to stay alive in a zombie apocalypse, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can also get it at Amazon here, on iTunes here!