The Walking Dead franchise has been around for a long time. Even saying "a decade and a half" now undersells it because it's been on the air for almost 17 years. That's pretty darn epic no matter what way you look at it. Perhaps the only thing more epic than the original show's historic 11-season run is the fact that the TWD Universe is still ongoing via multiple spinoffs and the fact that there are plans for more projects in its near-future. Almost two decades in, and the franchise isn't going anywhere.
That being said, over the course of those two decades there have been some mistakes and missed opportunities - both of which fans have been very vocal about. And yet, as the franchise is still ongoing, it's never too late to try something new - or, in this case, something that should have been old. And that's exactly what the franchise is about to do.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 4 officially introduces running walkers
AMC has released a brand new first look clip of the fourth and final season of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon and it's quite the attention-grabbing couple of minutes. Daryl Dixon and Carol Peletier are roaming the wilderness when, upon seeing something move in the bushes, they are confronted by a walker that begins to run at them. After that, a horde of running walkers charge at the legendary duo, making for one of the most terrifying sights in the TWD Universe franchise's history.
And with that, something that the TWD fans have been longing to see for years has finally come to fruition on our screens. Before we go any further, watch the clip for yourself to see these new walkers in action:
Terrifying, right?! It's like a sight from an R-rated zombie horror movie and that's exactly what the early seasons of The Walking Dead gave, which is why so many fans have been calling for running walkers - or, should we say, runners - to appear in the franchise for the past two decades. But alas, despite occasionally dabbling with walker variants, it never introduced the concept of a runner until the genetically-enhanced walkers seen in the first season of Daryl Dixon.
That right there is where the foundations for a scene like the above one came to be. Madame Genet's serum created enhanced Super Walkers that were capable of running after anything in their path, while also possessing super strength to physically obliterate everything in front of them in a way that typical walkers never could.
However, there were issues with the formula, as the super walkers often turned on each other and even tried to eat each other. That doesn't appear to be the case here, as the runners move in a herd, running with recklessness and carelessness more like a creature from Resident Evil than The Walking Dead.
Interestingly enough, showrunner David Zabel confirmed at New York Comic-Con that Daryl Dixon season 4 would indeed bring back Genet's variant of walker despite the fact that she was killed in France (where her mutated variant started) and the show is now set in Spain, suggesting that the mutation has spread across Europe. And, well, that's pretty darn scary.
It may have taken The Walking Dead franchise to give us legitimate runners, but one clip later and we can absolutely confirm that they are worth the wait. If anything, this has made us even more excited for the fourth and final season of Daryl Dixon, which is shaping up to be one of the most emotional seasons that the TWD Universe has ever produced.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 4 arrives on AMC and AMC+ in February 2027.
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