The Walking Dead preview: Daryl, Michonne, and Carol face off with the Whisperers

With just two episodes left this season, we’re preparing for the worst. But could previews for this Sunday be more of a tease than terrifying?

Since the early seasons of death and zombification, our favorite characters have dealt with latent trust issues, insurmountable loss, and multilayered loss. In short, The Walking Dead characters have been through a lot. As season 9 comes to a close, the series is keeping up with its multi-seasons long traditions of tormenting its characters and viewers. In retrospect, nothing particularly tragic will likely happen in this week’s episode, “The Calm Before,” but the ominous foreshadowing is still there… just taunting us.

We already know what’s going to happen at the Fair. We just don’t know who will fall victim to the happenings in the season finale or how Alpha’s decapitations will go done. Still, this week’s episode has us preemptively writing sad reaction tweets for any and every character of The Walking Dead.

Seriously, the perilous undercurrent is right there in the title, but we’re not going to omit a chance to sift through this week’s promo for episode 15 just because we already know what’s going to happen (generally speaking). If you’re somehow still underwhelmed with the trajectory of the beheading arc, prepare to get whelmed:

If we didn’t hate Alpha and Beta before, we definitely hate them now. The misdirection in the Avengers: Endgame trailers has us wondering if TWD is taking a passage from the Russo brothers’ marketing handbook.

Fake scenes are unlikely in the episode’s promo, but seeing as heads will roll in the season finale, we’re a bit skeptical the standoff between Beta, Alpha, and a horde of Whisperers vs. Daryl, Michonne, Carol, and Yumiko is just a way to give us a minor conflict before the real gory scenes next episode.

The apparent ambush seems like a diversion to keep us from focusing on who might be on Alpha’s chopping string back at the fair, which could mean at least Daryl, Michonne, Carol and Yumiko are safe from the inevitable deaths this season. However, we also know to prepare for the unexpected.

Foreboding is strong in this week’s trailer, just like it will be strong in the episode itself. Ezekiel is right. Sacrifices will be made in “The Calm Before.” Those sacrifices just come at the expense of our devout fandom on the eve of the memorable Fair arc from The Walking Dead comics. As we momentarily enjoy the calm before the implicit storm, we’re preemptively saying our goodbyes to the most likely contenders to befall Alpha’s wrath (i.e. Ezekiel and Rosita), but we’re also expecting a bait and switch when the real festivities do kick off.

The Walking Dead airs Sunday nights at 8 p.m. CT.