The Walking Dead season 9 finale preview: Winter is upon us

We’re still in mourning after last week’s episode, but it’s also time to prep for winter on The Walking Dead season 9 finale this week.

Clearly, we’re not over the pike scene last week, and neither are the allied communities. The Kingdom and company have a new threat during the season finale: combat the winter season and survive a blizzard.

This Sunday on The Walking Dead, we’ll see a lot of new challenges, and probably a cliffhanger or two. After all, no season finale is complete without an overwhelming amount of tension to keep us fan-theorying until next season.

As if walkers, Whisperers, and various other threats weren’t bad enough, The Walking Dead season 9 finale will mark the first time our favorite on-screen zombie-slayers will experience a massive cold swell.

There are plenty of winter-themed zombie movies, such as Extinction and Dead Snow, but we doubt our favorite grieving survivors will use the Kingdom’s theater room to research winter apocalypse survival skills. They have other more pressing matters to deal with, like avoiding the Whisperers while they find a safe place to avoid the blizzard.

Walkers in snow? That’s definitely surprising. We didn’t know what to expect when it comes to mixing snowfall, walkers, and impending conflict. However, walkers popping up from snow mounds definitely didn’t make our initial theories for the season finale.

Judging by the trauma in “The Calm Before,” The Walking Dead season finale might take place directly after the pike scenes. Conversely, we probably should prepare for another vague time jump into the future. Don’t worry: If a time jump does occur, we’ll probably just propel a few months into the future to escalate the terrifying winter conflict (rather than jumping forward years into the future like when Rick had an explosive exit).

Apart from the snow-covered jumpscares and withstanding the brutal blizzard, the season finale will officially start the Whisperer War.

Straying onto Alpha’s territory after the turmoil in last week’s episode will ignite another level of tensions and loss. Based on the trailer for The Walking Dead‘s next episode, the survivors will have to embark into the Whisperer territory if they want a chance to withstand the blizzard.