WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for The Walking Dead Season 10, Episode 6, "Open Your Eyes," which aired Sunday on AMC.
As the midseason finale for The Walking Dead Season 10 approaches, the latest episode ended with the bombshell revelation that the medical specialist Dante was actually a spy planted by the Whisperers. As Siddiq realized his friend was secretly destabilizing the community, Dante strangled him to death to maintain his secret in a shocking twist.
Showrunner Angela Kang explained the twist ending to Season 10's sixth episode, noting that Siddiq's unreliable memory would be exploited while the season's long-simmering conflict between the Whisperers and Alexandria would have paranoia and distrust appear prevalently.
"We were like, 'Well, people just tend to trust doctors. They just do. And it’s something they need, and it connects to Siddiq,'" Kang observed in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. "And we were wanting to introduce Dante as a character, and we just decided to meld them together and see if we could play a story where like, 'Here’s this person who, on the one hand, is incredibly charming and could be a friend and he legitimately actually likes Siddiq, but he’s also got a deeper agenda.'"
The tension between the surviving factions from outside and within has risen over the course of the season. Meanwhile, Dante has used his access as a medical professional to gain access to the water and damage the community's water filters to contaminate the supply.
"He’s been sabotaging water," Kang confirmed. "He’s been doing some little things about the community to poke and prod at their problems, and we’ll find out a bit more about that in the next episode as well."
The Walking Dead stars Norman Reedus, Danai Gurira, Melissa McBride, Josh McDermitt, Christian Serratos, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Seth Gilliam, Ross Marquand, Khary Payton, Cooper Andrews, Avi Nash, and Samantha Morton. It airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on AMC.