Alhough her total screen time clocks in at fewer than 60 minutes, Samantha Morton’s Alpha is already the most ruthless villain in the history of The Walking Dead – and perhaps the most powerful. She’s only been around for two episodes and change, but that’s been more than enough to ensure her a spot in this show’s impressive Big Bad Hall of Fame. And considering The Walking Dead’s penchant for finding the worst in humanity, that’s saying something.
Shane’s covetous love of Lori and Carl corrupted him into attempting to murder his best friend. Dawn Lerner presided over kidnapping, rape and assault in a misguided attempt to maintain order in her domain under the mistaken assumption that the government would rescue them. The Wolves ravaged everyone they met out of pure, unbridled self-interest, and the Terminus crew was driven so far beyond the pale they broke with reality and became gleeful cannibals. Negan and the Governor don’t really need an introduction, but for posterity’s sake, the former brained Glenn and Abraham just to make a point and then proceeded to terrorize the communities until he was finally overthrown. The latter's thirst for vengeance and power was so strong, he eventually sacrificed a new life with Lilly just to burn Rick’s world to the ground. But, at the end of the day, Alpha has already put them all to shame, and she’s barely gotten started.
Her backstory, told through flashback in “Omega,” reveals a woman whose natural urges were unleashed by the lawlessness of a post-apocalyptic world. Before things barely get off the ground, she’s murdered a man for making too much noise, and followed that by murdering her father while her daughter watched. In the present, she presides over a tribe of people that have embraced the walkers as the next stage of evolution. In addition to draping themselves in the skin of the dead, they live by a brutal code of conduct based on survival of the fittest. As their leader, keeping her people safe is less of a priority than using them to strengthen her own position and lifestyle. As such, she’s happy to murder anyone who challenges her position, and just as happy to let them die should they engage in behavior that endangers them (such as a crying infant).
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Say what you will about the Governor and Negan, they didn't murder children. Say what you will about Shane, Dawn and the Wolves, they maintained some semblance of their humanity, despite their actions. And say what you will about Terminus, they were driven insane after undergoing horrific torture. Alpha embraced her ruthlessness from the very beginning, thriving in a world that allowed her to be limitless. No one who’s come before her looked at things in quite the same way, and no one’s made her brand of subjugation last quite as long.
But what pushes Alpha over the top of the villainy heap isn’t her body count or her depravity; it’s her power. No society has weaponized the walkers as effectively as Alpha and the Whisperers have: not only do they control significant herds, they’ve made everyone else’s previous strategies for dealing with the walkers irrelevant. Headshots still work, but when you can’t tell which walkers are undead and which are humans capable of mounting a much more threatening attack, slow-moving herds become far deadlier and more unpredictable. She's effectively walked back all of the progress the survivors have made in managing the herds, because they aren't just herds anymore - they're impenetrable camouflage for a tribe of indiscriminate killers.
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To a man, the rest of The Walking Dead villains have, at the very least, one thing in common with our survivors: a shared enemy in the walkers. But in Alpha's case, she's joined the enemy, and in doing so absorbed and enhanced their power. It's only been two episodes, but what's to come from her has the potential to break our characters in ways the likes of which we've never seen in nine seasons.
Airing Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on AMC, The Walking Dead stars Norman Reedus, Danai Gurira, Melissa McBride, Alanna Masterson, Josh McDermitt, Christian Serratos, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Nadia Hilker, Dan Fogler, Angel Theory, Lauren Ridloff and Eleanor Matsuura.