SPOILER WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for The Walking Dead Season 10 premiere, "Lines We Cross."
As the main characters of The Walking Dead prepared for an inevitable war against the Whisperers in the Season 11 premiere, they were surprised by a Russian satellite falling to Earth and starting a brush fire upon impact in Whisperer territory.
With the communities of Alexandria and Hilltop violating their borders to put out the fire and prevent its spread, the fragile ceasefire against the Whisperers has been put at risk. For showrunner Angela Kang, this inciting incident came from trying to mix real-world consequences of the apocalypse with something the popular franchise hadn't seen before.
"We were talking in the writers’ room about: What is stuff that happens over time? When years pass, what goes on? And somebody was just talking about, 'Well, you know satellites and stuff, they have to be maintained otherwise they start to fall.' So there was this idea that, wouldn’t they see things start to fall from the atmosphere after time?" Kang told Entertainment Weekly. "We thought that was just an interesting way to do something a little bit new at the beginning of the season. And there’s also this technology that they’ve gotten from the satellite, which comes into play within the season as well. We just thought that was a fun way to try something new for the show while still reflecting a reality that would happen as time goes by."
Despite successfully putting out the extraterrestrial-originated fire, the crashing satellite may be an ominous sign of things to come, with Alpha and Michonne slated for an inevitable rematch as their communities go to war.
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, Samantha Morton. It airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on AMC.