Walking Dead Season 11 Teaser Hints at a Zombie Cure

A new teaser for The Walking Dead season 11 hints that a cure may finally be on the way. The Walking Dead premiered in 2010 and quickly became a hit, telling the story of a close-knit group of survivors in a world overrun with the undead. Throughout the show’s run, audiences have seen their ragtag group encounter a series of different communities, some friendly, like Alexandria, others decidedly more hostile, such as The Saviors. Although zombies remain an ever-present threat to the main group of survivors, the show demonstrates that humans are often far more monstrous.

Though the show’s popularity has waned in recent years, The Walking Dead remains a strong hit for AMC and will conclude its run with its 11th season, which aired its first episode, “Acheron: Part I,” Sunday night. Throughout the show’s tenure, a cure for the zombie virus, with which everyone is infected, has remained elusive aside from a brief glimmer of hope in season 1. Although Robert Kirkman, the show’s creator, said in 2015 that he envisions a hopeful ending for the show, he stopped short of mentioning a cure.

To promote the new season, the official Twitter account for The Walking Dead recently posted a short video that hints a cure may in fact be on its way. The video, styled to look like an animated wartime recruitment poster, features Mercer (Michael James Shaw), leader of the Commonwealth military, encouraging people to “Be the cure. Join the Commonwealth.” With the Commonwealth appearing to be the most advanced community that has appeared in the show thus far, it’s entirely possible that “Be the cure” is more than just a recruitment slogan. Check out the teaser video below:

While audiences may not have learned much about the Commonwealth (or its mysterious leader, Pamela Milton) in the season 11 premiere, the Commonwealth featured in the original comic series had a sophisticated class system in which survivors were assigned to the same jobs that they did pre-apocalypse. It’s likely a scientist or two found their way into the near 50,000-person-strong community and that they are working on a cure behind the scenes. It’s also possible that any cure being developed at the Commonwealth will turn out to be a source of false hope, much in the same vein that the mission to get to the CDC in season 1 ended up being.

It seems unlikely that The Walking Dead will end on a happy note given the show’s trajectory thus far, making the possibility of a real cure a bit of a stretch. Considering The Walking Dead still has several spinoffs going strong, Fear The Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: World Beyond, it seems more probable that any cure hinted at in season 11 will prove to be a source of false hope so that the zombie adventures can continue in these spinoff properties, including the long-awaited Rick Grimes movies and anticipated Daryl and Carol spinoff series.

The Walking Dead season 11 continues with new episodes releasing every Sunday night at 9/8c.