We’re seven weeks into The Walking Dead season 10, so it was about time that we had another shocking death on the show. Sure enough, yesterday’s episode, “Open Your Eyes,” the penultimate installment of season 10a, saw the demise of another popular character. And, what’s more, it revealed that someone else had been a double agent for the Whisperers all along.
The episode revealed that not everyone within Alexandria’s walls can be trusted and our heroes’ enemies have secretly infiltrated their community. In particular, Dante was revealed as a mole, as deduced by Siddiq when he was locked in a room with him and recognized the nervous tick sound he made. It was the same sound made by the Whisperer who held him down and forced him to watch Enid and others killed by Alpha last season. Unfortunately, before he could tell anyone, Dante strangled Siddiq to death.
This came as a huge surprise to both TV fans and those who’ve read the comics, as this twist wasn’t based on events from the source material. Dante was actually a good guy on the page, even becoming a love interest for Maggie. He and Siddiq also both made it to the end of the comic books alive. Tragically, Siddiq’s time on the show has been cut short, though, after he debuted back at the beginning of season 8. Now, we’re hoping that Dante will get his comeuppance soon, as well.
Speaking about the shocking moment, Siddiq actor Avi Nash explained to ComicBook.com how Dante’s tick had been seeded in previous episodes of season 10 to set up this big twist, saying:
“I think that ‘tock tock’ sound, it’s a tick of his. It actually occurs during the first, to my memory in this season, when they’re performing surgery on Carol. It’s a tick that Dante’s character has that ultimately that tick thrusts Siddiq’s memory of the mouth that he could see through the whisperer mask, plus where Dante is in physical space in that last scene to his back shoulder allows Siddiq to put all the pieces back together.”
Be sure to catch The Walking Dead 10×08 “The World Before” on AMC on November 24th, as it’ll no doubt be exciting to see how the network plans to top this twist.
