'The Walking Dead' peeks under the masks of the Whisperers

Spoiler warning: This article contains spoilers for Season 9 Episode 10 of The Walking Dead.

The Whisperers have proven themselves to be one of the most terrifying threats in The Walking Dead, and learning more about them has only made them scarier.

In Sunday night's episode of The Walking Dead, "Omega," the mysterious origin of the Whisperers began to unravel as the captured Whisperer Lydia recalls the early days of her and her family surviving after the zombie outbreak first began.

In flashbacks and conversations with Henry and Daryl, Lydia recalls how her mother handled the crisis unfolding in the South, how quickly she turned into a compassion-less person who would do anything she could to survive, even killing her own husband.

Lydia's backstory makes her a much more compelling character and her revelations remind everyone that the Whisperers started out just like everyone else, normal people living in the normal world before the dead started coming back to life. There are humans underneath those stitched together zombie masks and they are capable of doing horrible things.

That's not really a new concept in The Walking Dead, but the Whisperers, and specifically their leader who has named herself Alpha, have a more psychotic drive than any other villains before them. Unfortunately for Lydia, Alpha is her mother.

Lydia's whole outlook has been warped by her mother, who gaslit her into believing that her father was weak and that's why he died, which covers up the fact that Alpha murdered him for disagreeing with her. Lydia's mindset is on full display when she eats a worm and insists that a peaceful settlement of survivors isn't possible.

There wasn't much in terms of moving the story forward in this episode, but it was important and gripping as it unraveled the Whisperers and gave a more empathetic look at Lydia.

At the end of "Omega," The Walking Dead did what it does best and left us with a tense cliffhanger as the Whisperers and an unmasked Alpha arrive at the gates asking for her daughter.