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Kirsten Acuna
2019-11-18T03:05:00Z
- Warning: There are major spoilers ahead for "The Walking Dead," season 10, episode seven episode, "Open Your Eyes."
- Sunday's episode helped shed some light on why Siddiq (Avi Nash) has been having so many flashbacks to when he was kidnapped by the Whisperers.
- It turns out his friend and fellow doctor, Dante (Juan Javier Cardenas), was among the Whisperers who held him captive.
- Nash walks Insider through some of the clues scattered across season 10 hinting at Dante's true identity.
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Sunday's episode of "The Walking Dead" shocked with a major twist from the comics.
Dante (Juan Javier Cardenas) is revealed to be a Whisperer who infiltrated the Alexandria community. Unfortunately, by the time Siddiq (Avi Nash) puts the pieces together, it's too late. Dante kills him before he can let anyone know his true identity. It's a complete departure from the comics where Dante is a hero and love interest for Maggie.
The reveal didn't come out of nowhere. If you've been paying close attention, the series has been sprinkling small clues to Dante's Whisperer reveal since the premiere.
"I hope also that if they go back and watch, they see that little pieces of popcorn were dropped on the way here," Nash told Insider.
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Keep reading to see the hints you may have missed along the way.
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Siddiq kept focusing on Dante's mouth.
On the season premiere, Siddiq starts zoning out as the camera hones in on Dante's mouth. A rush of images flood Siddiq from when he was held captive by the Whisperers.
Dante playfully calls him out on it by diverting his attention.
"The way you're staring at my mouth is making me warm and tingly inside," Dante tells Siddiq. "Kiss me already, s---."
We eventually learn that Dante was the Whisperer who held Siddiq's eyes open and forced him to watch his friends get slaughtered last season. Dante's mouth was inches from Siddiq's face as he whispered in his ear to keep his eyes open.
"You've definitely hit on one, focusing on the mouth because that's the only piece of the Whisperer that he could see through the mask," Avi Nash told Insider.
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Alpha knew how many times the group crossed the border.
On the season's third episode, Michonne lies to Alpha when she says the group has crossed onto her land once to stop a massive fire.
Alpha calls her out on the lie, saying she knows Michonne and others have gone past the Whisperer border three times.
"During the fire, you walked my land. And during the winter storm you walked my land. During your search along the river, you and the man with the metal arm walked my land," says Alpha, recounting each time without fail. "That's three times. We are always watching."
It's a perplexing moment on the show because Alpha and the Whisperers simply weren't around during the winter to know that Michonne and the other survivors crossed onto their land. Showrunner Angela Kang confirmed to Insider last season that the Whisperers went somewhere South.
That should have been a big hint that a Whisperer may have been planted within the communities. It's suggested that Dante was secretly wandering off to meet up with Alpha and the other Whisperers.
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Siddiq remembers Dante's clucking while trying to focus on surgery.
On episode three, as Dante and Siddiq go to perform surgery on Carol, Siddiq zones out again. This time, clucking noises can be heard.
It's later revealed on Sunday's episode that Dante was making those noises into Siddiq's ear while he was holding him in place on season nine.
"I think during Carol's surgery he also made that clucking sound, that pop pop sound, which is kind of a tick," said Nash. "I think that's actually what starts Siddiq's tremors and flashback in that moment when he's not able to actually perform the surgery."
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The show doubled down on the mouth imagery again on episode six.
On the season's sixth episode, Siddiq starts fixating on his daughter's mouth. As he rocks her to sleep, he starts having a night terror where he hears a combination of Dante's distorted voice and clucking.
He hears a voice say, "Open your eyes," the title of the show's seventh episode. It's eventually revealed that Dante said the phrase to him while forcing him to watch Enid get killed.
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Dante knew about the poisoned water.
On episode five, we see Gamma spill the entrails of a walker into a stream. Soon afterward, we learn Rosita's under the weather from a vague bug. By the following week's episode, much of Alexandria is plagued by a mysterious illness that Dante is in charge of treating.
It's implied that Dante knows the water was poisoned and that he helped tamper with the water system somehow to make the community sick.
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Carol's prisoner kept his eyes on Dante as if he recognized him.
When Dante and Siddiq first visit Carol's prisoner on Sunday's episode, the Whisperer keeps his attention on Dante.
Dante is the first to speak to him saying, "Don't try anything," as if to let him know he's in charge of the situation.
The Whisperer tells Dante: "Never."
Dante likely poisoned the Whisperer with Hemlock because he was afraid of him giving away his identity in addition to keeping information about the Whisperer horde safe.The most surprising bit of all this is that Lydia somehow never recognized or was in contact with Dante.
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