The Walking Dead season 11's sleeping zombies were said to be "lurkers" from the comics, but Fear The Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: World Beyond suggest that can't be so. With seasons now in double digits, it's not surprising that The Walking Dead hasn't always been consistent with its zombie rule book. Bites can be fatal because of bacteria, but characters regularly smother themselves in zombie gut camouflage, while the brain scan findings of CDC scientist Dr. Jenner were largely forgotten, then outright contradicted by the CRM.

"Archeron: Part I" begins with Maggie and Daryl leading a scavenging mission on a military base. The floor is crawling with zombies that remain perfectly still even when the protagonists start sneaking around. Only when Daryl accidentally makes a loud noise do the assembled undead wake up and attack. Season 11's napping walkers were said to be "lurkers" from Robert Kirkman's original comics, but that explanation hangs tenuously. The lurker distinction was never that prominent in the Walking Dead comics, and they still hunted on scent as well as sound, so there's no reason these fallen soldiers should've ignored The Walking Dead's heroes as long as they did. New information from The Walking Dead's spinoffs further contradicts the lurker reasoning.

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In Fear The Walking Dead season 7's "Breathe With Me," Josiah is helping Sarah track down her missing brother, Wendell. Assuming their man has already turned into a corpse, Josiah figures out how far Zombie Wendell could've already traveled, deducing, "The dead can cover a mile and a half an hour, up to 36 miles in a day." Josiah's math confirms what The Walking Dead viewers already know - zombies don't rest. As long as they haven't rotted beyond the point of being able to move, zombies don't voluntarily take naps - especially when there's a tasty snack nearby.

Sleeping zombies in Walking Dead

As if to hammer home the point, The Walking Dead: World Beyond draws the exact same conclusion. Discussing Project V with Iris and Hope in season 2's "Blood & Lies," Dr. Belshaw loads up a video feed of a zombie and rat locked together in a small room. The rat easily evades the zombie, but Belshaw points out how, sooner or later, the animal will tire, whereas the zombie carries on regardless. She compares the doomed animal to humanity as a means of demonstrating how the undead will relentlessly pursue their fleshy targets without rest or reprieve, and that's why extreme measures are required.

According to The Walking Dead showrunner Angela Kang, season 11's sleeping zombies are a nod to "lurkers" from the comic books, which were lethargic and unable to move as freely as their regular cousins. Eugene Porter speculated lurkers were zombies deprived of sustenance over a long period, thus they became less sprightly and harder to rouse. Eugene's theory is the best way to explain how the military base zombies all fall under the "lurker" category - the squad have been trapped there for years, and Daryl's group were the first fresh meat they've seen. But the lurker explanation is directly contradicted by Walking Dead: World Beyond's Dr. Belshaw, who assures the Bennett sisters zombies will never get tired. Should lurkers exist, the rat in Belshaw's experiment need only hold out long enough for his pursuer to switch from a roamer to a lurker. And if zombies are inherently created as either "roamer" or "lurker" from the start, you have to question why so many lurkers were inside the season 11 base compared to elsewhere in the franchise.

At this point, it might be easier to accept The Walking Dead's zombie science is flexible. Season 11's sleeping zombies prioritized a cool set piece over logic and continuity, whereas World Beyond is more interested in setup and CRM exposition. One possible explanation is that, because the CRM is trying to justify its vile crimes against humanity, Dr. Belshaw lies about zombies hunting their prey indefinitely, and intentionally omits the "lurker" element from her explanation. More likely, The Walking Dead is content to change its undead lore depending on the circumstances, meaning different shows don't agree on whether lurkers exist.

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