Summary

• The Walking Dead virus origins have been revealed - it started in a French laboratory with the Primrose and Violet teams. The outbreak was not intentional but was caused by a group's attack on the facility.
• Revealing the virus origins may have killed the show's biggest mystery, but it sets up new mysteries and future storylines for spinoff series.
• The focus of The Walking Dead has always been on human nature and moral dilemmas, so exploring the creation of the virus aligns with the franchise's direction. The reveal rules out extraterrestrial or natural causes and raises the stakes for the characters.

After avoiding the issue for more than 10 years, the mystery of how The Walking Dead virus started has finally been explained. When writing his comic series, Robert Kirkman deliberately chose not to reveal the TWD zombie origins, and throughout the entire story, he never comes close to deciphering the truth. AMC's The Walking Dead TV adaptation inherited his philosophy and has consistently shied away from giving the audience a science lesson. Indeed, the closest The Walking Dead ever came would be season 1's CDC episode, which Kirkman expressed regret over. The Walking Dead: World Beyond season 2 finale post-credits sequence answers the question.

How did The Walking Dead virus start? This scene takes place at a biomedical facility in France. Though long since abandoned, one of the lab's former researchers returns in hopes of continuing her work to discover a cure, but she's accosted by an unidentified survivor. When the scientist declares her optimistic intention to end TWD's zombie apocalypse, her attacker replies, "End this? You started this." On the wall, there's also the rather ominous message, "Les Morts Sont Nés Ici." For non-French speakers, this broadly translates to "The Dead Are Born Here."

The Walking Dead Virus: How Did It Start?

The TWD Zombie Outbreak Began In France

From these two huge clues, only one possible conclusion can be drawn — The Walking Dead zombie apocalypse finds its roots in a French laboratory. According to the smoking man, the facility housed numerous teams (he mentions the Violet team and the Primrose team) that worked on a project that ultimately became the TWD zombie origins. Since the Primrose team had traveled to the U.S. shortly before the outbreak, it's possible other countries were involved in the study too, rather than France alone shouldering the blame.

Moreover, it's implied in the World Beyond post-credits scene that the researchers had no intention of releasing the virus and infecting the world, hinting the virus somehow wriggled its way out. While the smoking man blames the Primrose and Violet teams for creating the virus, the scientist makes an accusation of her own, vaguely stating, "When it [the outbreak] happened... When you did what you did." Though there's plenty of room for interpretation here, she could be implying that the smoking man was part of a group who, pre-The Walking Dead season 1, learned about the virus being developed and attacked the facility, only to accidentally release it, making both parties culpable.

Robert Kirkman believed The Walking Dead was better served by keeping the outbreak's explanation a mystery, so it's interesting to see the TV series finally abandon that founding principle. But as The Walking Dead seeks to expand beyond its original parameters and ramp up the scale for Rick Grimes' miniseries adventures, it becomes impossible to avoid the matter any longer. Now that Kirkman's comic material is spent, exploring the creation of the zombie virus (and how to stop it) is the next logical chapter for The Walking Dead.

Does Revealing The Walking Dead Virus Origins Kill The Show’s Mystery?

The TWD Fanbade Appears Divided About The Zombie Origin Reveals

The revelation of The Walking Dead virus origin essentially kills the show's biggest mystery, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing for television's longest-running zombie series. While viewers are still divided about whether it was a good choice for the ending of Walking Dead: World Beyond, there is always going to be some controversy attached to violating one of the zombie genre's time-honored traditions - keeping the origins of the zombies a mystery.

Though the reveal also goes against the Walking Dead creator's intentions, it's a necessary risk that properly sets up the franchise's next years, which will see the release of several spinoff series. The death of the show's biggest mystery only opens up new mysteries that can support future stories, such as why the French created such a self-destructive pathogen or how the CRM is involved with how The Walking Dead zombie virus took over the planet.

The Walking Dead virus being man-made is just one piece of a convoluted puzzle, and more pieces were revealed in spinoffs like the Daryl Dixon series and The Walking Dead: Dead City series featuring Negan and Maggie, which were both released in 2023. It also should play out more in the Walking Dead Rick Grimes miniseries. The Walking Dead has always been about the sacrifices and moral dilemmas that accompany a catastrophe of global proportions, so keeping the focus on human nature rather than biological mysteries is in tune with the franchise's overall direction.

As the reveal hints that pre-apocalyptic medical and military institutions are responsible for the fall of humanity, The Walking Dead is raising the stakes, ruling out extraterrestrial or natural phenomena, and potentially hitting a mark that's closer to home for most audiences.

Daryl's Spin-Off Shows The Outbreak Ground Zero

Daryl Dixon Season 1 Is Set In France (But Doesn't Reveal Much About The Virus)

Now it's been established where the initial zombie outbreak occurred, the Daryl Dixon spinoff show explored the TWD zombie virus ground zero and took Norman Reedus's character to France. The geography around where the TWD zombie origins first emerged is very different from where the flagship show was set. Many of the characters in The Walking Dead were ripped straight from Robert Kirkman's comic book series, but Daryl was a wholly original creation.

Now that The Walking Dead is over, Daryl sails across the Atlantic to continue his journey in post-apocalyptic France — and it's a much more dangerous place given that's where the virus started. However, while many thought the solo Daryl show would probably explore the origins of the zombies featured in The Walking Dead at a much greater capacity, it didn't delve too deeply into the show's lore.

Kirkman Originally Offered A Different Explanation For TWD Zombie Origin

The Zombies Are Created By Space Spores In The Walking Dead Comics

At a 2017 SDCC panel, Robert Kirkman said it was unlikely AMC’s The Walking Dead would ever have the zombie virus origin revealed because it would make the show “boring.” The following year he teased fans in a since-deleted Tumblr Q&A that how the zombie apocalypse started in The Walking Dead was a “sci-fi thing that would make the story all that much weirder.” It wasn’t until January 2020 that the cryptic tease about the start of the zombie apocalypse in The Walking Dead paid off on Kirkman’s Twitter account, though it won't appear in any of The Walking Dead spin-off shows.

In a tweet that has also since been deleted, Kirkman declared “space spores” as responsible for starting the zombie apocalypse. While that isn’t the direction The Walking Dead chose to take, it still would have made for a fascinating choice in the otherwise very earth-bound series. Everything in the series is grounded in reality, but space spores would have stretched the imagination. Perhaps it was too similar of a concept for the series to George A. Romero’s Night Of The Living Dead which featured radiation from space reanimating corpses. With zombie stories so prevalent in the horror genre, creators want stories to stand out.