Was that a zombie bear attack on ‘The Walking Dead: Dead City’? – Entertainment Weekly

This article contains spoilers about The Walking Dead: Dead City season 2, episode 6, “Bridge Partners are Hard to Come by These Days.”

There was so much happening in the latest episode of The Walking Dead: Dead City. But there is one important question above all others that needs to be answered, and answered immediately: bear or zombie bear?

The episode, “Bridge Partners are Hard to Come by These Days,” was interrupted — much like a family argument between Lauren Cohan’s Maggie and teenage son Hershel (Logan Kim) — by a giant bear attack.

The same bear who took out soldiers earlier entered the museum hot on Maggie’s trail, easily mowing down some walkers in its… well, grizzly path. Maggie started throwing weapons at the bear. Hershel began tossing knives at the bear. But these were futile attempts to stop the enraged beast. Finally, the bear impaled itself on Bruegel’s spike-filled fighting ring, ending one of the most random and wonderful attacks in Walking Dead history.

But the question remains: Was that a bear… or zombie bear? We went to Walking Dead chief content officer Scott M. Gimple for the definitive answer, and it seems to be a question that has garnered quite a bit of confusion.

“Just a regular bear,” clarifies Gimple to Entertainment Weekly. “Thank you for asking that. There was a lot of concern that it might be thought of as a zombie bear.”

Gimple also explains the laws of zombification. “It has some injuries,” Gimple says of the bear in question. “Most likely from zombies. But if a zombie bites a bear, it does not turn into a zombie bear.” Boooooooooooooo!

As for the woman who had to both fight the non-zombie bear and direct the non-zombie bear attack, Lauren Cohan explains how she faked her way through a battle with a creature that would be added in later courtesy of visual effects. It seems Alex Kingi was playing the part of the animal on set.

“Alex knows how to move like a bear,” says Cohan. “He came to set and he had poles that extended his arms and his head to be the actual size of the bear. So eye lines all lined up. And then we worked with two different VFX teams. But the fun part about it was designing the bear. I was on Zooms with everybody figuring out where the matting would be and how we would make the bear.”

There is also some hidden meaning behind the creature confronting Maggie. “The bear is such a symbol for both Hershel and Maggie in different ways, and it’s a moment for Maggie to face the rage and the need to be seen that her son is asking for. It’s sort of this test of whether something can shake her into recognizing him.”

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But, yes, it’s also about… THE BEAR! A bear which actually, believe it or not, has a name. “Her name is Bobbie,” Cohan reveals. Naming a CGI character that only exists on screen for about a minute shows the level of detail and depth that Cohan took on in her role as director.

“As soon as we were going to be dealing with an animal in the story, I felt this excitement right from the beginning of finding sympathy for every character that we meet. So we tell a story of the sad journey this bear may have had, even though it’s hungry and pursuing our characters.” Cohan pauses. “But she’s still pretty scary.” Zombie or no zombie.

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