The Walking Dead (2010): Dee / Characters

Due to the Anyone Can Die nature of the show and quickly moving plots, only spoilers from the current/most recent season will be spoiled out to prevent entire pages of whited out text. These spoiler tags will be removed upon the debut of the following season, and the character bios will be updated then as well. Additionally, character portraits will be updated each half-season with the release of an official, complete set from AMC. If you have not seen the first ten seasons read at your own risk!

Dee / "Alpha"

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/839f7c45_f10a_4f56_a255_c70bf23ce679.jpeg

"... if the Alpha doesn't assert herself, there's chaos."

^{Dee in her Whisperer mask.}

^{Dee as she appears in Tales.}

Portrayed By: Samantha Morton^{Foreign voice actors}

Appearances: The Walking Dead (Seasons 9-10) | Tales of the Walking Dead

Debut: "Adaptation"

"I've seen how you live. I've walked your streets. It's a joke. Your communities are a shrine to a long dead world."

The Leader of the Whisperers. Before the apocalypse she was already a nasty piece of work, being brutally abusive to her daughter Lydia as early as her infancy, only to lie and delude Lydia into thinking her father was the abusive one. After their hiding spot was compromised and after she killed her husband, Alpha fled with Lydia into the world. She eventually formed a cult following among people who returned to living as "animals" and disguising themselves with walker skin masks.

When Lydia was captured at Hilltop, Alpha bargained for her retrieval, and began plotting against Hilltop and any communities they were allied with. Henry ended up incurring her wrath after rescuing Lydia from her camp. Alpha soon made her way to the community fair and massacred ten survivors - Henry among them - to mark her territory, threatening to wipe out the Coalition with her massive horde should they ever cross her land again. From the night of the massacre, however, she plotted a long-term scheme to bring about the demise of the survivors, placing moles within their ranks and causing random acts of sabotage and numerous walker attacks.

Lydia refusing to take over from her as leader of the Whisperers broke her, and when Negan joined her on the eve of war with the survivors, Alpha found an opportunity to commit what she saw as an act of mercy - killing Lydia to keep her as one of the dead. Alpha's twisted love for her daughter, however, which had only exacerbated her obsession with the Coalition and the threat they posed to her way of life, ultimately proved her downfall as Negan lured her into a trap and slayed her on Carol’s orders.

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A-G

Abusive Parents: She beats Lydia and has left her with extensive bruises and scars, and has also lied to and manipulated her daughter. She cannot go more than a few sentences without saying something ugly to her daughter.
Adaptation Expansion: Gets a more detailed backstory than in the comics, including flashbacks to the start of the outbreak and her first meeting with Beta. She receives another prequel episode as part of the first season of Tales.
Adaptational Badass: We never actually saw Comic!Alpha in action. Here, she manages to hold her own in a brief fight with Daryl and wounds him severely enough that he might have died if not for Lydia.
Adaptational Nice Guy: If you can believe it. While she's otherwise every bit as vile as her comic counterpart, this version of Alpha doesn't allow the men in her group to rape Lydia and the other women in the camp in a twisted effort to make them "stronger".
Adaptational Sexuality: Channing Powell (the showrunner for Tales) indicated this version of Alpha might be bisexual when talking about a potential Sequel Episode for "Dee" that would reveal her interest in the former leader of the Whisperers, Hera, whose face is the one Alpha ends up wearing as her mask. It's very lightly implied in the episode proper, when Alpha is shown speaking to the mask after a flashback of her meeting Hera for the first time and saying, "You showed me love."
Adaptational Ugliness: She is visibly filthy and disheveled compared to the comic book version. She does look pretty nice when she cleans up to disguise in "The Calm Before", however.
Adaptational Villainy: Her comic counterpart never once considered killing Lydia, as TV Alpha decides in her last episode (and was just about to do moments before meeting the Whisperers in Tales). Her comic counterpart also committed the pike massacre out of a fear of the communities' strength and did more or less leave them alone afterwards. This Alpha, however, sees the communities as an affront to her way of life and power base and plots to annihilate them out of pure spite from more or less the moment she encounters them.
Alas, Poor Villain: While undeniably an Asshole Victim, her death is shown in a rather human light.
All Girls Want Bad Boys: She's clearly taken with Negan's brash, confident, "no bullshit" demeanor, and "rewards" him for outing Gamma as a traitor by having sex with him.
And Starring: Samantha Morton gets the "with" credit in the opening titles of Seasons 9 and 10.
And Then John Was a Zombie: Her decapitated head reanimates and is eventually put out of its misery by Beta in "Look at the Flowers".
Animal Motifs: Snakes. Her belt buckle is a snake in the shape of an "infinity" logo, her whispering can call to mind a hissing serpent, and actress Samantha Morton adds subtly snake-like body language to her portrayal of Alpha.
Asshole Victim: While not without a few humanizing traits, in the end she was an abusive, psychotic mass murderer who thoroughly deserved her fate at the hands of Negan.
Ax-Crazy: A less obvious example than most given her soft-spoken demeanor, but still present. The look on her face when she realizes that the boy who "corrupted" her daughter is among the ones captured in the barn says it all.
Bad Boss: If you are a Whisperer who isn’t Beta, you are just as likely to be treated as poorly by Alpha as she treats her enemies.
- She callously orders Frances to bring newborn baby to the face-off with Hilltop to use as insurance against Hilltop’s firearms, and orders her to abandon it to the walkers.
- She kills a random Whisperer who catches her crying to prevent others from seeing her as weak.
- Another random Whisperer who argues that they just wipe out the communities with their horde and get it over with gets publicly humiliated and then slowly cut into pieces by her and Beta.
Bald of Evil: Completely bald and very, very evil.
Beauty Inversion: The pretty Samantha Morton shaves her head and covers herself in grime to transform into the bestial and unhygienic Alpha. On the few occasions where she cleans up her looks become much more apparent, such as washing her face to infiltrate the Kingdom or wearing a rather form-fitting and revealing dress to Brooke's dinner party.
Berserk Button:
- She gets visibly angered when Daryl says that she doesn't love Lydia.
- She also hates it when Lydia calls her "Mama."
Beyond Redemption: In the moments before Alpha's death, Negan (knowing he's leading her to her doom) seems to genuinely be trying to talk her out of killing Lydia. It's only when Alpha affirms it is Lydia's destiny to die that he realizes she is truly beyond saving.
Big Bad: As The Leader of the Whisperers, she serves this role from mid-Season 9 until the twelfth episode of Season 10.
Character Death: Negan kills her by slashing her throat in "Walk With Us".
Cold Ham: Impressively, she manages to be dramatic and a real showman even when whispering.
Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: She's both the series' first Big Bad who Rick doesn't encounter as well as the first female one. ^note Also one to Negan, her immediate predecessor. While Negan is loud, jovial, and constantly cracking jokes even while doing horrendous things, Alpha speaks softly and is always serious. Negan wanted to rebuild society, albeit in a harsh and demented way that put himself above everyone else, while Alpha believes the old world is gone and it is foolish to try to revive it, instead choosing to live among the dead with a hierarchy akin to animals. And despite his brutality Negan also had a few redeeming qualities such as his soft-spot for children and general dislike of killing more than necessary, both of which Alpha completely lacks. She also murdered her husband, in contrast to Negan's undying love for his dearly departed Lucille.
Dead Person Conversation: A hallucination of her appears to Carol in "Look at the Flowers", taunting her about all the people she's lost and how her quest for vengeance has come at the cost of alienating everyone around her.
Decapitation Presentation: Negan gifts her reanimated head to Carol, which she then leaves atop one of the pikes as a big "fuck you" to the Whisperers for doing the same to Henry.
Didn't See That Coming: She's caught totally off-guard by Negan slashing her throat and dies with a look of shock and confusion on her face.
Dies Differently in Adaptation: Downplayed. While her manner of death is the same in both mediums (caught off-guard and throat slashed by Negan), the show goes a bit further and ups the tension by having Negan first lead her to a cabin where he claims to have Lydia imprisoned, only to reveal it's a ruse to get her alone and kill Alpha before she can react.
Dies Wide Open: Her eyes remain open as she bleeds out.
Disc-One Final Boss: In Season 10. She's killed before the end of the Whisperer arc while Beta and the walker horde remain at large.
Domestic Abuser: Implied. Her husband was terrified but not exactly shocked when he witnessed her kill Matias at the Baltimore camp.
The Dreaded: Fully in effect after the pike massacre. The Coalition begins fearing her and fully respect the boundaries she set for her territory until they have no other choice but to cross through.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Her love for Lydia is her only genuine redeeming quality. Though even that is downplayed by her being an Abusive Parent and later deciding to kill Lydia for entirely bullshit reasons.
Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": She makes everyone (including Lydia) call her "Alpha". Her name is never revealed on The Walking Dead, though her appearance on Tales finally gives her the first name "Dee".
Evil Counterpart: To Carol. Both were ordinary housewives with a husband and a daughter who adapted to the apocalypse in very different ways. The similarities between the two women are lampshaded by their children, as Lydia even says Henry describing Carol sounds a lot like her own mother.
Lydia: You don't mess with her, either.
- Later, when infiltrating the fair at the Kingdom, she pretends to be a polite and unassuming woman named Debbie, which isn't too far off from Carol's Suzy Homemaker facade when the group first arrived at Alexandria.
- Her friendship with Beta mirrors Carol's strong bond with Daryl. Coincidentally, in Season 9, both Beta and Daryl are tasked with looking after Lydia and Henry, respectively.
- She and Carol both send a Mole to infiltrate each other's respective communities.
Evil Virtues:
- If there’s one thing you can say about Alpha, it’s that she seems to honor her agreements if it means keeping her daughter safe. At the stand-off with Hilltop, she outlines her terms, doesn’t try to pull any fast ones, safely returns Alden and Luke in exchange for her daughter, and leaves. After outlining her territory, she appears to have honored the boundaries she set and doesn’t appear to have dealt any further damage to the Coalition since they steered clear as she wished. Once they do cross into her land, however, she begins a long term plot to wipe out the communities slowly and painfully, but denies any involvement in the chain of seemingly random calamities that befall the heroes.
- She also genuinely cares for Lydia, and wants to both protect her and raise her to be a strong survivor... the problem being that Alpha's twisted worldview leads her to express this in a way that makes her both overprotective of and abusive to a daughter she sees as a fragile and naive child who must be toughened up for her own good.
- She isn’t completely without mercy and gratitude. When Mary sacrifices her own sister to save Alpha’s life, Alpha is genuinely grateful and gives her a position of authority as a reward.
Fatal Flaw:
- Ironically, her love for Lydia is this, as keeping her alive leads to a whole mess of problems. If she had just unleashed the horde on the communities with Lydia there, it would have been impossible for them to fight back and for Carol to free Negan. Alpha lying to her people that she killed Lydia and keeping her survival a secret allows Negan to take her to a cabin in the middle of the woods alone with the promise of having captured Lydia, where he is able to catch Alpha off guard and kill her. For all of Alpha's cruelty, it's her one sliver of goodness that served as her downfall in the end.
- Her monstrous pride and desire for control. The reason she obsesses over destroying any organized community is because it shows that her way of doing things isn't the only way to successfully survive the post-Fall world. She could have continued to rule her cult in peace had they continued their nomadic ways, but finding a massive, hundreds-strong network of communities thriving in an organized society rattles her to the core and she becomes devoted to destroying them for the remainder of her life just to prove herself right.
- Her sadism. Had she simply unleashed her horde on the communities unannounced, they likely would've folded then and there. Instigating a long-term plan to break them down using fear, paranoia and sabotage just gives the Coalition time to prepare for such a war and become just as devoted to hating the Whisperers as Alpha hates them. Her own troops question why they don't just storm the communities to get it over with, and Alpha murders him on the spot while lecturing him like a disobedient child for questioning her.
Final Solution: As of "Morning Star", this is what she plans to do to the Coalition. She dies before it can come to fruition, and Beta picks up the slack instead.
Foil: She and Carol come from similar backgrounds and employ similar tactics of manipulation and deception. The difference is that Carol started the apocalypse as the battered housewife of an abusive husband, while in Alpha's family, it was she who was the abusive spouse and her husband seemed terrified of her. Alpha shaving her head symbolizes her growing comfort with the new world order; Carol eventually feels comfortable enough in her marriage to Ezekiel to grow her hair out to its natural length.
From Nobody to Nightmare: Subverted. Most antagonists in the franchise are, to some degree, normal people who were slowly broken down by the horrors of the post-apocalyptic world. Alpha, meanwhile, is revealed to have been a pretty nasty piece of work to begin with and only got worse from there.
Green-Eyed Monster: She clearly resents Brooke for winning over Lydia in a way that she never could.

H-N

Hate Sink: Easily one of the most despicable people in the series, which is really saying something. The majority of her scenes involve at least one Kick the Dog moment, usually at the expense of Lydia or one of her followers (sans Beta). She's also an Abusive Parent who doesn't have any issue decapitating teenagers or leaving babies to be Eaten Alive by walkers.
Hero Killer: She murders Tara and Enid (main characters), as well as Henry (a Fake Guest Star in the second half of Season 9) and seven others in a single episode.
Hoist by Their Own Petard: In life, Alpha devoted herself to wiping out any and all attempts at civilization and regularly used her horde to slaughter any organized groups, seeking to crush the notion of society. Not only is she killed by a man who recognized the Coalition's society was the one that he needed to support over his old cult of personality, but the Coalition uses many of her tactics to help themselves survive conflicts after the Whisperer War. Maggie's group learns how to control walkers which they use against the Reapers; Lydia continues to use herding and Whisperer hideouts for her allies' benefit; and Aaron's group later uses Whisperer tactics to covertly make their way to the Commonwealth. For all Alpha wanted to destroy society, her skills and legacy ultimately helped it and the Coalition survive.
Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: She's 5'3 and a lot smaller compared to her 6'4 right-hand man Beta. It adds an interesting layer to their dynamic and his complete subservience towards her.
Hypocrite: So much.
- She orders Frances to leave her infant son to the walkers simply because he's crying too much, deeming it "natural selection". This is while they're in the middle of a deal to get Alpha's own kidnapped daughter back. Ordering Frances to bring the baby in the first place serves as insurance to prevent Hilltop from wiping out her party outright, again making it ironic that she is using another child as a human shield while demanding her own child back.
- She first acts out against the Coalition for crossing into her claimed territory, even though as the Whisperers are a nomadic group, their territory changes regularly. Alpha made no attempt to set claim to her supposed new territory but still acts as if she has been wronged. Animals mark their territory and defend it, but people are the ones who actively enforce borders, which flies in the face of Alpha’s bullshit about living like animals.
- At the meeting with Alexandria’s leaders at the border, Alpha expects them to drop their weapons for the negotiation, but when Carol nearly shoots her, her entourage of Whisperers quickly draw numerous firearms.
- She gaslights the communities for crossing her border, but she has a spy in Alexandria working to covertly bring down the most powerful of the Coalition.
Icy Blue Eyes: Samantha Morton's light blue eyes are a distinguishing feature and the show's production team specifically designed her Whisperer mask to emphasize them.
If I Can't Have You…: She would rather kill Lydia than have her choose to live in the Coalition.
If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: She orders Lydia to kill Henry to prove her loyalty still lies with the pack.
I Have No Daughter!: When Lydia says she no longer wants to be part of the Whisperers. Subverted because Alpha is clearly torn up over having to let her daughter go.
Alpha: You're not one of us. You never were.
I Have Your Wife: Uses Luke and Alden as bargaining chips to get Lydia back.
Innocently Insensitive: An incredibly twisted example when Alpha genuinely consoles Negan when he brings up his long-dead wife’s death from cancer. She gently says that Lucille’s death was simply nature making its choice, unaware of just how badly Negan took Lucille’s death and that to any normal person, this is basically telling them to suck it up about their loved one’s painful death. But in Alpha’s mind, she’s showing genuine kindness, and it’s the most sincere we ever see her.
Irony: Despite being the "A" of her group, her real name is actually Dee.
I Shall Taunt You: She does this to Carol, twice. The first time at the border meeting where she provokes Carol into drawing her gun by smugly telling her how Henry died. The second time she lures Carol (and the herd scouting party) into a trap simply by staring at Carol from a distance, thus causing the grieving mother to give into her blind rage and give chase. From the look on Alpha's face it's clear she is bragging about how she is walking around months after Henry's demise with her own head still attached and there's not a damn thing in the world Carol can do about it.
Jerkass: Alpha doesn't even bother with the Faux Affably Evil mask used by other villains; she's cruel and unpleasant to just about everyone, even her own daughter — in fact, especially her own daughter.
Karmic Death: She's decapitated and her reanimated head is stuck on a pike, like all ten of her victims in "The Calm Before". What's more, she's killed by a man who infiltrated her group and gained her trust, similar to how Alpha disguised herself as an Alexandria resident to kidnap her victims by luring them into a false sense of security. She bleeds out from a neck-related wound, just like her husband Frank. She also dies two episodes after being stabbed in the middle of a fight, the same as Henry, whose mother Carol is revealed to be the one who put Negan up to killing her in the first place.
Kill the Ones You Love: How she sees her decision to kill Lydia. Despite all her best efforts, she couldn't make Lydia into the Whisperer loyalist she wanted to take over leadership of the pack one day, so of course she has to die by the hands of her own mother.
Kinslaying Is a Special Kind of Evil: What sets her apart from some of the show's previous antagonists like Shane, The Governor, and Negan. Shane cared for Lori and Carl, and The Governor and Negan are shown to still mourn their late wives (and, in The Governor's case, his late daughter). Alpha, meanwhile, murdered her husband for being too "weak" and trying to take Lydia from her, and later decides to kill Lydia herself in "Walk With Us". Downplayed as it's not out of any malice or disdain, but rather because she truly believes offing Lydia is the best thing she could do for her daughter at this point, even going so far as to consider it to be a Mercy Kill of sorts. It ends up sealing Alpha's doom, as Negan (justifiably) believes it to be a disgustingly heinous and unforgivable act, and murders her in response.
Know When to Fold 'Em: Lydia mentions that she does not lead the Whisperers in confronting large groups of survivors like the Virginia communities unless she has no other choice. It’s not clear if she would’ve left the Coalition alone after regaining Lydia as Beta insists, but whatever the case, she comes to see the Coalition as an offense to her way of life and devotes the remainder of her life to destroying them.
Love Is a Weakness: It may have been an abusive love, but she still met her end because she couldn't let her daughter go and live in peace.
Lured into a Trap: By Negan in "Walk With Us", which results in her death. Negan captures Lydia and convinces Alpha he is keeping her daughter imprisoned in a secluded cabin in the middle of the woods... only it's a different cabin than where he's actually stashed Lydia, and Negan was only trying to get Alpha out of Whisperer territory so he could kill her, which he does.
Lack of Empathy: While she does care about a few people, it’s twisted out of anything healthy by her madness. Anybody else can get fed to the walkers for all she cares.
Machete Mayhem: She uses a machete to decapitate ten people while Siddiq is Forced to Watch.
Make an Example of Them: Murders a couple who challenges her leadership to remind the other Whisperers why she's the Alpha. Later, she beheads several community residents (including the leader of Hilltop) to mark her territory and let them know once and for all that her threats are not to be taken lightly.
Mama Bear: Despite her treatment of Lydia, she still cares for her safety and is willing to take on Beta (a man easily twice her size) to protect her.
Manipulative Bitch: According to Lydia and Mary, she is prone to gaslighting and making people forget details about their pre-apocalypse lives in an attempt to get them to think as she does.
Meaningful Name: She's The Leader of her group.
Mercy Kill: She tries to do this to Lydia twice. The first time, chronologically, is when she wonders if Lydia is fit to survive the harsh zombie-infested world and is moments away from putting her down gently before the timely arrival of the Whisperers. The second time is when Lydia chooses to return to the Coalition rather than take over leadership of the Whisperers, which prompts Alpha to pull an If I Can't Have You… and order Negan to bring Lydia to her to finish the job.
Mood-Swinger: She can go from showing genuine affection for her daughter to belittling her at the drop of a hat. A good example is in "We Are the End of the World" when she expresses pride over Lydia saying that she wants to be strong like her mother... only to immediately add that she had better, lest she risk getting left behind.
Moral Event Horizon: In-Universe. Negan considers Alpha's choice to kill Lydia to be the point of no return, and decides to murder her for it.
Named by the Adaptation: Tales reveals that her first name is Dee, presumably short for Deborah, the alias she used whole infiltrating the Kingdom. Her comic counterpart didn’t receive a real name since her story in Tales was created for the television franchise.
Nerves of Steel: She doesn't even flinch when Carol tries to shoot her. Possibly because she suspected it was coming after mocking Henry's death to her face, but still, if Michonne hadn't deflected the gun at the last second, Carol's assassination attempt would have been successful. Of course, the other Whisperers at the standoff had guns pointed on the Alexandrians, so Alpha knew she had the upper hand no matter what.
Never My Fault: Blames the Coalition residents for crossing into her territory and killing her people, ignoring that they didn't even know the Whisperers existed let alone that they were crossing into someone's land, and that it was actually the Whisperers who spilled first blood by murdering Jesus.
Nightmare Fetishist: She insists on leaving her mask on during sex with Negan, referring to it as her "true skin." Negan, for his part, claims to not be bothered by it, but considering he slipped and implied he wasn’t thrilled to be greeted by a naked Alpha, he’s probably lying.
No Name Given: As in the comics, we never find out her real name. Tales finally reveals her name is Dee.
Not Good with Rejection: Parental version. She doesn't take Lydia's decision to return to the Coalition well, and decides to kill her for it.
Not Me This Time: She claims in “Ghosts” that she was not the cause of the 48-hour siege at Alexandria, and Lydia agrees that if Alpha was trying to kill them, she’d send the entire horde. This change in tactics was a deliberate attempt to throw off her enemies since she likely surmised that Lydia would tell them that.

O-Z

Offing the Offspring: She intends on doing this to Lydia in "Walk With Us", reasoning that if Lydia can't be her successor to lead the Whisperers, then she's simply better off dead. Fortunately, Negan has other ideas...
Off with Her Head!: She favors decapitation as a means of killing her victims, doing it to a rebellious Whisperer with a garrote wire and later to the pike victims by way of a machete. Fittingly, Negan (on Carol's orders) cuts her head off after killing her.
The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: When Alpha is lying injured from severe wounds she eggs on Lydia to kill her, because she thinks doing so will finally make Lydia fit to lead the Whisperers as she had hoped.
Patricide: Tales reveals that she killed her own father at the age of nine.
Pet the Dog: While still quite the loathsome Jerkass, Alpha also has a handful of moments showing she's not a complete monster.
- She has a Villainous Friendship with Beta and later gets along with Negan rather well.
- When Beta asks her about Lydia after she claimed to have killed her, despite her poor emotional state, she calmly tells him she wants to be left alone. It’s downright kind compared to how she kills another Whisperer who catches her crying a moment later.
- She doesn't kill Frances after the latter causes trouble while herding walkers and instead comforts her, since she now knows how it feels to lose a child.
- She insists on avoiding any bloodshed during the border meeting in "Ghosts", and her response to the communities crossing into her territory thrice is to ask for more land. She claims to consider “context”, implying she at least understands that the survivors only crossed her border out of desperation during the blizzard and to put out the wildfire that threatened their land.
- Downplayed when Alpha doesn't retaliate after Carol attempts to shoot her (only being stopped at the last second by Michonne), since Alpha's taunt about how Henry screamed for Carol in his last moments is what causes Carol to react that way in the first place.
- Delightfully, the last two end up being subverted since Alpha had already begun a long-term plan to wipe out the Coalition and only wanted to delay the violence until then.
- She actually expresses some sympathy for Negan when he talks about his late wife. She actually does care about Negan, and seems to realize that her bald appearance has had an effect on him due to surely reminding him of her.
- While it doesn't stop her emotional and psychological abuse of Lydia, she did try to make the best of their situation on Brooke's house boat for over a year for Lydia's sake.
- She spares Brooke to avoid killing her in front of Lydia, though she also leaves her with a permanent scar so that the latter will never forget about her failure to protect her people and Lydia.
- Seeing how heartbroken Lydia is over having to abandon the house boat, she suggests making Lydia a cake to celebrate her upcoming birthday.
Pragmatic Villainy:
- Beta nearly catches her crying about losing Lydia, but she calmly asks to be left alone. No point throwing away her most loyal, useful henchman.
- The horde is insurmountably large but Alpha shows interest in replenishing its' ranks after the Battle of Hilltop, showing that while the standard tactic is Zerg Rush, she knows it's not an infinite resource.
Revision: "Omega" strongly implies that Alpha immediately severed ties with her humanity after killing Frank and escaping the Baltimore shelter. In Tales, we see that they ended up joining another community for well over a year and Alpha actually tried to repress her insanity for Lydia's sake before the community eventually fell and she met the Whisperers.
Sadist: She’s not above twisting the knife just to see her victims squirm, and she does this a lot.
Saved by Canon: It's a given she'll survive her appearance in Tales since we know from the original show that it'll be a long time before she gets her throat slashed by Negan.
Sawed-Off Shotgun: She carries one, making her introduction pointing it at Alden and Luke after they walk into her trap. Ironically, we never actually see her use it once the entire time she's on the show. The first time the weapon is fired on-screen is by Negan to take out one of the Whisperers.
Slashed Throat: How Negan finally kills her.
Smug Snake: While she doesn't quite make the leap into Evil Gloating, there's no mistaking the tone in Alpha's voice as the hostage situation in "Bounty" unfolds in her favor. She's especially smug when Hilltop hands over Lydia like she wanted and can only watch as she slaps her daughter across the face for getting herself captured.
The Social Darwinist: She orders Frances to leave her crying baby to be eaten by walkers, calling it "natural selection". Later she states anyone incapable of surviving doesn't deserve to live, advocating for the strong to weed out the weak. Civilization itself fell, in Alpha's view, as a result of its weakness. All this is in her view necessary for survival given the Crapsack World everything has become after the zombie apocalypse happened. She also loathes communities which exist without resorting to her extremes, wanting them destroyed on principle as she feels they're doomed because of their "weakness" too.
The Sociopath: She’s extremely manipulative, psychotically violent and sadistic to the point of wiping out entire communities simply for being there, and disturbingly callous to the point where she outright gloats over the death of her victims just to be a massive bitch. While she does love and respect a few people, such as her daughter, Negan and Beta, it’s a twisted and narcissistic form of love where their worth is weighed by how much they conform to her own warped views of the world, even planning to have Lydia killed for not being up to her standards.
Soft-Spoken Sadist: Her whispering only adds to her creepiness.
Spared by the Adaptation: Barely. In the comics, it's her death that kicks off the actual Whisperer War. Here, she gets to oversee the first battle before being killed by Negan in the following episode.
Surprisingly Sudden Death: She opens the door to what she thinks is the cabin containing Lydia, only to find it empty. Confused, she turns around to face Negan... who promptly slits her throat before Alpha can do or say anything.
There Are Two Kinds of People in the World: "The ones brave enough to walk with the dead, and everyone else."
Til Murder Do Us Part: She killed her husband at the start of the outbreak.
Tom the Dark Lord: The fearsome leader of a group of skin-wearing cultists is named Dee. It's little wonder she chose to go by an official title.
Toothy Issue: Her teeth aren't in great shape, especially the front ones which are decaying.
The Unfought: Despite being built up as an Evil Counterpart to Carol and killing her son Henry, the two never actually face-off in a physical fight. Aside from a few Death Glares and a hallucination, they only directly interact once. Carol does play a part in Alpha's eventual death, though it's at Negan's hands, not hers.
Ungrateful Bitch: Her response to hearing that the communities went out of their way to extinguish a massive fire that could have destroyed her land is to claim that it was all for naught, since the Whisperers have no conflict with nature.
Villainous Crush: After Negan alerts her of Gamma's treachery, Alpha thanks the ex-Savior leader by having sex with him. According to Samantha Morton, Alpha sees Negan as the kind of man her husband never was. That ends quickly when Negan kills Alpha on Carol's orders.
Villainous Friendship: She has a close friendship with Beta, who she regularly confides in and entrusts several important duties to. When Beta tries to talk to her after Lydia leaves, Alpha calmly tells him she wants to be alone, and he understands and leaves. Compare that to her reaction to when another Whisperer catches her crying a few seconds later.
Villain Has a Point: In Tales, despite her insanity she is still smart enough to have some valid points - she is ultimately correct that Brooke trying to run the houseboat like the world before won't work out in the long run, she picks up on Billy when he acts suspiciously, and the people on the houseboat do turn on her and Lydia when the going gets tough, making the boat a less than ideal place for them to stay any longer.
Villain Protagonist: She's the main character in the Tales episode "Dee".
Villains Never Lie: To her credit, during the stand-off with Hilltop, she doesn’t pull any fast ones, makes clear her demand for her daughter, and leaves in peace once the exchange is done. It’s subverted later when she turns out to have no intention of honoring her border with the Coalition and from the very night of the pike massacre was preparing for her long-term plan of wiping them out.
Virtue Is Weakness: She claims this as her philosophy, but as Negan points out in "Walk With Us", it's largely mired in her own hypocrisy.
Villains Out Shopping:
- A minor (and later subverted) example in "Lines We Cross": Carol encounters Alpha in the woods, with the latter seemingly doing nothing wrong and simply going for a walk (with both of them staying within their respective boundaries). However, the following episode reveals that she had just come back from hashing out a plan with Beta to wipe out the joint communities.
- The second time Carol (alongside her scouting party) encounters Alpha in the woods, it's very much an intentional effort on Alpha's part to lead the group into a trap.
We Wait: She is a patient woman and ultimately conspires to wipe out the Coalition after breaking them down with fear, mistrust, and sabotage.
- Despite telling Daryl both groups must remain on their sides of the border, shortly after the pike massacre, she sent Dante to go and plant himself in the communities so he could help bring down one of them (ultimately Alexandria) from within.
- She has Gamma dam up the creek that supplies Alexandria with fresh water, and also contaminate it with spilled walker entrails. Dante then breaks Alexandria’s filters so that the community begins dying from drinking the water.
- She has a tree cut down to crash through Hilltop’s wall, intended to cause even more duress on the community which is already strained from taking in the Kingdom refugees.
- Despite Carol trying to shoot her at the border meeting, she claims to be reasonable and forgives the communities for crossing into her land and instead of more violence takes more land from them - specifically going after their hunting grounds to try to starve them out.
Would Harm a Senior: One of her decapitation victims is the elderly Tammy Rose.
Would Hurt a Child: Besides her Domestic Abuse of Lydia, she specifically brings Frances to the standoff with Hilltop because she has a baby, using the child as insurance in case Hilltop attempts to gun them down. Later, she orders the Whisperer to leave her crying baby to a herd of walkers. Her total nonchalance in doing so, as well as Lydia's freak-out when she heard a baby's cry in the previous episode, strongly implies they've done this at least once before. Among the ten people she decapitates to mark the Whisperers' territory, three (Rodney, Addy, and Henry) were teenagers.
Alpha: If the mother can't quiet the child, then the dead will.
- Finally, and most powerfully, she tries to kill Lydia, her own daughter, in "Walk With Us". It's this which convinces Negan once and for all that Alpha is too far gone for any kind of redemption and must be put down.
Would You Like to Hear How They Died?: She gives a short but astonishingly brutal one to Carol in regards to her dead son, Henry.
Alpha: The blonde boy... he screamed your name, just before we took his head.

"I have to do it because I love her. She will always be my baby."

Characters / The Walking Dead (2010): Dee

Dee / "Alpha"

Portrayed By: Samantha Morton^{Foreign voice actors}

Appearances: The Walking Dead (Seasons 9-10) | Tales of the Walking Dead

Debut: "Adaptation"

Alternative Title(s): The Walking Dead TV Show Alpha, The Walking Dead 2010 Alpha

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Characters / The Walking Dead (2010): Dee

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Dee / "Alpha"

Portrayed By: Samantha MortonForeign voice actors Ana María Marí (Spanish dub), Hiroko Kiso (Japanese dub), Maria Jany (German dub), Nathalie Bienaimé; (French dub), Barbara De Bortoli (Italian dub), Dana Černá (Czech dub), Kitty Mezei (Hungarian dub)

Appearances: The Walking Dead (Seasons 9-10) | Tales of the Walking Dead

Debut: "Adaptation"

Alternative Title(s): The Walking Dead TV Show Alpha, The Walking Dead 2010 Alpha

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Portrayed By: Samantha Morton^{Foreign voice actors}