New Walking Dead Clip Teases High Stakes For Season 11

"The Walking Dead" returns for the beginning of the end later this summer, with the first third of its eleventh and final season, coming to AMC on August 22. In advance of the much-anticipated season premiere, "Acheron: Part I," AMC released a clip from the episode to build hype for what promises to be a thrillingly claustrophobic experience.

The episode finds a group of survivors on a search for food in order to keep the people of Alexandria from starving. A sudden storm erupts, and the searchers take refuge in an abandoned subway tunnel under the remains of Washington, D.C. The clip, which is available to watch on YouTube, picks up underground. 

Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Dog are exploring a pitch-black tunnel when they come upon a grim but intriguing discovery. On the ground is a long-dead zombie dressed in a suit. His arm has been cut off and is still handcuffed to a suitcase full of cash, which is open, but still filled with stacks of bills. It's as if he was killed by people who knew the money was worthless, and did it just to do it. The walls of the tunnel are covered in a graffiti mural of the haves, wearing gold crowns, fighting the have-nots, accompanied by text making ominous warnings like "IT COMES FOR US ALL."

The mural features images like the Capitol Building on fire next to people who look the same, except some are wearing crowns punching each other, while rich people in crowns and formalwear look on.

Daryl scans his flashlight across a scrawled message, "TRUTH LIES," which appears to be written in blood. He sees another part of the mural that says, "YOUR CROWN FOR YOUR LIFE," next to some people in crowns holding up signs begging for food. Daryl, who has never shown much of an appreciation for art (unlike the actor who plays him, who in real life is an artist with a published book of his photographs), isn't sure what to make of it, and takes it all in very quizzically.

Daryl is probably pondering the same questions viewers have about the mural: Who drew it? Are they still around? Did they mean anything beyond artistically rendering the class conflict of the start of the zombie apocalypse? Is there something that might foreshadow a future "Walking Dead" conflict, either with the prosperous Commonwealth community that's taken Eugene (Josh McDermitt) and co. prisoner or with the Reapers, the group that's been terrorizing Maggie's (Lauren Cohan) people? 

We'll have to wait until "The Walking Dead" returns next month to find out.