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The Walking Dead: The Complete Fifth Season DVD and Blu-ray sets are just around the corner, set to be released on Aug. 25. In addition to all 16 episodes, there are over 3 hours of extras including an insane amount of featurettes. Also included are a plethora of deleted scenes and commentary tracks, and we scoured those for the most interesting tidbits. Here are just some of the secrets from last season revealed through the extra scenes and commentaries.

DELETED SCENES

We already brought you an entire deleted scene of constables Rick and Michonne walking the wall and discussing what to do about their missing guns, but there are some other goodies as well, including:

• We get more insight into those at Grady Memorial Hospital, including a ride between police officers Bob Lamson and Amanda Shepherd as well as a scene in which Dawn has to decide what to do with an elderly patient at the hospital who refuses to be treated for a broken hip. Beth finally persuades Dawn to help the man instead of cutting him off … or worse.

• In a cut montage from the “Remember” episode, we see the new Alexandria arrivals heading out for their first day at work: Abraham going to work on the wall, Rosita arriving to assist Pete the creepy doctor, Maggie meeting with Deanna, and Eugene starting at the solar panels. Kind of a shame this got cut — it would have been nice to see right off the bat where all these people ended up.

• In one deleted scene from “Spend,” Abraham has trouble getting out of bed for work. “I’m having a real hard time pulling it together,” he tells Rosita. “I don’t know what the hell that’s about. All I know is I can’t picture stepping out behind those walls without my stomach dropping down and my nuts shooting up.” Rosita then gives him a pep talk about all the lives he saved: “This place needs you, and you need this place. And the fight’s outside.” It seems to do the job, although Abraham somehow manages to coax Rosita back to bed for sex, exclaiming that, “Work is a greedy whore and it can wait its turn.” (Does that count as a pep talk too?)

• Also in “Spend,” there’s a nice scene between Glenn and Eugene in the van after the former punched out Nicholas for being left in the revolving-door-of-death. “If he wakes up,” says Glenn, referring to the knocked-out Nicholas. “If he tries anything…” “I will not hesitate,” replies Eugene, holding the gun. “I promise you that.”

COMMENTARY TRACKS

We already spilled the beans about showrunner Scott M. Gimple’s revelation that there is a secret Walking Dead note still buried out there, but there are some other fun and fascinating tidbits to be learned by sitting through the seven commentary tracks. A few highlights:

• In that premiere scene where Gareth holds a knife up to Bob’s eye, actor Andrew J. West was actually holding a Q-tip and the knife was put in later in special effects.

• They have to keep changing babies playing Judith because the kids keep getting too big. Gimple has lost exact count, but thinks it’s around six sets of twins so far going into season 6 that they’ve used for Rick’s daughter.

• Originally in the season premiere, Rick stabbed the crazy, tattooed, long-haired guy that Glenn let out of the train car at Terminus, but they cut that part out.

• Executive producer Greg Nicotero says that someone broke into Terminus and stole all the candles after season 4 so they had to redress the entire set for the season 5 premiere scene in which Carol shoots Mary.

• In the scene in the premiere where Martin puts his hands around Judith and threatens to break the baby’s neck, those were actually the hands of the baby actress’ father.

• The commentary for “Self-Help” by Steven Yeun, Lauren Cohan, Michael Cudlitz, Josh McDermitt, Alanna Masterson, and Christian Serratos is a hoot, especially when it comes to the sex scene between Rosita and Abraham. “Can I leave the room? Oh God,” says Serratos when the scene comes on. “Yeah, look at me go!” responds Cudlitz. It turns out Serratos actually asked McDermitt and Masterson to be there for the filming of the scene but the crew would not let them in because it was a closed set. (We all know Eugene likes to watch.)

• In the scene by the bridge in “Them,” Norman Reedus accidentally ripped a zombie’s wig off, so they had to make it the whole scalp in post-production to cover it up.

• For the scene in “Them” in which Reedus burns himself with a cigarette, the script originally called for the character to cut himself with a knife instead, but the actor worried that would make it look like the tears that followed were because he was crying due to physical, as opposed to emotional, pain. He convinced the producers to change it. (Reedus also got into the mood for the scene by listening to Mazzy Star. Or J Mascics. One of the two. He can’t remember.)

• Look closely in the “Remember” episode, as Nicotero worked in a tribute zombie to Nick Frost’s character from Shaun of the Dead. The zombie is wearing the same “I got wood” T-shirt Nick wore in the film. Also, the shot where Aaron puts a machete in a walker’s head at the booby-trapped food depot in the finale is an homage to a similar shot from the original Dawn of the Dead.

• There was a scene in “Remember” that did not make the final cut where Rick brings two car light bulbs back to Jessie as a gift after knocking over her owl statue.

• There was originally another scene in “Remember” after Rick’s “Then we’ll just take this place” line that ended the episode that showed Rock asleep up in his bed. (Sounds like a good cut to us.)

• Many of the night scenes in the finale were filmed on the coldest night ever on set, a frigid 12 degrees. That bested the previous coldest night ever, which was for the climactic barn-on-fire scene that ended season 2.

• On that same night for the finale, Nicotero says they put vodka in the zombie blood that explodes all over Andrew Lincoln to keep it from freezing.

• “Your story doesn’t start until next season.” Gimple reveals he said last year to Austin Nichols who plays Deanna’s son Spencer. Does that mean we’ll be seeing more Spencer in season 6? It would seem so.

For more ‘Walking Dead’ intel, follow Dalton on Twitter @DaltonRoss. And to watch the cast reveal who they think would die first in a real zombie apocalypse, click on the video below.

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