The Walking Dead fans knew Rick Grimes was leaving with Episode 9×05 but didn’t seem to catch on that Maggie was heading out, as well.
Maggie actress Lauren Cohan has moved on from The Walking Dead to a career which includes titles like ABC’s Whiskey Cavalier and the big screen Mark Wahlberg-lead Mile 22. In adding credits to her resumรฉ, Cohan has effectively walked away from The Walking Dead with her last episode having aired in the form of Episode 9×05.
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While Cohan and her Maggie character will not appear in the rest of Season Nine, the AMC series does hope to bring them back to life at some point.
Speaking to ComicBook.com on the set of The Walking Dead, showrunner Angela Kang opened up about the plans regarding Maggie’s possible return. “I’ll say first of all that we’ve still planned some more story with Maggie, Lauren wants to, it will be a little subject to her schedule but hopefully we have her back next season,” Kang said. “We have always planned to have this great story with Maggie this season and I think we promised something. We wanted to pay off that promise. We definitely have a very strong Maggie arc.”
Maggie’s fate will not be discussed in Sunday night’s Episode 9×06 but viewers will soon learn what happened to her and why she decided to leave town quite differently than Rick did.
“Lauren has always been such a great actress for us, has done some spectacular work this season, as you’ve seen in the episodes but also in the episodes that are upcoming,” Kang said. “There’s just some stuff that just blew me away. I’m just a pure fan. I think that’s been, again, it’s just something we wanted to do right by that character, but again it also opens up some interesting opportunities for other characters when that character is gone for reasons that will be explained in the story. That’s part of the story going forward, is what’s happening at Hilltop? How do people with Maggie not being there?”
The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 pm ET. Fear the Walking Dead will return for its fifth season in 2019. For complete coverage and insider info all year long, follow @BrandonDavisBD on Twitter and watch ComicBook.com’s After The Dead each Sunday night following new episodes.