The Walking Dead: Jerry Star Cooper Andrews Says Season 10 Midseason Premiere Was Hard to Shoot

The Walking Dead star Cooper Andrews, the actor behind fan-favorite Kingdom adviser Jerry, says the upcoming Season 10 midseason finale was “hard” to shoot. The episode will pick up where the midseason finale, “The World Before,” left off: with Jerry, Daryl (Norman Reedus), Carol (Melissa McBride), Aaron (Ross Marquand), Connie (Lauren Ridloff), Kelly (Angel Theory) and Magna (Nadia Hilker) trapped in a cave, where the heroes are surrounded by thousands of flesh-hungry walkers with no apparent way out. Andrews previously compared Season 10 episode 9 to a “scary” and “terrifying” horror movie, and in more recent commentary, Andrews says the episode was the most difficult one he’s filmed:

“Physically, the next episode… yeah. That… that was hard,” Andrews said at German Comic Con Dortmund, where he appeared to tread carefully when asked about his hardest episode of TWD. “It’s dark… and it’s hard to see in the dark as an actor. I can’t tell you any more than that. So, yeah, that’s all. Next episode.”

As shown in the Season 10B trailer, Jerry ends up in a tight spot in the midseason premiere: he’s seen navigating a narrow tunnel, where a walker goes to sink its teeth into his leg — right before the camera cuts away on Jerry screaming.

Andrews was one of seven stars promoted to series regular for Season 10, so might Jerry escape to enjoy cobbler another day? The answer, according to showrunner Angela Kang, depends on the cleverness exhibited by our survivors.

“We’ve been playing this conflict between the Whisperers and our people, and it wasn’t in the exact same way as ‘All-Out War.’ We found out they were spying. We found out that there are these border conflicts. But it felt like by the half-season, we wanted to show that all of the factors are now crashing together,” Kang previously told The Hollywood Reporter. “Some of our people have been looking for this herd, which they consider the Whisperers’ nuclear weapon. For Alpha, things are coming to a head on her side, too. What better way than to put our people face to face with the herd in what feels like an impossible situation? That’s when our people have to get clever and figure out what to do next.”

But Samantha Morton, actress behind currently victorious Whisperer leader Alpha, warns the second half of the season gets “really brutal” as it reveals twists and turns sure to take the audience by surprise.

TWD Season 10 returns with new episodes Feb. 23 on AMC. For more TWD intel, follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter.