The Walking Dead: Is Maggie Connected to Michonne’s New Group?

Is it coincidence that Maggie (Lauren Cohan) returns to The Walking Dead just two days after Michonne (Danai Gurira) leaves with a new group of survivors? Episode 1013, "What We Become," ends with Michonne following a lead on the missing Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) after finding his possessions on a boat washed in from New Jersey. When Michonne's people are holed up in an abandoned hospital tower surrounded by a walker horde some 48 hours later, Maggie unearths a letter left by Carol (Melissa McBride) warning her about the Whisperers, who emerged when Maggie was away from Virginia assisting Georgie (Jayne Atkinson) with a new community.

Michonne was last seen headed north when she chose to help stragglers Aiden (Breeda Wool) and Bailey (Andrew Bachelor), who struggled to catch up with an organized caravan made up of thousands of other survivors. The meeting took place somewhere in between Virginia and New Jersey, after Michonne parted ways with Virgil (Kevin Carroll) on Bloodsworth Island in Maryland.

It's not known where this new group is travelling from or where they're headed moving north — New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine are possibilities — but if Maggie belongs to this group that moves as an organized unit, their passing through Virginia would allow Maggie to return to the area and collect Carol's letter that went untouched for months.

In the Season 9 finale, "The Storm," Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura) said Hilltop sent Maggie letters about the Whisperers to no response. Carol reported the same in the Season 10 premiere, "Lines We Cross," when she reunited with Daryl (Norman Reedus) after spending the winter at sea. "We sailed down south to this dock where Oceanside's been picking up letters from Maggie," Carol said, but "there wasn't anything there, hasn't been for a while."

Maggie returns just as Aaron (Ross Marquand) and Alden (Callan McAuliffe) encounter an unknown person wearing an iron mask in the woods, who is hinted to be an ally in a voiceover from Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) in the opening minutes of the Season 10 finale: the trapped survivors will receive help from "the others," he says when comforting a scared Gracie (Anabelle Holloway) and RJ Grimes (Antony Azor).

"The ones that aren't here. Those that might find us help. Or come here and help," Gabriel says. "Together, we will fight. And that's how we will survive. Together."

Showrunner Angela Kang previously said questions about Michonne's new group are better suited for Walking Dead chief content officer Scott Gimple, who plots the wider Walking Dead Universe, but did confirm the caravan is not connected to CRM, or the Civic Republic Military, the organization behind Rick's disappearance.

It remains to be seen if the mobile group is somehow connected to Maggie or the Commonwealth from the comic books, introduced as an Ohio-based network of settlements home to nearly 50,000 survivors. In the show, Eugene (Josh McDermitt), King Ezekiel (Khary Payton), Princess (Paola Lazaro) and Yumiko are currently en route to a rail yard in Charleston, West Virginia, to meet with Eugene's radio contact Stephanie (Margot Bingham), who acts as ambassador for the new community that will come into focus in Season 11.

The Walking Dead next airs "A Certain Doom" as a special episode later this year. For all things TWD, follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter.