The Walking Dead Showrunner on Eugene and Rosita Relationship

Eugene (Josh McDermitt) wants to be rezoned into Love Town, but new mother Rosita (Christian Serratos) seemingly squashed Eugene's hopes for good when she told him a Eusita pairing is "never going to happen." The characters were romantically linked in creator Robert Kirkman's comic books, where a pregnant Rosita was slain by the Whisperers, but Rosita has found herself the main part of a "love quadrangle": Siddiq (Avi Nash) is father to baby Coco, who is at the center of overbearing co-parenting from Eugene, while Rosita is coupled with Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam). The Walking Dead showrunner Angela Kang weighs in on the heartbroken Eugene:

"Josh McDermitt does a great job playing this. He has to realize that he's been a little clueless. She's been pretty like forthright and been pretty clear: This is a friendship, man," Kang told EW. "I mean, he was peeking on her and Abraham when they were getting down, and he tries to catch a little look while she's breastfeeding a baby in the first episode. He's been carrying this torch. He's tried to declare his love to her many times and every time she's kind of like run away from it."

But an exhausted Rosita stopped running after Alexandria was forced to fend off a 49-hour walker assault.

"So she just felt pushed to a point where she had to make it as blunt as possible so he would understand it, and I think that there's comedy that they were able to mine from that, but I also really liked the true pain of having to hear that from somebody," added Kang. "You see Eugene break, and I think Josh plays the moment so, so wonderfully. The two of them are so good together, and this is what was needed in order for Eugene to kind of figure out what's next or if something is next. It's like that love quadrangle was never going to stand in one place. Something had to shift. He was just too much in their business."

Did Rosita shut Eusita down for good?

"Well, you never know," Kang said. "I mean, the story goes in directions that the story goes, but we felt like it had kind of organically gotten to that place, and he has been infatuated with her for so long, but like, man, how long can you keep that going if she's just not interested? And in this episode where everybody is just at the brink of exhaustion and stress and everything, that felt like kind of like the right time to show side effects other than just all this stuff happening with the Whisperers. There's always a personal aspect to all of that too."

McDermitt previously hinted Eugene could find love elsewhere, possibly through the long-range radio that made contact with an unidentified person in the closing seconds of Season 9.

New episodes of The Walking Dead Season 10 premiere Sundays at 9/8c on AMC. For more TWD intel, follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter.