Lauren Cohan says her return to The Walking Dead opens up “spinoff possibilities” for Maggie Rhee, who re-enters the story in Special Event episode “A Certain Doom.” Cohan appears as a special guest in the original Season 10 finale, premiering October 4, and rejoins her Walking Dead castmates as a full-time series regular in the eleventh and final season of the flagship series to bow on AMC in late 2021. The series veteran will first report for imminent filming on the six-episode Extended Season 10, a batch of new episodes scheduled to air early next year in the lead up to the two-year Season 11.
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“I’ve been gone for a minute. I’ve been gone I guess for parts of two different seasons, and this will be exciting because this episode was originally supposed to be our [season] finale,” Cohan said on Live with Kelly and Ryan. “The delay at first was disappointing, but now it’s nice that we have some new content coming.”
Cohan temporarily stepped away from The Walking Dead in its ninth season when she quietly exited in the sendoff episode for Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes in November 2018. After years away with Hilltop benefactor Georgie (Jayne Atkinson), Maggie returns just in time in “A Certain Doom,” where her old allies battle Beta (Ryan Hurst) in the climax of the Whisperer War.
“We still have two past year’s worth of stuff to shoot, so we’re still going to be on television for a significant period,” Cohan said of the two-year, 24-episode final season to conclude in late 2022. “We’re so lucky we’ve been going so long, and it’s so exciting to say, ‘Okay, let’s all key in for this final season and watch it together.’”
“And then people are so hungry for our whole universe still, but it’s sort of exciting because there will be spinoff possibilities,” she added. “I don’t know if I’m supposed to say that yet.”
A Maggie-led spinoff could join the Untitled Daryl/Carol series following Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride’s characters. That spinoff, co-created by TWD chief content officer Scott Gimple and showrunner Angela Kang, takes place after the final season and is planned to premiere in 2023.
The Walking Dead Season 10 finale, “A Certain Doom,” premieres Sunday, October 4 on AMC, followed by the series premiere of new spinoff The Walking Dead: World Beyond. For all things TWD, follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter.
