Maggie's Fate Revealed as The Walking Dead Resolves Negan Cliffhanger

The Walking Dead resolves the cliffhanger that ended "Acheron: Part 1" and reveals Maggie's (Lauren Cohan) fate in Sunday's "Acheron: Part 2." Spoilers for TWD Season 11 Episode 2. Maggie lives! After Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) leaves her behind to die in a zombie-swarmed subway tunnel to end The Walking Dead's Season 11 premiere, the uneatable Maggie Rhee makes her escape in "Acheron: Part 2." Like her husband Glenn (Steven Yeun), who scurries under a dumpster to save himself from walkers in Season 6, Maggie fights off the undead and crawls beneath a just-as-grimy subway car to start "Acheron: Part 2."

When Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) and Alden (Callan McAuliffe) notice Maggie is missing, Frost (Glenn Stanton) says they must keep going or risk being swarmed by the walkers clawing at the subway car. Noises on the roof give way to rhythmic thumping from below, and the group realizes the purposeful pounding is Morse code: "S.O.S."

Beneath their feet, an emergency hatch swings open, revealing a very pissed-off Maggie. She climbs inside the car and whips Negan in the face with her gun, exposing him: "I slipped. He saw, and he left me to die." Negan shrugs it off with a "so what," but draws the line at Alden's accusation he tried to kill Maggie.

"She was in trouble, and I didn't help," Negan counters. "There is a big difference."

After accusing Maggie of luring him into the tunnels to die, Negan defends himself by recalling her speech threatening to kill him — sooner rather than later. But Negan killed Alpha (Samantha Morton) to help end the Whisperer War, and Negan is guiding the group's mission to Meridian to find food and save Alexandria, making him useful enough to be kept alive. For now.

"For our heroes, you're not a hero unless you fight through things and you survive things, and Maggie is a survivor. She has been through a lot," showrunner Angela Kang said on The Walking Dead: Episode Insider. "Putting her in situations where she's really just having to be strong and smart... that's always a good place to put our heroes like Maggie. So we just felt like it was important to start the episode on her like that because you just see how determined she is to get through her mission."

Negan's muted reaction to Maggie's return is in line with his character, according to Kang, despite his being on the long path to redemption and possibly forgiveness for killing Glenn in Season 7.

"When Maggie comes back in the train car and says, 'I slipped and he saw me do it and he left me to die.' And he's like... okay. So what? That's just Negan," said Kang, who previously revealed whether Negan is back to being a bad guy. "I don't think he feels a lot of shame about, like, the things that he does as a survivor, and I think he's always been oddly a straight shooter. He pretty much tells you who he is and what he thinks, and he tells every person what he thinks about them."

Kang added, "A lot of times he can be a real bully to people and just kind of call them names and things like that. There's definitely no not knowing where you stand with Negan."

Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things TWD Universe. The Walking Dead Season 11 airs Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.