The Walking Dead: Origins Tells Maggie’s Story Ahead of Season 11

Lauren Cohan tells “Maggie’s Story” in the latest episode of The Walking Dead: Origins, the new special series revisiting key moments from The Walking Dead ahead of Season 11. Recounting Maggie’s journey from the Greene family farm, to the prison, to Alexandria and Hilltop, and her return to Virginia after years away on the road with her son Hershel Rhee (Kien Michael Spiller), “Maggie’s Story” is now streaming on AMC+ alongside The Walking Dead: The Best of Maggie collection.

After spotlighting Morgan Jones (Lennie James) and Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) on TWD: Best Of, the latest collection of “iconic episodes” to feature Maggie include the classic Season 2 episode “Cherokee Rose,” the beginning of a romantic relationship with her future husband Glenn (Steven Yeun), and the Season 3 episode “Killer Within.” Best of Maggie also relives the death of her father, Hershel (Scott Wilson), in the Season 4 episode “Too Far Gone,” and Maggie’s leadership role at the Hilltop in the Season 9 episode “A New Beginning.”

It all leads to Season 11, where Maggie fights for a future for her son. As the leader of her new group, the Wardens, Maggie must co-exist with Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) as the survivors come to fear the Reapers.

“It certainly isn’t just about [Maggie vs Negan]. She isn’t defined by that,” Walking Dead executive producer Scott Gimple said about Maggie’s Season 11 story during a recent live stream. “It is some pretty crucial business, obviously the end of the episode [‘Here’s Negan’] seems to tell us that it’s nothing to sneeze at.”

Maggie has another story to tell in Season 11: what happened in the years after she left the Hilltop, joining Georgie (Jayne Atkinson) on the road for a goodwill mission — and to get as far away from Negan as possible.

“She was out there doing pretty incredible things,” Gimple said. “She went from someone who was listening to her dad obviously and wasn’t sure walkers were sick or whether they were dead [in Season 2], to someone who very quickly became the leader of a community and stabilized them and led them through some very difficult stuff. She wore that in a way that seemed like she was born for it. That’s a huge part of her story.”

Gimple continued: “Seeing this kind of leader emerge from the apocalypse, forged by the apocalypse, I think that’s her story. I think Negan is an unbelievable complication to that, but to hit it one more time, it doesn’t define her.”

Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things TWD. The Final Season of The Walking Dead premieres August 22 on AMC.