The Walking Dead: Lauren Cohan’s Maggie Is Back in Season 10 Teaser

After years away, Lauren Cohan‘s Maggie is back on The Walking Dead. Maggie made her return when she saved old friend Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) from certain doom in October’s original season 10 finale, helping finish the Whisperer War alongside masked ally Elijah (Okea Eme-Akwari). More than six years after deciding to spare her husband’s killer — walking away from a jailed Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and her home at the Hilltop colony — Maggie and her now eight-year-old son, Hershel Rhee, must confront the past if they hope to have a future in the extended season 10 of The Walking Dead.

In “Home Sweet Home,” premiering February 28 on AMC, Negan and Maggie meet again as her group of new survivors makes their way to Virginia in the wake of the Whisperer War. As revealed earlier in season 10, Maggie kept in touch with letters left behind by Carol (Melissa McBride), who documented their friends’ deaths at the hands of the since-slain Alpha (Samantha Morton).

“It’s so exciting to have Lauren back with us,” showrunner Angela Kang said during last year’s Walking Dead Universe Preview Special. “We’ve been saying for a long time that we wanted to tell more story with Maggie, that we have things in the works, and we were trying to figure it out, so it’s really exciting to get into this new chapter.”

Cohan stepped away from The Walking Dead in the season 9 exit episode of Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes, putting a pause on a tenure started with the zombie drama’s second season in 2011. It was always the plan for Cohan to return to Walking Dead despite her starring role in Whiskey Cavalier, the spy dramedy canceled by ABC Network after 13 episodes.

“Her character is so impactful and has these longstanding relationships with various characters that are on our show, such as Daryl and Carol. They’ve been through so much together,” Kang said about Maggie’s role in future episodes. “But also we know there’s still Negan to contend with. He’s just kind of been on this redemption arc, making some progress, and now that she’s back, they were never expecting to be in the same community together again. So obviously that’s going to have a big ripple effect into the season to come.”

After the six-episode season 10C, which reveals what happened to Maggie in the years she was away, Cohan stars in the eleventh and final season of The Walking Dead when it premieres this fall on AMC.

Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things TWD. The Walking Dead returns to AMC with new episodes on Sunday, February 28.