Is Connie Coming Back to The Walking Dead?

Where is Connie? The Walking Dead‘s original Season 10 finale in October revealed what happened to Connie (Lauren Ridloff) after she went missing during an explosive cave-in earlier this season, but Kelly (Angel Theory) and Daryl’s (Norman Reedus) search for Connie continues in the extended Season 10 bonus episodes. Last February’s midseason premiere, “Squeeze,” left Connie and Magna (Nadia Hilker) trapped inside the cave where Alpha (Samantha Morton) hid her walker horde, which Carol (Melissa McBride) tried to destroy days before Beta (Ryan Hurst) unleashed the undead in the final battle of the Whisperer War.

It wasn’t until “A Certain Doom” that Connie was revealed to be alive when Virgil (Kevin Carroll) found her stumbling through the woods, leaving her exact whereabouts unknown — for now. When Kelly accompanies Daryl on a trip to pick up Maggie’s (Lauren Cohan) people in the extended season premiere, “Home Sweet Home,” it’s to keep an eye out for her missing sister.

When Maggie asks Daryl if he thinks Connie is still out there, he tells her, “I don’t know. I hope so. The thing is, I went looking for her so many times. Some people are just gone, you know?”

Remembering her sister Beth (Emily Kinney), who died before they could be reunited, Maggie replies, “Even if you find them, doesn’t mean you get ’em back.” Daryl says maybe it’s better if Kelly doesn’t know, but Maggie says she should — and later tells Kelly she hopes to meet her sister someday.

“You will,” Kelly says confidently, predicting Connie’s return to The Walking Dead.

Showrunner Angela Kang previously confirmed Ridloff was temporarily written out to accommodate scheduling conflicts with Marvel Studios film Eternals, where Ridloff will play speedy superhero Makkari.

“I think for the story, it’s actually worked out really beautifully. So I think there’s some really interesting stuff that came out of it for both Carol and Daryl, and she’s a character that I think is leading with emotion for both of them,” Kang told Insider last year. “So sometimes those things that you have to do to help out a beloved actor also work out in your favor.”

Connie’s ongoing absence will continue to impact the rocky relationship between the two best friends, who will go to “some painful places” in next week’s “Find Me.”

“We have this relationship with Daryl that has been strained in ways. Connie is still missing. Our audience knows that Connie is still out there, but Daryl and Carol don’t. Kelly doesn’t. Her friends don’t,” Kang said during The Walking Dead Extended Season 10 Preview Special. “And what does that mean for Carol, and for her going forward? I think she’s in a place where she is trying to grapple with that, and it’s messy, and it’s hard, and sometimes she just wants to look away. I think that Daryl, as her closest friend, there were times when he was calling her out some of the time, and sometimes it was just too painful because these two are so close.”

New episodes of The Walking Dead extended Season 10 premiere Sundays at 9 pm ET/8c on AMC. Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things TWD.