Lauren Ridloff Reveals Walking Dead Prequel Idea
When sisters Connie (Lauren Ridloff) and Kelly (Angel Theory) first appeared on The Walking Dead, it was minutes after Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) disappeared aboard a CRM helicopter in Season 9. But in those minutes, six years passed, revealing an aged-up Judith Grimes (Cailey Fleming) as she saved Connie and Kelly's group — Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura), Magna (Nadia Hilker), and Luke (Dan Fogler) — from walkers. What happened in those years before we met them on The Walking Dead? There have been hints here and there, bits and pieces about their life before. For Ridloff, it's a story she wants to tell.
"I would love to see a prequel for Connie and Kelly," Ridloff told EW. "Because I think that relationship between the two of them is definitely interesting — being sisters and Kelly's journey with her hearing loss and their age difference."
Connie is fully deaf — "a damn superpower," as she reminded her younger sister in Season 10 — and Kelly is progressively losing her hearing. The sisters communicate in ASL, the first representation for the deaf and hard of hearing community on the long-running zombie drama that will end after eleven seasons later this month.
Before the fall, Connie was an accomplished journalist whose hard-hitting news pieces exposed corrupt politicians. Politicians like the congressman uncle of Commonwealth Governor Pamela Milton (Laila Robins), since the subject of her own Connie exposé that sparked some good trouble within the post-apocalyptic Ohio civilization.
A Connie and Kelly prequel would also be grounds to cover past traumas, as hinted by the Season 9 episode "The Calm Before." Referring to a signed conversation between the sisters, Ridloff recalled, "There was a moment when Connie seemed to imply that she had a baby at one point, and I would love to explore that."
Such a story could unfold in future episodes of Tales of the Walking Dead, the episodic anthology series that fleshed out the origin story of Whisperer leader Alpha (Samantha Morton), or elsewhere in TWD Universe. In 2023, network AMC premieres three new spin-offs: The Walking Dead: Dead City, following Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) into zombie-plagued New York; Daryl Dixon, focused on Daryl's (Norman Reedus) attempt to get back home from Paris, France; and Rick & Michonne, about Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira) finding their way back to one another.
Follow @CameronBonomolo and @NewsOfTheDead on Twitter for TWD Universe coverage all season long. New episodes of The Walking Dead's final season premiere Sundays on AMC and AMC+.