The Walking Dead Answers What Happened to Georgie

Years after her first and so far only appearance on The Walking Dead, Sunday's extended Season 10 premiere reveals what happened to Georgie (Jayne Atkinson). Along with the twin sisters Hilda and Midge (Kim and Misty Ormiston), Georgie approached the Hilltop to barter in Season 8 episode "The Key." In exchange for crates of food and phonograph records — no spoken word — Georgie offered Maggie (Lauren Cohan) a "key to a future." An evolving document of medieval human achievement "so we may have a future from our past," the key gave Maggie the tools to build up the Hilltop colony with a promise that Georgie would be back — and expecting great things.

In Season 9 episode "The Bridge," set after an 18-month time jump, a conversation between Maggie and Jesus (Tom Payne) revealed the Hilltop was still in contact with Georgie via letters dropped off by the twins. When Jesus asked if Maggie was thinking about joining Georgie on the road, she said, "I like her ideas, but not that much. I'm plenty busy building a future right here."

Another Season 9 episode, "Stradivarius," set after a six-year time skip, revealed Maggie ultimately left the Hilltop with son Hershel (Peyton Lockridge) and had traveled "someplace far" helping Georgie with a new community. When Maggie reunites with Daryl (Norman Reedus) in the extended Season 10 premiere, "Home Sweet Home," it's been seven-plus years since Maggie and Georgie's first meeting in "The Key."

"Georgie had all these good ideas. And with things going so well at the Hilltop, the idea of doing that for others felt good," Maggie tells Daryl when revealing what happened during the years she was away on the road. "So we'd find groups and do what we could, but it'd always go sideways."

Daryl asks if Georgie is still out there, but Maggie doesn't know.

"We were in this little place near Knoxville a couple summers ago. We had this group, we taught them to reroute water, build a forge. She heard about this city out west, so she and the twins went out there to check it out," Maggie says, possibly suggesting a connection to Texas-set spin-off Fear the Walking Dead. "I stayed back with Hershel. And not long after, the place fell, and we ran. I haven't seen her since."

It remains to be seen if Georgie has ties to the Civic Republic — a resourceful civilization home to more than 200,000 survivors first hinted at in The Walking Dead and teased further in TWD: World Beyond — or the western settlements controlled by Virginia (Colby Minifie) of the Pioneers over in Fear the Walking Dead, which is currently years behind the mothership show in the timeline.

When asked whether Georgie will ever return to The Walking Dead or revisit the Hilltop, which has since been burnt to the ground, Atkinson told Entertainment Weekly in 2018, "I couldn't possibly tell you. Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink. ... She says she'll be back, I'm going to take her at her word."

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.