The people of Alexandria bore witness to some truly horrific events throughout the first half of The Walking Dead season 8, and according to Lauren Cohan, things will only get worse before they get better.
Set to reprise the role of Maggie on February 25th, Cohan’s grief-stricken protagonist has been running on revenge ever since Negan murdered Glenn before her very eyes. It’s that ruthless act that continues to haunt Maggie, as evidenced by her decision to murder a Savior in cold blood and ship his lifeless body back to Negan – but not before she included a note (threat?) directed at Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s baddie.
It was a brutal and indeed shocking twist for a character who has so often been portrayed as a mild-mannered hero. But as Cohan tells Entertainment Weekly, Maggie has since been placed on a “path of vengeance.”
She continues down this path of vengeance after Negan that I feel like the audience is on. I really feel like Maggie gets to vocalize the anger towards that enemy in this, and it gets very much more specific as we go on. That definitely, in some strokes, came as a surprise to me because we had this sort of subdued seeming feeling for her, and it was like, wow, is it really going to be okay? Am I recovering? Am I becoming just this leader who can handle all this and put the past behind her? Sometimes yes, sometimes no, and that’s life, I guess.
As for how Maggie will react to her own newly-discovered ruthlessness, Cohan hinted that “there’s only so much that a person can take” before the cracks begin to show:
I think that these actions definitely ripple through her, as we saw at the end of episode 8. She is so determined to take some kind of action when they get back from their conversation at the road with Simon, and so shaken up. This has honestly been like the wave hitting the shore since losing Glenn. I just think there’s only so much that a person can take, and in the aftermath of all of this happening, she really does need to put her foot down and show that she’s running the f—ing show at the Hilltop, and show that she’s going to direct things there. This definitely sends that message.
Season 8 of The Walking Dead will be back on our screens late next month – February 25th, to be specific – when the war against Negan is expected to reach its bloody conclusion. In news relating to AMC’s juggernaut, Jon Bernthal (Shane Walsh) recently revealed that has no intention of following Lennie James to Fear The Walking Dead.
