Lauren Cohan Is Returning to ‘The Walking Dead’

When Lauren Cohan left The Walking Dead, it was a surprise. Mainly because the episode in question was all about Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) leaving, so the casual mention that Cohan’s Maggie wouldn’t be back was a shocker. But  after much back and forth, it was confirmed at New York Comic Con: Lauren Cohan will be returning for The Walking Dead‘s eleventh season. Oh yeah, it was picked up for an eleventh season, too. FYI.

After hiding out the whole panel in Jason/Negan cosplay, Cohan showed up on stage to reveal the news. “It feels like home, and so emotional,” said Cohan, who started crying at the announcement.

Adding to the initial confusion, Cohan just sort of disappeared. After Grimes was carted off in a helicopter in Season 9’s “What Comes After,” the timeline jumped forward almost a decade. In the new world, Maggie was no longer leader of the Hilltop community, and it was a few episodes before we found out what had happened. At some point in the intervening time, Maggie decided to leave with her baby, Hershel, and hit the road with Georgie (Jayne Atkinson). Georgie was a traveling weirdo who traded information out of the goodness of her heart, and bonded with Maggie back in Season 8’s “The Key.”

There’s the real world explanation for Cohan leaving, of course, which was her ABC spy romp Whiskey Cavalier. The pilot was picked up amidst some rather public salary negotiations with AMC, and Cohan ultimately left the show; though with a considerably more open door than The Walking Dead usually leaves for its characters. Then Whiskey Cavalier was canceled on May 12 after one season, meaning schedule-wise it would be possible to bring Maggie Rhee back into the mix.

Still, there’s the issues of salary, the fact that Walking Dead has already been filming Season 10 for a while, and whether Cohan would want to return at all. In a recent interview with EW, showrunner Angela Kang simply said she was “working on it.” Well, guess that work paid off, because Maggie is back, baby!

How Maggie will return, or how it might impact the potentially ongoing Whisperer War is an open question — and as with most things Walking Dead, a big secret for the moment. Suffice to say, Maggie may have some issues with what’s been going on at Hilltop while she’s been away.

“It didn’t feel weird…” Cohan noted on returning. “I’m honestly interested in what we’re going to say.”

The Walking Dead returns to AMC on October 6.

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