'The Walking Dead' Season 11 on AMC: Maggie’s evolution makes her one of the longest surviving characters
'The Walking Dead' final season is here. The series which premiered in 2010 has been one of the most streamed shows on television. The final season may see a lot of deaths in the upcoming episodes. The show which was adapted from the comic of the same name by Robert Kirkman has a stellar cast. One of them is Lauren Cohan who has been portraying Maggie Rhee for the last 11 seasons.
Cohan, who joined the cast of the show in season 2, has been one of the vital characters in the apocalyptic series. Although in Season 9's time jump viewers saw Maggie's disappearing from the hilltop to help a woman named Georgie to form new communities. Although it was a waste of time as the communities never lasted and the two had to join forces with the Warden, the question still remains what makes Maggie so important, considering she is one of the longest surviving characters on the show. Read more to find out.
RELATED ARTICLES
The Walking Dead' Season 11: Will Donnie finally happen? Angela Kang says 'definitely a vibe there'
As we mentioned previously that Cohan's character Maggie was introduced in the second season of the series. Maggie does not share the insecurities of her comic book counterpart and is more independent from the start. Initially, Maggie is inexperienced and ignorant of the apocalypse, being largely sheltered at the Greene family farm, but once Rick's group arrives, she quickly grows into a fierce and skilled fighter, becoming proficient with weapons and participating in supply runs for the group.
Maggie forms a casual relationship with Glenn after becoming aware of his crush on her but insists it is purely a temporary arrangement or as one calls it, a fling. She later realizes that she has fallen in love with him, and they eventually get married. Maggie takes up the same leadership role of the Hilltop as she does in the comics. However, before the birth of their son, Maggie faces a horrible loss when Negan takes Glenn's life and brutally murders Abraham. However, she is still seen putting others' needs before her own and wants a safe future for her second son.
The apocalyptic show takes place after the onset of a worldwide zombie apocalypse. The zombies, referred to as "walkers", shamble towards living humans and other creatures to eat them. As shown in the series, they are attracted to noise, such as gunshots, and to different scents, for example, humans. Although it initially seems that only humans that are bitten or scratched by walkers can turn into other walkers, it is revealed in the series that all living humans carry the pathogen responsible for the mutation. The mutation is activated after the death of the pathogen's host, and the only way to permanently kill a walker is to damage its brain or destroy the body entirely, such as by cremating it.
Post the apocalyptic hit, Maggie had to be emotionally and mentally stronger but in the years and the time jump, Maggie has also gained a new perspective and realized the good-willed group she was previously a part of was extremely rare to find. However, she is still on a quest of finding many communities to help.
As Maggie is leading another new mission in the hopes of helping all of Alexandria, new horrors await as the Reapers are now seemingly thrown into the mix. The new villains of the series will surely put Maggie's leadership to the test yet again.
In a recent interview with EW, Cohan talked about the creative freedom she had on the show. She said, "The story that Eli has written lets us really go into the dark night of the soul in a way that you don't always get to do with a huge cast." She further said, "When people say to me, 'Wow, you've been doing that show so long,' I say, 'And I hope I do it forever.'"
‘The Walking Dead’ Season 11 returns to AMC with new episodes from Sunday, October 2, 2022, at 9 pm EST.