Actor Tom Payne’s character Jesus was killed off in season nine’s midseason finale of The Walking Dead at the hands of a member of the Whisperers. Jesus was considered a fan favorite for the franchise so you could imagine the disbelief and anger fans displayed. Although Jesus is no longer alive on the show, his presence will still exist in flashback episodes.
Lauren Cohan, who plays Maggie, had left the show in the same episode as Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln). Cohan will be starring in her own show on ABC, Whiskey Cavalier. This gives us somewhat of an answer to her departure but not to Maggie’s. Maggie and her son, Hershel, left Hilltop to join Georgie and her community.
Those flashback episodes with Jesus might answer some questions to Maggie’s disappearance. “And Jesus has been at the Hilltop with Maggie, and we’ll maybe find out how Maggie left and what happened in that storyline, maybe how Michonne and Daryl got their scars, maybe if Aaron and Jesus had a thing,” said Payne. “So yeah, there’s lots of different loose ends which absolutely could be explained by a flashback episode.”
The relationship between Alexandria and Hilltop was portrayed as critical after the six-year time jump. Showrunner Angela Kang confirms that lot of what happened during those years will be explained. “We’ll definitely be telling the story of what happened there, and what’s kind of exciting about a six-year jump is that there is the opportunity to go back and tell some of those stories. So we’ll see some of what has happened,” she said.
The matching X scars on Daryl and Michonne did not go unnoticed by viewers. Payne reveals that we might see more of the scars later on. “We haven’t seen them on anyone else yet, but there could be,” he said.