Season 8 of AMC’s The Walking Dead ended with the beginning of a feud between Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Maggie Rhee (Lauren Cohan). This was as a direct result of Rick sparing Negan’s (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) life. Now, as the show heads towards its ninth season, how will this feud play out?
Negan had been the major protagonist for the last couple of seasons of The Walking Dead . In the Season 6 finale episode, fans were left hanging after Negan bashed to death one of the main characters. When Season 7 premiered, it was revealed two major characters were killed, one of them being Maggie’s husband, Glenn Rhee (Steven Yeun). Since then, Maggie had vowed Negan should die.
However, in Season 8 of The Walking Dead , Carl (Chandler Riggs) worked hard to convince his father, Rick, to spare the life of Negan. In the end, this is precisely what Rick did, causing Maggie to start forming an alliance behind the scenes and against Rick Grimes.
According to Digital Spy , Lauren Cohan revealed that Season 8 ended with a “lot of conflict.” This response was given at the recent San Diego Comic-Con when Cohan was asked about the upcoming season of The Walking Dead .
“We left on a pretty sharp note, a little tense. There’s a lot of conflict, but it’s conflict between people who love each other that are all working towards what should be a bigger, brighter, stronger future.”
When asked about whether there would ever be a chance that Maggie could forgive Negan for killing her husband, Lauren Cohan reflected on the answer.
“I think it’s going to be interesting because we all have ideas about what we would do in certain situations and who we want to be and the legacy we want to leave,” she replied. “And, when it really comes down to it, what do you do? That’s what the season’s about.”
The Walking Dead’s Greg Nicotero also weighed in on the topic at San Diego Comic-Con, suggesting that while there will be conflict moving forward in Season 9, it will be different to that seen previously between the main antagonists and protagonists because, essentially, the conflict will be between established friends.
“They’re not at each other’s throats, but they’re still not really down with the decisions that their friends made,” he said.
Fans will just have to wait until October, though, to find out just how far this conflict will go.
Season 9 of The Walking Dead will premiere on AMC on Sunday, October 7, at 9/8c.
