The Walking Dead, the zombie drama that premiered in 2010 on the AMC broadcast network, moves towards the end of season 11B closing the story arcs of each of its characters, while episode 14 aired on Sunday past, apparently presented the preamble to what will be the spin-off about Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). (Spoilers for episode 14 “The Rotten Core”)
AMC announced a few weeks ago that Maggie and Negan will face each other again in a spin-off of The Walking Dead called Isle of the Dead, set in Manhattan, New York, and set to air in 2023. There have been several theories since the spin-off was revealed, but it was the story featured on Sunday’s broadcast that seemingly confirmed fans’ suspicions.
With Maggie and Negan as enemies in The Walking Dead, fans of the successful series began to formulate theories about the reasons that would lead the characters of Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan to meet again in spaces other than Alexandria and others in which they have The AMC drama has been set since it premiered more than a decade ago. One of these could be aimed at saving Hershel Rhee (Kien Michael Spiller), Maggie’s son.
With this in mind, episode 14 of season 11 of The Walking Dead could have been the prelude to what will be the story of the spin-off of Maggie and Negan. Fans witnessed on Sunday, when Morgan’s character swore to protect Hershel with his life, just as he assured Maggie, whose husband Glenn (Steven Yeun), he murdered with his barbed-wire-wrapped bat at the start of the show. season 7.
After Hershel is captured by a Commonwealth soldier at the Riverbend apartment complex, Negan risks his life to save Maggie and Glenn’s son. “If anything happens to him…” Maggie warns over the walkie-talkie, but before she can finish, Negan responds over the radio, “It’s got to happen to me first.”
In The Walking Dead Season 11B, now that Negan has joined a new group and has a pregnant wife, Annie (Medina Senghore), there’s no question he’s trying to be a better person. Jeffrey Dean Moran’s character is on his way to redemption, but it remains to be seen if Maggie will forgive him, once he protects and saves his son Hershel and returns him healthy.
Now a father-to-be who risked his life protecting Hershel, Negan might begin to gain enough trust for Maggie to travel with him to New York. On The Walking Dead: Episode Insider, showrunner Angela Kang explained that Negan and Hershel’s story is “very important to Negan and Maggie’s story.”
