The Walking Dead is rising from the dead — again. The long-running zombie series is finally coming back for its much-anticipated extra six episodes of season 10 following a brief return back in October 2020. If you can’t remember (or feel like a zombie ate your brain), the current season of Walking Dead is a little all over the place timing-wise thanks to the pandemic. The last episode, from the fall, was the original season 10 finale and is now acting as a mid-season finale of sorts, with the true season finale slated for April 2021.
The first of the new episodes, “Home Sweet Home,” follows up on a major plot point of the mid-season finale, “A Certain Doom”: the return of Maggie (Lauren Cohan). If you need a quick recap of where we left off — and what’s going on with Maggie — we'll make this quick and easy.
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Much of season 10 focuses on the Whisperers, with the united communities trying to silence them once and for all. In “A Certain Doom,” the usual complex story lines are far simpler (which makes refreshing things after such a long break all the easier). The survivors were surrounded by Beta (Ryan Hurst) and his horde, and Gabe (Seth Gilliam) was counting on outside help (see: Maggie), while Eugene’s (Josh McDermitt) group was trying to make his rendezvous.
Daryl (Norman Reedus) and the survivors manage to sneak through the horde by luring them away with a wagon and some loud music. Gabe sticks around the hospital so others can escape, putting himself in danger as several Whisperers make it in. Meanwhile, Beatrice (Briana Venskus) has her own personal run-in with a Whisperer who manages to stab her in the calf. Carol (Melissa McBride), to absolutely no one’s surprise, ignores her calls for help, leaving Beatrice to be eaten.
Meanwhile, turns out Maggie had received Carol’s letters and, with a masked survivor, rescues Gabe. She's not quite the Maggie we remember, however — this one seems hardened, with a survivalist edge.
The Whisperers catch on to the music decoy and destroy the sound system, forcing the survivors to kill the Whisperers one by one — the finale to the war season 10 was building up to. Beta meets his demise as he’s eaten by the Walkers — and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) finally realizes his true identity — while Lydia (Cassady McClincy) and Carol manage to send the horde over a cliff. As that’s all happening, Eugene and co are captured by soldiers.
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So as we head into the last part of season 10, that leaves us with: the death of Beatrice, the Whisper War finally over, Eugene's group captured, and Maggie with her mysterious hockey-mask companion. While the war is over, it looks like the survivors have more than enough to contend with, including the person Maggie has evolved into.
"What we will see over time is that this is a person who has had to continue to harden herself and take sort of a more pragmatic approach to the world," showrunner Angela Kang told TVLine of Maggie. Maybe that explains why her fellow survivor is wearing a hockey mask? It's certainly pragmatic when you're dealing with zombies who want brain access.
The Walking Dead returns on February 28 on AMC.
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