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Lauren Cohan reacts to Maggie's big Dead City lie to Negan

Dalton Ross
·4-min read
Lauren Cohan reacts to Maggie's big Dead City lie to Negan

Warning: This article contains spoilers about The Walking Dead: Dead City season 1, episode 5, "Stories We Tell Ourselves."

LIAR. That was the word smeared in blood across the wall of a New York City subway tunnel on Sunday's "Stories We Tell Ourselves" episode of The Walking Dead: Dead City. The word was directed at Lauren Cohan's Maggie, and at the very end of the episode, we found out why.

In a series of flashbacks, we saw Ginny (Mahina Napoleon) discover that the grain Maggie says was stolen by the Croat (Željko Ivanek) was actually not stolen at all, and then saw that when the Croat kidnapped Hershel (Logan Kim), he handed Maggie a wanted poster for Jeffrey Dean Morgan's Negan — essentially demanding a trade. That meant Maggie was not enlisting her former foe for help in retrieving her son; she was planning to turn him over all along.

Lauren Cohan as Maggie Rhee - The Walking Dead: Dead City _ Season 1, Episode 5
Lauren Cohan as Maggie Rhee - The Walking Dead: Dead City _ Season 1, Episode 5

Peter Kramer/AMC Lauren Cohan on 'The Walking Dead: Dead City'

So what does Cohan make of this wrinkle not painting Maggie in the most heroic light? "I was so glad when [showrunner Eli Jorné] came with this story and that this was the twist," the actress and executive producer tells EW in an interview conducted before the SAG-AFTRA strike. "It was something I just didn't see coming and couldn't have seen coming."

For Cohan, the lie both reveals a dilemma and poses a question to the viewer as to how they would respond in such a situation. "It's like, what would you do? If somebody said to you, here's this person and he may have changed, but you may need to say these things, what would you do?"

This new wrinkle alters the dynamic of all three characters (Maggie, Negan, and Ginny) and shifts Dead City into its season 1 endgame — to be played out on next week's season finale. "In those final moments of the show too, when you see Ginny and you see how we strive so hard to climb this mountain and then get to a place that we think is going to going to give us resolution and relief, and it's like, 'Oh God, it's just the beginning.'"

Lauren Cohan as Maggie Rhee - The Walking Dead: Dead City _ Season 1, Episode 5
Lauren Cohan as Maggie Rhee - The Walking Dead: Dead City _ Season 1, Episode 5

Peter Kramer/AMC Lauren Cohan on 'The Walking Dead: Dead City'

The mountain Cohan refers to is the subway tunnel full of walkers the group had to encounter, which culminated with the biggest zombie monstrosity the franchise has ever unleashed — a multi arm, leg, and head beast known as the Walker King.

"It was so great," says Cohan of filming her battle against the beast. "We had this mound of zombies and everything was covered in goo every 11 minutes. Gino Crognale and Addison Foreman — who have been on our special effects team since the very beginning — come in and cover everything, keep it shiny and disgusting."

As for the inspiration for the zombie boss, Cohan explains that "It's the Walker King because it's based on an idea of how rats sort of tangle their tails and become a rat king. So we have this monster Walker King and we had three people puppeteering it. We had our stunt performer, and then we had two walkers coming out of him and puppeteers bringing those to life."

The Walking Dead: Dead City Screengrab
The Walking Dead: Dead City Screengrab

AMC Walker King on 'The Walking Dead: Dead City'

While the day of filming was among Cohan's favorites, she also notes that "it was the most physically testing and fun stunt I've ever done on the show. It took a while for us to do that one and make it as scary as possible. To me, it totally felt like Alien. If you take the entire Alien movie, mash it up and make them zombies — that's what it was to me."

And then came the big twist, with Maggie's lie. For the woman playing her, Maggie's deception opens up new dramatic doors beyond just whether she will ever be able to forgive Negan for brutally murdering her husband.

"Is there capacity to change?" asks Cohan. "Can you allow yourself to still honor the love that you had for your husband and know that they wouldn't have wanted you to live forever in the grief and the resentment and the rage against the person who did this? And ultimately, as humans, can we look at the most heinous act and say it's possible we can change? The jury's still out for her, but all the things that are happening along the way are as interesting to me as to whether or not she would forgive him."

Those questions will continue to be answered on next week's Dead City season finale.

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