Maggie’s Exit From ‘The Walking Dead’ Is Weird, Much …

Last night on The Walking Dead, the mystery of who is currently running the Hilltop six years into the future was solved. It was not Alicia Clarke, which conspiracy theorists believed, but instead it's Jesus, who doesn't want the job and pretty much makes Tara do all the work, which I find hilarious.

It was another good episode, the stuff between Daryl and Carol was particularly great (a haircut! but not enough of one...), though one aspect of the episode bothered me.

That was the revelation that Maggie had already left the Hilltop to go help out other communities with Georgie.

I knew that this was coming, because Lauren Cohan made it clear that Rick's last episode was actually also her last episode of the season, though probably not forever, given that there seems to be some sort of plan to have her return in the future when Georgie circles back around or her new community needs help or something.

And yet, this was an extremely weird departure for her character, and much weirder than the epic send-off Rick was given on his last episode, which was also hers for a while. Rick too is returning to TWD, but with a movie trilogy, but even if Maggie is returning to the show itself in the future, possibly temporarily, possibly full-time depending on the success of her ABC show, I still think she needed a better temporary send-off than this.

It is...extremely strange to simply have Maggie vanish from the show after not only being there since season 2, but also being a key leader of a community that is supposed to be a central figure in the current storyline. Before this, Maggie was becoming something of an autocrat on the Hilltop, executing Gregory and butting heads with Rick. And in the time since, it's heavily implied that her and Michonne have had some sort of falling out, even though the last we saw of them, they seemed fine, as Michonne respected Maggie's decision not to kill Negan, even though she was allowing it, and then presumably they mourned Rick together.

What happened to all that? Who knows? Maggie is just gone. Obviously the "best" thing would be for her to just...not leave, but if it did have to happen, just writing her out of the story during a time jump seems bizarre. I know that we got the hint about her potentially joining up with Georgie in previous episodes, but it feels like we needed to see her actually make that decision, to leave with Georgie and take Herschel with her. To explain why she was doing it and what her plans and goals were. To just...have her gone after seven years on the show feels weird, even if she does show up again some time next season. I'm not saying that we needed some grand finale episode like we had with Rick, but something besides just...a total void where Maggie should be. Again, I like the new Jesus/Tara stuff, but it was just weird to have Maggie vanish like she's Heath or something.

Now, we may eventually get some flashbacks to points in time over the past six years we missed, and it's possible Maggie could appear in those. Both Daryl and Michonne have shown off X-shaped scars that they clearly received during some sort of calamity no one is talking about, and I do wonder if Maggie was involved in whatever happened back then that made Michonne A) dislike her and separate from Hilltop contact B) not trust newcomers. But that's a bunch of theorizing for another day. I guess the point is maybe we do someday see the exact moment Maggie left, if we do end up getting flashbacks.

The Walking Dead has done nearly everything right this season, including extremely difficult stuff like Rick's send-off. And yet I can't pretend like Maggie flying the coop in the night didn't feel very weird, and I wish it had been handled a bit differently. I guess my consolation is knowing that she's definitely not gone for good, but still, the way this was handled was very odd, and I didn't especially care for it.

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Maggie's Exit From 'The Walking Dead' Is Weird, Much ...