After twelve years and eleven seasons, The Walking Dead is finally coming to a close. The long-running AMC juggernaut has consistently been one of the network's top performers, and the finale of the show will certainly mark the end of an era. Although a number of pre-existing and upcoming spinoffs will continue telling stories in The Walking Dead universe, this final season will be goodbye for a number of fan-favorite characters and locations.
Told in three installments, The Walking Dead's final season has spent time setting up what is sure to be a spectacular finale. The second installment of the final season left off with a number of primary characters stuck in the Commonwealth, a large but strict (and corrupt) community. Margot Bingham's Max Mercer published a newspaper calling the Commonwealth's leader out for her lies, setting up a major conflict within the walls of the town. But she's far from the only character in trouble in the Commonwealth, as Josh McDermitt's Eugene, Paolo Lázaro's Princess, and Nadia Hilker's Magna are all in the location as well.
With The Walking Dead's end looming, it's fair to say that each one of these characters is in danger of dying before the end of the season. Screen Rant participated in a roundtable discussion with Josh McDermitt, Margot Bingham, Paola Lázaro, and Nadia Hilker in which the actors shed some light on what viewers may expect from this final stretch of episodes.
The Walking Dead Stars On The Final Season
Love has kind of changed [Eugene]. It's almost a flaw in a way, because he just goes along with whatever his romantic interest says. I was wondering, as someone who used to create all these gadgets, Dr. Smarty Pants and all that, how the character has changed so much. He's always following, rather than being followed, romantically.
Josh McDermitt: Yeah, it's an interesting thing to play. His pragmatism, as you said, was really in the forefront, in the front of his brain, and now he's got these blinders on. I think it's really what made him fall for the decoy Stephanie. He wanted that to happen, and to be real, and so that allowed him to overlook some of the other things that, if he had just remained pragmatic, he might have caught.
It's interesting now that he's with Max. She's in a sense bringing him back down to Earth, to where he can actually just see everything for what it is. And I think that's kind of where we find these characters. They're confronted with a lot of things that are going on in the Commonwealth, and they're just asking themselves, "What are we going to do about this?" I don't know if Eugene without Max would be there right now, just because he might've just gone back to burying his head and becoming who he used to be years ago. So, it's an interesting turn for the character to have him find love, and to have that love kind of blind him in a sense, and now having to be brought back to Earth.
Some of you have been with the show for a long time, and some of you are relatively new. Once upon a time, as fans, we used to wonder, "Who were these characters before they arrived on the actual show?" And now, we have this great vehicle with Tales of the Walking Dead to go back and tell stories that may have taken place at any point in a character's past. Have you considered what a story on a show like Tales of the Walking Dead would be like, and would you be interested in going back and revisiting a moment from your character's past?
Nadia Hilker: If there's one wish that could come true, it's that I would have loved to see her [Magna's] backstory, where she came from. Her and Yumiko. Yeah. A hundred percent.
Margot Bingham: I have always loved episodes where it's really focused on the character. There's nothing more that I love in a TV program [than] to show a character, and where they originated from, and where they came from. It connects you so much more. I think that would be awesome, for every one of us to be able to see our origin story and see how we came to this point. See all the people that we lost. It only connects fans more, and I think that that's just one of the coolest journeys to see on a TV show.
Paola Lázaro: I agree with everything that Margot said, and Nadia. I think it would be really exciting to see where all these people came from and what their lives were. I think it'd be awesome to see everything before the apocalypse.
Josh McDermitt: I think it would be awesome if we did a sitcom-style episode.
Paola Lázaro: A multi-cam, yeah.
Josh McDermitt: Yeah, with Max and Eugene, where it's like the show Roseanne or something. Where they're just living in this house, sitting around at the kitchen table...
Nadia Hilker: Fighting...
Josh McDermitt: They've been married for, like, thirty-five years, you know.
Margot Bingham: Hornsby comes in, and the whole crowd is like *Whomp whomp*.
Josh McDermitt: They kiss, and it's like, "Ooooh!"
Paola Lázaro: I come and visit, and the crowd's like "Ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
Josh McDermitt: Yeah, you're like Kramer on Seinfeld. You just get instant laughs from walking through the door. This is why they don't include us in any of the pitch meetings.
Screen Rant: At the start of this last batch of episodes, all of your characters are inside the Commonwealth, and it seems they all have hope that they can make a change from inside. After everything everyone's been through, how much does hope play into the journey of your characters in this last stretch?
Margot Bingham: It's everything that we have. The only thing that we can hold on to is hope. We've lost so many. There's nothing known around the corner. Everything is a gamble, and hope is literally all that we have. We have each other, but we don't know for how long. So that's all that we've got.
Josh McDermitt: It's really what's driving all of this. They could just ignore everything that's happening within the walls, and just keep moving forward as usual, but eventually all that's going to fall apart. The corruption is going to get so bad that more and more people die who shouldn't die, and so the hope for a better place, the hope for what we know this place could be, is really at the crux of this. It's the only way the community's going to survive, and they know it, and that's really why they've put their lives on the line. The stakes are higher than ever right now, and that hope is right there.
I'm not expecting you to give away your characters' fate, but generally speaking, was the cast less anxious going into season 11 about their character possibly dying? Because you had gotten so far and accomplished so much, did you want to see your characters go out in a blaze of glory, or were you just so attached to them?
Nadia Hilker: I kind of did, because I always wanted to be a zombie. I would've loved to just have gotten in the makeup, and done the growl, you know? But in the last episode. If I could have made a wish in the very last episode: after making love to Yumiko, turn me into a zombie.
Paola Lázaro: No, I was not less anxious. I was equally anxious. I was probably more anxious. There were 24 episodes, and there were 24 chances... so I was definitely anxious about that. But you know, it's part of this job.
Josh McDermitt: We're all going to fight for our characters and kind of shape where we feel like they should go. In what direction. I definitely had strong feelings about how long Eugene survived, which I'll withhold. But whether or not he's ever going to get killed off, the only thing I ever cared about was being a part of those conversations. Because sometimes with the writers, they're living with these decisions for months before it's ever even brought to you. And they've made decisions based on decisions based on conversations and more decisions, so by the time it's brought to you, you may not have as much as a voice as you thought you did.
And so, for me, I would just hope that no matter what, I was brought in from the get-go to kind of help shape where I felt like the character should and could end up. But I guess we'll see. To steal Paola's line, we have eight more chances to see if Eugene makes it or not.
What has each of your characters taught you about yourself?
Margot Bingham: That I can survive next to Josh McDermitt. That I'm strong enough to do a lot more than I give myself credit for.
Nadia Hilker: That ASL is the most beautiful language in the world.
Josh McDermitt: I think Eugene has taught me to be less selfish in my own life. I never felt like I was a very selfish person, but just to see how Eugene really puts others before him. Like, "Yeah, that's kind of how we should all be living."
Paola Lázaro: I think the character taught me to be at peace with myself, and to kind of love myself, but also to use the pain of the past to move me forward and for survival. Use those skills that you learned in the past to deal with trauma and stuff like that to move you forward in this world. As a shield.
I wanted to talk to Nadia about the scene in the first half where she's a waitress working at Governor Milton's ball, and you really see the division in between classes. In particular with Eleanor's character. I almost got vibes of The Purge this season, and I was wondering what you all thought of the whole class influence, the whole modern take, especially with the protest signs in the first few episodes.
Nadia Hilker: I hated it. I hated it, and when I read the script I was convinced that she would find a way to get out of there and convince everyone around her. But then, because of the differences in the class, even how they treated people, and then helping others, she felt responsible and wanted to help and make a change. That's the pretty much the world we're living in on this planet, in this world, as well. And yeah, to her, or to me, it feels like being out there was better than being in there. You're a prisoner, and her being a waiter again, a waitress, and then also serving his girlfriend she's been having issues with... she's felt like Yumiko looked down on her, her [Magna] being a waitress and her [Yumiko] an attorney. A lot of mixed feelings.
The final installment of The Walking Dead begins October 2nd on AMC.