'The Walking Dead' finally reveals Connie's fate. The showrunner tells us how the show worked around the star's Marvel movie schedule.
- Warning: There are major spoilers ahead for "The Walking Dead" season 10 finale, "A Certain Doom."
- Sunday's delayed finale finally revealed what happened to Connie (Lauren Ridloff) after she went missing during a cave-in earlier in the season.
- In the episode's final moments, Connie was revealed to be alive.
- Showrunner Angela Kang tells Insider they filmed the finale scene far in advance to accommodate Lauren Ridloff's schedule for upcoming Marvel movie, "Eternals."
- Connie will not be a part of the bonus six episodes of season 10.
"The Walking Dead" showrunner Angela Kang told Insider in February we would find out what happened to Connie (Lauren Ridloff) one way or the other by the season's end and she was true to her word.
During the final minutes of "TWD" season finale, viewers see a body in the forest slowly start to rise. They're covered in dirt, dust, and grime. As the camera slowly moves out and upward, the mystery person becomes recognizable as Connie. Just when you think you're looking at a member of the undead, she opens her eyes to reveal she's alive.
"My primary writer on that episode, Corey Reed, I think it was something he came up with and he wrote it into the script and I thought, 'Oh, this is kind of fun because we don't know what's happened to her,'" Kang told Insider of how they came up with Connie's reveal.
"It felt like with everything that she went through, she would be covered in dirt. She probably did put some guts on herself in order to move through the herd," Kang said.
Connie has been missing for six episodes since the show's mid-season premiere when she was trapped in a cave with her friend Magna (Nadia Hilker). While Magna made her way back to the survivors, she lost Connie in a herd of the undead, so it makes sense that she would look a bit worse for wear.
"When we imagined that she came out [of the cave], [Reed] was like, it makes sense that she's collapsed and kind of looks like a walker. She's been through hell," Kang said of Connie's appearance. "And then of course, Greg Nicotero, who directed the episode, he's so good at directing anything that is walker-like... He really played that mislead, I think really, really well."
Keeping Connie's reveal a secret: They filmed the finale scene with Ridloff first before her Marvel schedule
Ridloff split her time between working on "TWD" and filming Marvel's upcoming superhero movie, "Eternals," with Salma Hayek and Angelina Jolie (You can read more about the film here). Connie's story unfolded the way it did this season to accommodate Ridloff's filming schedule.
"Lauren Ridloff is just a delight to work with," Kang said. "She'd gone off for a little bit to go work on the 'Eternals' movie. We were just really happy to have her to film that little piece," Kang said.
"To be honest, we filmed that in advance of ever doing that final episode," Kang said of how early they filmed Ridloff's return scene. "Of course, we had to like pay her for the rest of the season. So she was a great sport through all of that and just, I think that a beautiful job. So I'm really happy to have her back in the fold with us."
When will we see Connie again? Not until season 11
If you're hoping to see more of Connie's story in one of the upcoming bonus season 10 episodes, Kang says that unfortunately won't be the case.
"She's not," Kang said of Connie's absence in the forthcoming episodes.
But we'll see her again as the show heads into its final 11th season.
"We have a big episode planned for her," Kang continued. "At the time that we had to kind of lock these episodes, her schedule was still up in the air. But we have, I think, an episode that should be really cool for people coming up afterwards. So we're working on that for her."
The six bonus episodes of "TWD" season 10 are currently in pre-production. They're set to air on AMC early 2021. You can follow along with our "Walking Dead" coverage here.
- Read more:
- 'The Walking Dead' showrunner says fans can expect more of Daryl, Negan, and Maggie from the 6 bonus episodes of season 10
- 'The Walking Dead' star Ryan Hurst says he'd 'absolutely' return to 'TWD' universe and teases we may see his character again
- 'The Walking Dead' showrunner says they've been thinking about a Carol and Daryl spinoff for years, describes it as 'a road show'