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Why Did Leah Have To Die On The Walking Dead?

By

Aarya

In this article, we will talk about the character Leah from the Walking Dead as several beloved characters have died as the series nears its conclusion.

Digital Spy asked Lynn Collins a few months ago who she would like to film more scenes with before The Walking Dead ends. What was her first answer? “Lauren, Lauren, Lauren.”

That made a lot of sense at the time. You may remember that Leah’s fight with Maggie at the beginning of part B was one of the best parts of the eleventh season. But now that they’re back together in the mid-season finale, Collins might regret wanting to work with Lauren more on set.

Collateral Damage

Throughout most of episode 16, our survivors are split up for different reasons, leaving each of them alone to deal with Leah, the Commonwealth, and that strange swarm of locusts that just buzzed around and didn’t do much else.

Out of these three, Leah going bad is the biggest threat right now. Even Lance Hornsby is shocked by how cruel she is when she accidentally kills a few of his soldiers as “collateral damage.”

Leah doesn’t feel bad about going to find Maggie, the woman who put her down the last time they met. And the two do meet in the end, but it takes longer than you might think. In fact, it’s amazing that anyone gets anything done at all in this almost completely dark episode.

But there is still enough light for Maggie to hit Leah with a bullet at some point. But it doesn’t knock her out, and in the end, Maggie, not Leah, is the one who gets knocked out.

leah walking dead

Cause Of Her Pain

The next morning, Maggie wakes up tied to a chair, and it’s not very clear why. Wouldn’t it make more sense for Leah to just kill Maggie while she’s down?

Angela Kang, who is in charge of the show, told EW that Leah sees Maggie as “the cause of her pain” and “wants her to die in pain and suffering.” But that plan doesn’t work because Maggie keeps Leah busy long enough for Leah to untie herself.

The two get into a fight, and it looks like Maggie is about to be killed, but Daryl shows up just in time to put a bullet in Leah’s head. As far as breakups go, that’s one of the worst, and the death itself is also hard to accept.

It turns out that we’re not the only ones sad about what happened to Leah. In a conversation with Insider, Collins said that she had “”I cried for like 45 minutes,” she said of her reaction to the death of her character. It was very sad to see how the character ended up.”

We’re sad, too, and not just because Leah is one of the best new characters on this long-running show. Collins says that what bothers us the most is how Leah died.

The Walking Dead is called that because people always die on the show, and if anything, not enough characters have died yet specially Leah in the lead-up to these last episodes. So, from that point of view, it’s good to see the stakes get higher in this way. Even a new fan favourite like Leah shouldn’t be safe in this world after the end of the world.

leah walking dead

But did things have to turn out this way?

Maggie’s plot armour, or the fact that she can always survive danger just because she’s a fan favourite, meant that Leah would die in this fight. Still, it seems cruel that Daryl was the one who shot the last person.

During her interview with Insider, Lynn said that there had been talk about someone other than Daryl pulling the trigger. Collins and Norman Reedus both wanted it to be him, though.

That makes sense in a way, since Leah’s story is tied to Daryl’s in a way that can’t be broken. After all, she’s only here because of him. And because their relationship has changed over time from lovers to friends to full-fledged enemies, it’s hard to think of anyone else who could kill her.

leah walking dead

But the questionable moment comes out of nowhere.

Not only does Daryl’s arrival come at a good time, but the way he kills her makes it impossible for them to figure out how they feel about each other. Leah and Daryl don’t get a chance to talk things over. In fact, Leah will never know that Daryl killed her.

Collins didn’t talk to the writers about any other options, but she did say in that Insider chat that this will probably be one of the most “controversial” parts of the show.

She’s right, too. Because, yes, you could say that Daryl didn’t have time to talk to Leah because Maggie was about to die. However, that scene still feels a little empty because so much of their shared history isn’t said.

The third and final part of season three should explain more about Leah’s death, especially what happened right after she died and what role Daryl played.

Who can say? The Walking Dead is all about bringing people back from the dead, so with Tales of the Walking Dead coming out soon, there’s still time to learn more about Leah story after she died.

Collins herself told us that she would be fine with that, but we don’t think Maggie, played by Lauren Cohan, would join her for another reunion.