Lauren Cohan reacts to Maggie and Negan's reunion on The Walking Dead

Warning: This article contains spoilers about Sunday's episode of The Walking Dead, "Home Sweet Home."

Reunited and it feels so… awkward. Maggie is finally back on The Walking Dead! And back in Alexandria to boot! Unfortunately, the guy who bashed her husband's face in with a baseball bat is there as well.

We got the Maggie-and-Negan reunion everyone has been waiting for in Sunday's episode, "Home Sweet Home," and it was as frosty as one might expect, with the former seeming to refuse to acknowledge the latter, whose feet must be simply killing him from all the pins and needles he was walking on in her presence. But how will Maggie (Lauren Cohan) react long-term to not only being in the same community as a freed Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), but also bringing her son, Hershel (Kien Michael Spiller), into that community with the man who murdered his father?

That question will remain front and center, especially after Maggie told Daryl (Norman Reedus) that she intentionally stayed away from home so she could avoid Negan, and that she never wanted to bring Hershel back into that environment. Well, now she has. We spoke to Cohan about being back on the show as a series regular, Maggie and Negan's big face-to-face, working with little Hershel, and what Maggie would have done if the sniper they captured had not killed himself and had not answered her questions.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You came back for a few scenes in what was supposed to be the season 10 finale. What was it like now being all the way back for a full episode here, and coming back with new COVID protocols to boot?

LAUREN COHAN: Yeah, it was new information all around. It was good. Obviously in what was going to be the finale, what we saw was just a glimpse. And for Maggie, she was kind of riding high on seeing people and getting to the group at a good moment. But then as we get into this [part of season 10], we start to see a little bit of the darkness behind that first flutter of excitement.

And it was awesome. I mean, I got to come back and be with Norman and Melissa [McBride], and it was really, really a nice thing for me because, especially for Norman and I, we haven't had that many episodes to go on a deep dive and a deep journey together, and we got to actually do that in this one. So it was great. It was like everything that we've loved about the show. And then for Maggie, she's changed a hell of a lot being out in a way. So that's something that we start to tease, as you guys have seen this episode, but there's a lot to come.

We see Maggie seeing Negan for the first time here. She tells Daryl at one point that she left home because she couldn't have Negan taking up any more space in her head, and that she didn't want to bring Hershel back to that. Now she's back, so what does that mean for her psyche moving forward?

I think it's part of what we got to see in that episode, is that Maggie sees Negan but she didn't say anything to him. She has this tightly locked box of everything that could be unleashed that you can't even prepare to open without unexpected consequences and fallout and reactions. And she obviously gets to share some of this with Daryl, but Negan is definitely going to manipulate in any way that he can and that he sees fit to try to have a place to be in this world. That's how he developed his whole crew in the first place. That's how he's always conducted himself. And I think that another big part of this for her is just as important as the revenge in dealing with him now being there is, I have to put my son first.

I've obviously been driven back here for a reason. I was hoping to go to the Hilltop. It's not a viable option, and I don't have anywhere else to go. We get to learn a lot more of why. But I find that just such a relatable thing for what I would imagine for any mother. It's just like, cool, but I have to take care of this first. And that's a big part of attention throughout the season, is yeah, we see him and there's so much underneath that, but what is the main priority? And then we're only human. How much do we really do the right thing all the time?

Maggie finds this sniper in the woods who is apparently part of this group the Reapers, and she says to answer her questions or she'll kill him. He then doesn't give her the chance and blows himself up instead. Had he not done that and stayed silent, what do you think Maggie does there? She's in the heat of the moment, watched her friends die. Does she take him out?

Torture. I think they go about doing what they need to extract the information. He's obviously shaken her up and shaken up these people that she's with to a point that she can't even speak about it yet. And they're just this invisible threat that's sort of coming, seeming to come out of nowhere. So she's got a bunch of friends with her, it's a perfect opportunity to get creative with how she gets information out of him.

Finally, what's it like working with Kien Michael Spiller, who is playing little Herschel? Obviously it's very emotional for viewers to see this character. What's it like for you on set working with him?

He is so entertaining. He is just the best conversationalist. He has so many theories about what you would really do in this situation. It requires so few prompts for me. He's got a lot of ideas about everything. It's very entertaining. We have so much dead time between setups and stuff sometimes, and he's just really funny. He's just a really, really bright and funny kid. [Showrunner Angela Kang] wanted somebody that carried on this spirit of Glenn [Steven Yeun], and it was a bright spot for the characters on the show. And yeah, we have a lot of good to come with him. It's going to be fun.

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