The Walking Dead showrunner on that shocking Daryl-vs.-Maggie ending

Warning: This article contains spoilers about Sunday's episode of The Walking Dead, "No Other Way."

Is a Walking Dead civil war in the works? That was the question posed in the final moments of the zombie drama's return on Sunday night as a peek six months into the future showed what appeared to be Daryl and Maggie on very different sides of what could turn into an armed conflict. And it was not the only conflict between the two characters in the episode.

Earlier on, Daryl attempted to negotiate a truce with his former flame Leah and her band of Reapers. But after doing so, Maggie then killed a few of the soldiers as they were walking away and stuck a cleaver into their enemy Carver's chest. That rogue display was enough to convince Negan to leave the group before Maggie remembered the way he brutally murdered her husband and did the same to him next.

Later, Commonwealth soldiers arrived at Alexandria with Eugene to invite the inhabitants to join them in their fancy-shmancy community. After that invitation was extended, we jumped ahead six months to see Daryl in white Commonwealth military armor outside the Hilltop walls telling Maggie to "Open up" and that "It doesn't have to be this way." To which Maggie replied, "Yeah, yeah it does."

SAY WHAT?!? We spoke to showrunner Angela Kang in an attempt to get answers on all of the above and much more.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You have this scene between Gabriel and the priest where they argue about God speaking or not speaking to them. He asks Gabriel to take his hand and renew his faith, to which Gabriel stabs him. How is that act going to sit with him moving forward?

ANGLEA KANG: I think for Gabriel, we see that after this all plays out, there is this moment where he is talking with Daryl around a fireplace and he is in a kind of a contemplative place. So I do think that for Gabriel in this journey where he has been kind of questioning his relationship with God and with faith, it is so fundamentally a part of who he is. So that journey continues, but it might take an unexpected direction. I think as he kind of comes out of this asking: Who do I want to be going forward and what do I want this relationship with my faith to be?

Okay, while we're talking about big brutal acts, our group makes this deal with Leah after a sniper standoff to let them leave, and then Maggie changes her mind, walks over, shoots two Reapers dead and then sticks a cleaver into Carver's chest. Does she do this for Elijah or for herself? And how is that going to sit with her?

She is doing it for Elijah, for herself, for the people that she has lost along the way. But I think she is also doing it for her own people in a lot of ways. A lot is weighing on her. The deal makes her nervous. It does not sit well with her. She sort of reluctantly accepted it, but when she sees Elijah's pain, he is the stand in for all the people that were murdered by the Reapers.

And the other thing that is really echoing in her head is Negan talking to her and saying, "If I had to do it all again, I would have killed you all." And she knows that her people rose up, and got back against him. And so there is just a lot that is going on in her head.

And she just makes a split-second decision of: I think I have just got to wipe this threat out because, that is what needs to be done to right the scales. But also, do we want these people that are highly trained military people to chase us back? So she is doing it for everybody, but there is definitely an emotional element of seeing this young man in pain, knowing that he has lost his sister and all of his people that is driving her.

I love the way you guys had that conversation between Negan and Maggie pay dividends now down the road. And I guess we will jump to when Negan tells her that he is pretty sure she is going to take him out at some point. So he then takes off. First off, is he right? Would she take him out? And secondly, where is he going?

I don't know if he's right. I think that those two have a very complicated relationship, but the thing that he is right about is that Maggie has been in a place where Maggie decides in the moment. Maggie is not a team player right now. She is not at the peak of "Let's all agree and kumbaya, we're going to go forward." She went rogue, and she did that before, when she went to his jail cell and literally could have of killed him right there. And so for Negan, he is a smart guy and he is just doing the math and all it takes is one more really bad day and I could be gone. That guy is a survivor.

We sort of flipped the scene from the comic where Maggie comes upon Negan. And he is at the grave where he buried Lucille. We sort of copied that iconography, but flipped it since we already played the moment where Maggie had an opportunity to kill Negan. We just thought that that was an interesting situation where he could actually kill her there. He sort of has the drop on her.

But I think in their own way, they are making peace with each other by saying we should just not occupy the same spheres. And he's taking his destiny in his hand beyond that. want people to watch and see what happens next, but we will pick Negan back up in a very different context.

Does he have a destination in mind when he leaves, or is he just, "I've got to go find my own way somewhere."

I think in this scene, he is saying "I do not know where, I do not know what, but what I know is I have got to figure out what my path is." And so he is just going and he is going to see where the life takes him.

Maggie goes back to that church where she left Alden. Does she think there is any chance that dude is actually not dead or a zombie at that point? Does she kind of know what she is in for after she made that choice to leave him there?

I think that Maggie is a person who even through times of darkness holds hope and optimism in her heart. And a lot of that has been beat out of her. So I do think when she is going there, she is doing it knowing that it might be a thin chance. I think she really believes, maybe, maybe, maybe he is a strong guy. Maybe he has made it. But as she gets closer and closer, it's just something feels off, so I do think she is kind of bracing herself for the worst, but is hoping for the best. And then of course, she is just crushed by what she finds.

Jumping over to Daryl, he finds Leah after she runs and he lets her go. Have we seen the last of her? I am guessing not.

Just have to watch and see, I cannot say anything more than that.

Let's jump to the end. We see the Commonwealth soldiers show up at Alexandria and then we get a SIX MONTHS LATER title card and Daryl in Commonwealth armor at the Hilltop telling Maggie to open up. Maggie is saying that it doesn't have to be that way. A lot to unpack there. Let's start with the armor. What should we take from seeing Daryl as a Commonwealth solider?

Well, he has joined up with the troops and so we will find out shortly what that is all about, but he is now part of the Commonwealth army. So that definitely puts him in a different situation and potentially at odds with Maggie, who clearly in the time that has passed has either stayed or retreated to Hilltop. Whereas who knows where everybody else has landed.

So why is Maggie on the other side of that wall?

I will just say that, after having been kind of in lockstep for a lot of the start of the season, Maggie and Daryl, obviously kind of split ways in terms of like the decision making at the end of episode 9, and maybe that affects some things going forward.

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