Lauren Cohan reacts to Maggie going rogue on The Walking Dead

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

Maggie has been a woman on a mission ever since she returned to The Walking Dead at the end of season 10. That mission was revenge, and she exacted it in brutal fashion on Sunday's episode, "No Other Way."

After Daryl (Norman Reedus) appeared to broker a truce between our heroes and the Reapers (now led by Daryl's former flame Leah) to allow both sides to go their separate ways, Maggie (Lauren Cohan) went rogue, shooting some Reapers dead and then sticking a cleaver right into her enemy Carver's chest. It was payback for the pain and death inflicted by the group of military-trained baddies on Maggie's previous group, the Wardens.

However, the move also scared Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) enough to leave the group before Maggie could once again administer payback on him for what he did to her husband with a baseball bat. The drama for Maggie was far from over. She also returned to the church where she had left a wounded Alden (Callan McAuliffe), only to find her friend a zombie who needed to be put out of his misery.

But the biggest shocker was saved for last as a time jump six months into the future showed Commonwealth soldiers arriving at the Hilltop and demanding that Maggie open the gate. And the person doing the demanding while donning white Commonwealth armor was none other than… Daryl?!

What's the beef between Maggie and the Commonwealth? Why did she take out all those Reapers? And what exactly did she expect to find when returning to that church? We asked Cohan all that and more.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: First off, what was it like filming that crazy hallway fight scene with you, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Okea Eme-Akwari, and Alex Meraz? There's a lot going on there.

LAUREN COHAN: Yeah, that was so much fun. I have to say that all in all, this is one of the most fun episodes I've ever had on this show. Between episode 8 and this is so much action. This sequence felt very visceral to be in this tiny little hallway, and Alex is a great fighter. Everybody obviously had stunt people supporting us, but we did a lot of that stuff, and Alex can be so menacing and scary. Even with three of us versus him, we still get a beatdown. I mean, that's the most beaten-up I think we've seen Maggie. And there was the crack to Okea's leg, and all this kind of stuff.

One piece that wasn't in the final cut which was great is that there's a moment when Negan disappears. We shot a piece where you sort of go back to Maggie and you think that she thinks he's actually left. And the feeling of that was definitely there on the day, like, are you going to meet your maker? And then, you know, the evil Negan comes back with a bell to just to ring-a-ling save it all. But it was great fun. There was a lot of chiropractic adjustment afterwards.

Later, Daryl stops Maggie from killing Carver and this deal gets made with Leah to let them leave. But then Maggie looks at Elijah, changes her mind, and starts killing everybody. What's behind that move to just say "screw it" and take those dudes out?

There's that promise that Maggie makes to Elijah, and we have seen the horrors that the Reapers have inflicted on our people. There is a calm that Maggie finds briefly. And when Daryl comes in and says, "This isn't going to benefit us in the long run," we can kind of take this step back and trust that he's making the decisions for the right reasons.

But in the end, there's the duty that she has to Elijah, who at so many different intervals in the episode tries to even the scales to take vengeance for his sister's death against Carver. He's literally physically snapped, and just broken and prevented from doing it. And I think that were it not for him needing it and wanting it so bad, might she have not given into that? We don't know.

There was also another thing that I found interesting, in reflection, when Maggie and Negan have this scene in an earlier episode and we're eating squirrel and Negan says to her very shockingly, "The thing I would've changed is to have killed you all." And it's obviously horrid that he says that to her, and it just makes you question all the leeway and all the progress that he has made— has he just kind of undone it?

But regardless of the idea coming from him, the rationale as a leader, knowing that people who have already proven to you that they put themselves and their family first at the expense of anything that you cherish, and they've already proven to be the threat that they are, where one of them has taken out three of us in this corridor of crazy… how can I in this position of leadership that I'm supposed to be in not eliminate that threat?

So for him to be literally beaten to the ground down on the pavement begging me to do this for him… who knows? But I think that there was always going be a part of me that needed to do it and to see it through.

And this connects back to a later scene where Negan says he's pretty sure she's going to take him out at some point too for what he did to her husband, so he leaves. What do you think eventually happens there if he stays?

I think the writers have done such an excellent job this season of introducing the hurdle for each of the characters that we will battle all of season 11, because right at the beginning I say to him, "It never leaves my mind." But the fact for Maggie is that once you let yourself take that one step further into the dark side, how much harder is it going to be to come back, and are you the person that you want to be?

And not just the person that you want to be, because I don't think we completely have that luxury, but how do you stop it then? So it takes everything in her control and it is this constant balancing of impulses to not just kill him. How could she not? How could you face the person every single day that did that?

Maggie goes back to the church were she left Alden, who has turned into a walker while she was away. What do you think she's expecting to find there?

John Amiel, who directed this episode and episode 10, and I had talked about that and how much more it hurts when you, as the character and as the viewer, hope you're opening the door to see your friend and you're anticipating this wonderful reunion and feeling of joy. And after everything that we see happen up to the point that she returns to the church, she's like, "Please let there be some good news!"

She probably knows that there might not be, but you have to give yourself the license to hope just a bit in this world still. That scene was just heartbreaking. It was so sad to me that Callan McAuliffe actually was leaving the show because I just love that guy. He's just so much fun. He's such an intelligent, hysterical friend, and building Maggie and Alden's friendship during this season was really enjoyable and satisfying. So she sort of saved one brother but lost another. It's what makes the show good, but it sucks.

Okay, we get the "Six Months Later" title card and see the Commonwealth soldiers show up at the Hilltop and Daryl in Commonwealth armor telling Maggie to open up. Why is Maggie on the other side of that wall?

It's more about why is Daryl on the other side of that wall? [Laughs] We see Lance Hornsby, and his suit is way too clean for him, from the outset. Our people have every reason not to trust someone like that. I love that moment [when they first show up at Alexandria]. You know, Gabriel's face shows so much. And when Jerry calls from the gate, yells, "Something's coming!" it's just like, come on! What else can possibly happen?

So at the end, that's what I'm very excited for the audience to look forward to, because what could possibly transpire in only six months to have those two on different sides of the wall? And we will find out.

Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.

Related content:

• Tales of the Walking Dead casts a bunch of famous people
• Warning: Carol is baking cookies again in The Walking Dead trailer
• The Walking Dead showrunner on that fiery cliffhanger
• The Walking Dead just introduced a total Jerky McJerkface
• The Walking Dead showrunner on creating the horror house from hell
• The Walking Dead's Commonwealth set is built where the Sanctuary and the prison used to be