What happened to Maggie in (and before) The Walking Dead season 10 finale?

So what happened to her? Read on for everything you need to know, and a warning that the rest of this article will reveal some pretty major spoilers for The Walking Dead season 10 finale.

How did Maggie leave The Waking Dead?

Prior to her appearance in this episode, Maggie Rhee's whereabouts had been unknown since she was last in the show back in series nine.

In that season, she had been in full command of the Hilltop, but was showing signs of struggling to deal with the death of her husband Glenn - and was still keen for revenge against his murderer Negan.

Going against Rick Grimes' plan to give Negan a second chance, Maggie took it into her own hands to kill Negan and headed to find him in his jail cell. However, while she was there she had a change of heart: she reckoned letting him live with his actions while begging for death was a more fitting punishment.

This was more or less the last things we saw of Maggie - after the six-year time jump that proceeded Rick's apparent death she was nowhere to be seen, implied to have left the Hilltop at some point in the intervening time.

What happened to Maggie in The Walking Dead season 10 finale?

Maggie arrived back at just the right time in the finale, bravely rescuing Father Gabriel from a Zombie, with a black-masked special soldier alongside her after she had earlier been seen reading a note that told her, "You need to come back."

Afterwards, Maggie embraced Gabriel and was later reunited with Judith Grimes (Cailey Fleming).

Actress Cohan has said Maggie will have to face some of the ghosts she left behind when she first departed the community, telling The Hollywood Reporter, "I think her relationships with everybody at home is extremely complicated, as I'm sure people can imagine."

She continued, "There was the difficulty of trying to remain there and carry on with your life with Negan being, even if he was in prison, he was there and alive. And it was so much to contend with. But these letters from Carol ultimately have to override any reasons that she may have had for leaving.

"And there were positive reasons too; it wasn't just about removing herself from the place where Negan was. It was also going to explore, and going to keep the fire and hope alive for herself. Going to witness the ingenuity of things that people like Georgie (Jayne Atkinson) did and could teach her, and that she could bring back to the group. And then just an exploration for herself."

Where had Maggie been between seasons 9 and 10?

Earlier in the season, it had been explained that Maggie was off with Georgie travelling the countryside while attempting to learn new ways in which society might be rebuilt.

Precisely what she's been doing all this time is a bit of a mystery but it's likely we'll find out more in due course: it's been confirmed that her appearance in the season 10 finale won't be the last we see of Maggie, with Cohan herself revealing she was preparing to shoot the six extra season 10 episodes.

And showrunner Angela Kang recently teased that we could get to find out more about what Maggie has been up, telling RadioTimes.com and other media the extra episodes "dive really deeply into some of these characters that we have. It’s a kind of focused, almost more anthology-like storytelling in some of them."

And she added, "I’ll say that we will get to learn some things about Maggie."

Well, we're definitely intrigued.

The Walking Dead season 10, episode 16 A Certain Doom airs on Monday, 5th October at 9pm on FOX in the UK – check out what else is on with our TV Guide.