Resurrected The Walking Dead star Lauren Cohan tells Conan her best zombie kill nicknames
Anyone still watching the seemingly unkillable The Walking Dead in its tenth season was greeted to a big return last week, as Lauren Cohan’s Maggie returned to her original zombie apocalypse survivor family. As Dead-heads know, Maggie’s stalwart ass-kicker left after the seeming (and frankly underwhelming) death of Andrew Lincoln’s series protagonist Rick Grimes, and, while the return of a long-lived and enduringly popular character was housed in something of a so-so episode, at least Maggie’s still a human, which is nice. At least if your name’s not Negan, as the episode saw Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s sneering former baddie and head-basher greeting the understandably frosty Maggie with a taken aback, “Well, shit.”
As well he should, as the fallout from Negan’s truly grisly and, for some, series-despoiling baseball bat-murder of Maggie’s husband Glenn (and scene-stealing badass Abraham) a few seasons ago isn’t something the steely Maggie is likely to shrug off going forward. Appearing on Wednesday’s Conan, Cohan did note that getting your skull smashed in on The Walking Dead isn’t all bad, as the cast went all out for Steven Yeun and Michael Cudlitz at the traditional sorry-we-murdered-you cast party. Conan showed off a picture of the (surviving) cast all donning fake ginger Abraham mustaches in honor of Cudlitz, while much of the cast did an elaborately choreographed farewell rendition of Backstreet Boys “I Want It That Way” for karaoke fanatic Yeun. (Apparently there is a video, but Cohan said nobody’s ever, ever going to see that.)
As for her live return to The Walking Dead, Cohan naturally wasn’t spoiling anything about the future. But, thanks to a Conan staffer’s editing efforts, the former Whiskey Cavalier star did happily guide Conan through some of her finest zombie kills. Honestly, it’s too short a video for all the walker-slaughter Maggie’s dished out over the post-apocalyptic years, but, still, it’s good to know that Walking Dead cast members get all nostalgic about their best acts of undead-violence. Taking Conan through her repertoire, Cohan pointed out the “waffle maker,” the “shish kabob” (works even for zombies not named Bob), and the “hearing aid” for the rare but satisfying double-eardrum skewer. And don’t get Cohan started on her improvised municipal signpost slashings, called, naturally, the “obey street signs.” Yeah, Negan had better watch his smarmy ass.