Did Lauren Cohan Just Hint That ‘The Walking Dead’ Will Make TV History By Killing Rick?

Walking Dead fans are bombarded daily with new theories and spoilers about who will die in the season finale of The Walking Dead, as the cast has already let us know there will be a brutal death at the hands of Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). But did Lauren Cohan, who plays Maggie on the series, just give away a huge spoiler as to which character will die? If she did, Walking Dead fans may be in for the surprise of their lives.

According to ET, Cohan was talking about the season finale while walking the red carpet for the premiere of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice when she may have let slip a major clue as to who will die in the season finale of The Walking Dead and just how epic the shockwaves could be.

“It’s the biggest finale I’ve ever seen in television — in any episode of TV — maybe barring the last episode of The Sopranos, but that’s a different kind of fish.”

It’s only one sentence, but Cohen says a lot in those 29 words. Hint: If you’re thinking Daryl, Carol, Maggie, or Glenn, you may be on the wrong track and can breathe a short-lived sigh of relief. But the death this implies might be much worse than any of those characters.

First of all, when you talk about the biggest finale of all time in television, that’s a pretty high standard to reach for, especially when you consider that The Walking Dead is doing a season finale, not the finale of the show itself. There aren’t many deaths that could rise to that level of making history, so that narrows things down a bit. One possibility is that Negan kills baby Judith with his baseball bat, but even as twisted as Walking Dead writers can be at times, it’s almost impossible to imagine something like that getting past TV censors based on the violence alone. It’s also a stretch calling it “history-making” even though it would be the first time on television an infant character was murdered so brutally.

There’s only one other character death on The Walking Dead that could be considered history-making in terms of television itself. Is there any TV show that’s ever killed off its lead character before the end of the series? (Jon Snow on Game of Thrones is only one of multiple lead characters, so that doesn’t count.) Yes, we’re talking the possibility that The Walking Dead may kill off Rick (Andrew Lincoln) at the hands of Negan. This also brings us to the second part of Cohan’s quote, comparing the season finale to The Sopranos.

In the series finale of The Sopranos, the last shot shows Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) sitting in a restaurant with his family and the screen goes to black. Many fans were confused by the ambiguous ending, and to this day, creator David Chase refuses to give a straight answer as to whether Tony died, but most fans and even actors on the series believe a shady character that entered the restaurant whacked Tony.

Out of all the shows on television to cite, does Cohan’s choice of The Sopranos hint that The Walking Dead may be ready to kill off its leading man, Rick? Killing off the lead character before the end of the series would definitely rise to the level of being history-making. Producers and writers have said many times that no one is safe on the show, so they’ve never ruled it out, and that would certainly be a game-changer in the world of television.

Something else Walking Dead fans may want to consider is that every season prior to this one, the cast photo shows Rick prominently out front as the leader of the group. But this season, Rick is out front with Morgan (Lennie James) giving them equal weight within the cast photo. Could The Walking Dead be setting up fans for a new group leader and a new leading man?

Still not convinced it’s possible? The two actors who have talked most about the impact of the season finale on them personally are Cohan and Lincoln. While there is definitely a very plausible theory that Maggie will be killed by Negan, if it’s Rick that dies in the Walking Dead season finale, it would certainly give context to what he told EW about filming that episode.

“I felt sick to my stomach when I read the script. It was the first day in the whole six years of working on The Walking Dead that I was late for work because I woke up in the middle of the night and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I was so angry and frustrated and I felt sick. And that was just after reading it.”

What do you think Walking Dead fans? Could Rick be the one to die in the season finale? And can The Walking Dead move on without him if he does?

[Image via Gene Page/AMC]