‘The Walking Dead’ Showrunners Hire Margot Bingham To Usher In ‘The Commonwealth’

When The Walking Dead finally kicks off its 11th season, it will have a brand-new actor among the cast. Margot Bingham was officially added on Monday, according to Anthony D’Alessandro of Deadline, and he thinks she’s going to play a key character in the upcoming storyline.

Neither The Walking Dead showrunners nor AMC representatives are talking about who the actor will portray, but D’Alessandro thinks she’ll play Stephanie. The character is one the actor has already played as an offscreen voice that Josh McDermitt’s Eugene Porter forms a bond with via mysterious conversations over the radio.

If Bingham is indeed going to be Stephanie, it would underline what The Walking Dead showrunners have said will be a shift in setting and focus. Earlier this summer, Angela Kang told the media about a shift from rural settings to a more urban feel moving forward.

Most of the series has taken place in the country or small towns. Season 11 of The Walking Dead is reportedly set to feature more city life.

Cameron Bonomolo of ComicBook said the new addition could mean fans of The Walking Dead will get to see one of the more popular characters and settings in the late stages of the comic book storyline. The character could usher in the appearance of “The Commonwealth” in the very near future.

In the graphic novel, the woman is a member of a group of more than 50,000 survivors of the zombie apocalypse. With a group that size, it takes an iron fist to lead them. The only thing more impressive than the number of people who managed to avoid getting eaten by a horde of zombies is the size of the army that works to keep everyone in line.

The Commonwealth is based in Ohio in the graphic novel, but it’s thought that the tv version of The Walking Dead will have the city-sized community in West Virginia. If this is where the story is going, it means fans will likely also be introduced to the militant leader, Pamela, who uses a massive army to keep her people in line.

In the book, Eugene and Stephanie eventually become more than friends, forging a long-lasting romance. The relationship eventually helps him grow into even more of a central influencer to civilization’s resurgence and eventual rebuild.

While the graphic novel’s run came to an end a few years ago, the AMC version of The Walking Dead is still going strong. It’s unknown when viewers will get their first look at Bingham in the series, as AMC is still trying to figure out if they’ll first try and officially wrap up Season 10 after it was cut short due to the coronavirus pandemic.