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Walking Dead producers say Maggie’s exit altered Dante’s storyline

Dante on The Walking Dead
Angela Kang talks Dante on The Walking Dead. Pic credit: AMC

On the last episode of The Walking Dead, Father Gabriel killed Dante, taking out another long-time survivor from the comics in a very different manner.

As we previously reported, Dante lived to the very end of The Walking Dead comic book series and was never a Whisperers spy. The TV show changed all that and showrunner Angela Kang has explained why.

Maggie’s departure changed Dante’s storyline

See, in The Walking Dead comic books, Dante and Maggie ended up in a relationship. In both the comics and TV show, Negan killed Glenn and Maggie went on with her life.

She became the strong leader of The Hilltop on the same level as Rick Grimes in Alexandria. She also moved on with her life and started her romantic relationship with Dante.

However, Lauren Cohan chose to leave The Walking Dead to try to front her own network television show with Whiskey Cavalier. That didn’t work out as ABC canceled that show after one season.

Now, Cohan is returning to The Walking Dead and Maggie is coming back. The problem is that it is too late to bring that Maggie/Dante relationship to the small screen.

“It came about in a funny way. We talked about introducing Dante as a character a few times over the years. It never happened,” Kang explained to The Hollywood Reporter.

Then when Cohan announced she was leaving the show, it looked like there would never be a need to bring in Dante. However, with the Whisperers War, it gave Kang and the writers an idea.

“In the comic, sometimes he’s a charming rogue, or you can see him as an annoying a**hole,” Kang said. “Is there something darker underneath, this pushing of people’s buttons, going a little further than they need to in a situation?”

That led them to decide to completely change Dante’s story. Since he and Maggie would never hook up, it allowed The Walking Dead to make him a spy and have him kill another fan favorite who lived to the end of the comics in Siddiq.

“We got to talking about how people want to inherently trust doctors and people who are educated, even though there are so many sociopaths among high-achieving people,” Kang explained. “We started from that place.”

The Walking Dead will return to AMC in February for the second half of its 10th season.

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