With Maggie gone and Jesus dead, Hilltop needed a leader and she was there to take up the mantle. I wanted to believe that Jesus’s death was meant to propel Tara further into the spotlight in Maggie’s absence. Instead of leaning into the potential of Jesus’s character and letting the comic book romance he has with Aaron come to fruition against the backdrop of the upcoming Whisper War in season ten, he was killed off.

According to an interview with Insider, they had done so little with his character in prior seasons that he’d become bored and expressed his frustration during season eight. My first red flag should have gone up when gay character Jesus was killed in the mid-season finale, because of actor Tom Payne’s comments after he left the show. Unfortunately, while building the inevitable conflict with these new foes over the course of the latest season, two of the three longest recurring queer characters were killed off. She’s a bald menace and the leader of a demented group of survivors who wear the skin of the dead in order to blend into the zombie hordes and prey upon their enemies. The ninth season of The Walking Dead laid the foundation for the war with the Whisperers and brought to life the most terrifying villain from the comics - Alpha, who is played masterfully by Samantha Morton.

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