48. Daryl shot his former love interest, Leah, in the back of the head.
Leah was killed off in season 11, episode 16.
Jace Downs/AMC
This death doesn’t rank higher because it was pretty obvious that Leah’s days on “TWD” were numbered when she lost all of her Ravager family members in season 11 episodes eight and nine.
As showrunner Angela Kang told Insider, she was “exceeded” in this point.
What surprised us was that Leah got a quick death with Daryl shooting her without any last words of parting between them. If that disappointed him or caught him off guard, Kang told Insider that they considered an iteration of that scene where the two exchanged words.
However, Norman Reedus was interested in it being a quick death.
“Norman, it really felt like, ‘I don’t even think I have anything else to say to her. If I walk in and see Maggie in danger, I’d take her out right then.'” Kang told Insider.
“In this case, we also wanted to respect the actor’s feelings about where he felt his character was at that moment in the story,” he added. “So yeah, there could have been an iteration with more conversation, but I think this iteration makes sense as well.”
collins told Insider It was really hard to keep Leah’s death a secret since she joined the series in the fall of 2020. She always knew her character would eventually die.
“There are some people who are really upset that this character has gone like her. [has] and I can’t hold their hands through the process,” Collins said of Leah. “There’s a sense of great pride that the work I did affected people so deeply.”
