Former The Walking Dead actress Emily Kinney, who played Beth Greene, says she'd welcome a return to the show. Considering that it’s a show about survival after the zombie apocalypse, it’s no surprise that The Walking Dead features one of the highest body counts in all of television. But just because a character dies on the show, that’s no guarantee they will never be seen or heard from again.
Indeed, TWD has made something of a tradition of bringing back dead characters long after the fact, usually via dream sequence or flashback. In season 9 alone, the show found occasion to resurrect Shane, Hershel and Sasha, with Hershel’s dream sequence revival being particularly poignant as it aired after the death of actor Scott Wilson. In season 10, a long-dead Andrea came back for an alternate timeline flashback that imagined a different course for Michonne, one in which she never joined up with Rick Grimes’ group and instead ended up as one of Negan’s Saviors.
Now, former TWD actor Kinney has speculated on her own opportunity for a return to the series. Appearing on Instagram show Let’s Stay Together (via Tommy DiDiario), Kinney said she would come back to The Walking Dead as deceased character Beth if there was some way to make it happen:
"I mean, I did get shot in the head. But I mean, I loved the show, I loved working on it. It makes me so happy to be a part of it, I'm very proud of being a part of that show. So it's not out of [the question] … if there was some way, sure."
Kinney of course arrived on the series in season 2 as Hershel’s daughter and Maggie’s sister Beth, and stayed on-board until season 5 when she endured a storyline where she was taken in by former police officers surviving in an abandoned hospital and held captive until being shot while struggling with one of her captors. Beth did actually already return in a sense in season 9 when her voice was heard and her corpse was seen during Rick Grimes’ near-death hallucination (Rick of course lived and will himself return in a future Walking Dead movie).
With Beth’s sister Maggie getting set to return to the show full-time in season 11 after a long hiatus as actress Lauren Cohan pursued other opportunities, it would seem the chances should be there for a more substantive return for Kinney, via flashback. Indeed, TWD producer Scott Gimple recently teased the possibility of more dead characters returning, perhaps in a limited series, in episodes that flesh out their backstories. Beth’s backstory would already seem to be pretty filled out given that the character spent several seasons on the show, but perhaps there is more there for the show to explore. Of course, flashback and dream sequence returns can easily come off clumsy and hollow if there’s no compelling story-based reason for them to happen. Ultimately, it makes little sense to bring back a relatively minor character just to see them again, especially if it’s someone fans never loved all that much to begin with (and Beth certainly had her haters when she originally appeared on The Walking Dead).
Source: Tommy Didario/Instagram