After leaving the group season 9, Maggie returned to The Walking Dead in the bonus episodes of season 10 to continue her arc in season 11, filling in the blanks of what happened in her absence. With The Walking Dead's Whisperer War behind them, the survivors of Alexandria and Hilltop began rebuilding, with Maggie looking for a stable home to raise her son, Hershel, and offer some peace of mind to the people she's met on her travels. After years of not hearing much from Maggie, The Walking Dead character reunited with her friends just in time to wage war against the Reapers for season 11.
Prior to her in the nick of time return during the final throes of the Whisperer War, Maggie last appeared in The Walking Dead season 9 episode, "What Comes After." This is the episode in which Rick appears to die in a bridge explosion, and is followed by the show's six-year time jump. Maggie takes her son, Hershel, and leaves roughly a year before The Walking Dead picks up again after the time jump, meaning it's been somewhere between two to three years that Maggie was gone after leaving in TWD season 9.
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In that time, quite a lot has happened on The Walking Dead — the Whisperers conflict, Michonne's departure, the fall of Hilltop, and Negan being freed. Of course, a lot has happened to Maggie as well, and she detailed much of what she experienced to Daryl in The Walking Dead's season 10 episode, "Home Sweet Home." After officially reuniting with Daryl and the Alexandrians, The Walking Dead's Maggie has also been confronted with adverse situations throughout season 11. Here's everything Maggie has done since she left in The Walking Dead season 9:
Traveled With Georgie
With Hilltop prospering after The Walking Dead season 9, Maggie decided to leave with Hershel and Georgie, helping to bring the ideas found in her A Key to the Future to new communities. The Walking Dead's Maggie travels with Georgie and teaches new groups the skills necessary to thrive; concepts like rerouting water and building a forge that have helped Alexandria and Hilltop transform into more established communities. Each time, though, things fall apart and the communities don't last. During this period, Maggie corresponds with Hilltop via a drop-off point where letters are left for the two parties to collect. However, as time passes by after The Walking Dead season 9, Maggie visits the drop-point less and less and eventually stops going altogether.
Settled in Knoxville
About two years prior to Maggie's return in The Walking Dead season 10, she and Georgie help build up a community near Knoxville, Tennessee. While there, Georgie learns of another community out west and leaves to visit it, taking the twins along with her. The Walking Dead protagonist Maggie decides to stay behind in Knoxville, and she hasn't seen or heard from Georgie since. In time, the Knoxville community falls apart as well, sending Maggie and Hershel on the run ahead of her The Walking Dead season 10 return. It hasn't yet been revealed what caused the Knoxville community to collapse, be it an internal struggle among its residents or some outside force, but Maggie's telling clearly implies the memory is too painful to relive just now.
Visited The Ocean With Hershel
Following the end of The Walking Dead's Knoxville community, Maggie takes her and Glenn's son Hershel to her grandmother's place near the ocean. Maggie doesn't say exactly where this ocean-adjacent house is, but North Carolina seems likely considering it's just one state east of Tennessee. Her nana's house is also significant because The Walking Dead's Maggie explains it's somewhere she and Glenn had discussed visiting after Beth's TWD season 5 death, though they never got the chance. Maggie takes this as an opportunity to instead bring Hershel there and tell him about the family he never met. Inevitably, he asks about how his father died, and Maggie explains to him that a "bad man" murdered Glenn, AKA Negan. Hershel asks if that man got what he deserved, and though she doesn't tell Daryl how she responded, it's abundantly clear Maggie doesn't believe that he did. It's explained that Negan is the real reason Maggie left in The Walking Dead season 9, and that she hesitated to return because she didn't want to revisit her painful memories, nor introduce them to Hershel.
Joined The Wardens
The day after telling Hershel about his father's grim fate, he and Maggie meet a new group, The Wardens. It's unclear precisely where this meeting occurs, but it's presumably close to Meridian, The Wardens' original village, which is near Washington, DC. This community is where Maggie meets TWD's masked survivor Elijah and Cole, who accompany Maggie in The Walking Dead season 10. Given that she was in Knoxville roughly two years ago, Maggie may have been with this community for a whole year, but the exact time frame isn't entirely clear. Regardless, this community doesn't last long and is destroyed by The Walking Dead season 11's villains, the Reapers.
Attacked By The Reapers At Meridian
Just before reuniting with The Walking Dead's Alexandrians after season 9, Maggie's new group was destroyed by the Reapers. The hostile and well-supplied group preyed on other survivors' settlements, so they chose to take over Meridian ahead of The Walking Dead season 11. Following the Reapers' attack led by Pope, who later dies in TWD season 11, Maggie leads the survivors back towards Alexandria and Hilltop, where she stops again to receive the many letters she missed detailing the Whisperer War. In The Walking Dead season 10, Maggie arrives in the nick of time to help defeat The Whisperers, reuniting her with the group she left some two to three years prior.
Traveled To Meridian With Negan
The Walking Dead season 11 sees Maggie traveling back to Meridian alongside Negan, the reason she left in The Walking Dead season 9, Daryl, and a few others to retrieve desperately needed supplies for Alexandria. The group becomes separated after an attack by the Reapers and walker herd, in which Negan purposefully betrays Maggie and leaves her for dead. The Walking Dead shows that Maggie survived, so she and Negan head to Meridian where they reunite with Gabriel and Elijah. In order to defeat The Walking Dead's Reapers, which Daryl had semi-joined by this time, Maggie and Negan decide to disguise themselves as walkers and lead a herd to Meridian. Once there, the Reapers counterattack Maggie and her allies, with Daryl betraying the antagonists in order to save his friends. Picking up in The Walking Dead season 11 part 2, Maggie, Negan, Daryl, and Gabriel will return to Alexandria with their much-needed supplies.
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