'The Walking Dead' Postmortem: Ross Marquand Talks Aaron's Guilt, Maggie's Big Reveal, and Hope for Glenn

Warning: Spoilers ahead for the “Now” episode of The Walking Dead.

He’s responsible for bringing Rick and his group into Alexandria, but while viewers may be able to see the big picture – i.e. how the townsfolk wouldn’t have even had a chance of surviving the quarry walkers and the Wolves without the savvy and skills of the Ricktatorship – Aaron’s friends and neighbors still aren’t totally sold on the Rick way of life in the new world. That’s just adding to the guilt that recruiter Aaron feels about his role in the town’s recent tragedies (see: quarry walkers and Wolves), and it’s at least part of what sent him off on a Glenn-finding mission with Maggie in “Now.”

Aaron’s portrayer, Ross Marquand, talked to Yahoo TV about Aaron’s heartbreak over the Wolves finding those pictures, Maggie’s major revelation to him in “Now,” and whether or not he regrets bringing Rick and the others into the Alexandria community.

He also hints that we shouldn’t expect the pace to slow down at all in the run up to the Nov. 29 midseason finale, and expresses sincere sadness about the death of Glenn… you know, for those who believe Glenn’s really dead.

Aaron is different from the other characters in that he has the hopefulness of Deanna, but he also has that practicality that Rick has in acknowledging there are certain things you have to do if you’re going to survive.
I agree. I like to think he’s a great mix of Morgan and Rick. Because Morgan always tries to find the good in people, and he always tries to give people the benefit of the doubt. But where Morgan and Aaron differ is that if Aaron finds that people are not good, and if they don’t have good intentions, he’s happy to dispatch them as fast as possible. If they prove themselves to be violent or harmful to the rest of his community, he’s going to take them out, very much like Rick.

He’s toeing that fine line of idealism and optimism, and then flat-out practicality and pragmatism that Rick has. Like he says over and over again, Rick doesn’t take chances. When he feels a threat, when he assesses a threat, it’s a knee-jerk reaction at this point. There’s no talking about it. There’s no discussion to be had. It’s interesting, because it’s very much like Shane’s character in Season 2. His arc definitely came very close to what we’re seeing from Rick now.

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He’s very supportive of Rick, especially in this episode, and he tries to rally the rest of the Alexandrians behind Rick. But do you think there’s any part of Aaron that is regretting bringing Rick and the group in?
I think for him, he sees the causality of it all. He is literally the reason why they are there, but at the same time, he was on board with Rick’s plan, and he does support him. I think that obviously he wishes that plan had gone differently… it’s divided everybody, and now they’ve finally regrouped, but they found that so many of their numbers have dwindled because of this terrible attack.

There’s a part of him that I think feels completely responsible for it, and certainly for bringing in Rick and his group. But at the same time, I think he also acknowledges that he is a good man and he is doing his best. Had the plan worked out, it would have been wonderful, but because walkers are walkers and humans are humans, there’s always going to be some variable that brings it all tumbling down horribly.

There is a theory by a lot of fans that Enid is connected to the Wolves. If that turns out to be true, it doesn’t matter that they found the photos; they would have already known about Alexandria.
Right, exactly. I think that’s going to be addressed as time goes on, too, but there is a very popular theory like you said, that Enid is very much responsible for the attack.

Aaron was so heartbroken to find the photos, and he continues to carry so much guilt. How is that going to change him going forward?
I think what the pictures represented for him more than anything is this acknowledgement that the world is a lot smaller than he ever thought before, that there are these warring tribes relatively close to his township that they have to worry about, and they have to be thinking about them as time goes on. I think Aaron’s not looking at this as a wholly negative thing … a horrible lesson, for sure, but a lesson that he is going to learn from, and one that he is going to make amends for. Moving forward, he’s just going to move from being the recruiter. He’s going to put that on the back burner for a little bit, and he’s going to move to a position of really taking on a role as a defender of the community, and really becoming a soldier in Rick’s army.

Specific to this episode, what really draws Aaron to go off with Maggie? Is it seeing those names on the wall? That seemed to really get to him.
Yeah, and I think it is just this shared pain that both of them have. Aaron is motivated specifically by his guilt and his shame over what has happened, but I think they also share this incredibly immense pain, and they’re looking at each other and seeing this sadness in each other and saying, “Let’s do something with it. Let’s be proactive about this horrible thing and turn our sadness into something positive.” I think that’s really the right choice for both of them in that moment.

Does he agree with her in the end when she decides to turn back?
I think so, because in that moment, Aaron finally realizes that Maggie is not just fighting for herself or for Glenn anymore. She has to keep in mind that she’s got a child inside of her, and I think as a mother, that maternal instinct just kicks in for her, and she’s all of a sudden saying to herself, “Wait a minute. What am I doing?”

Before, it looked like it was more feasible, that it was just a few walkers [around] the sewer. Now we’re looking at literally a hundred walkers that we have to push through to get to where we want to go. Even then, there’s no certain chance of success there. We could be walking ourselves into another trap, too. I think for her, in that moment when we’re at the gate and Aaron’s unlocking it and about to open that door, she realizes the weight of everything and says, “Stop.” Aaron immediatly hears what she’s saying and understands and sympathizes, and the only thing that he can do is just hug her as fast as he can. There are no words that can be exchanged at this point. That’s a bittersweet and heartbreaking admission, and it’s both a wonderful thing to have a child, but also in this world, it’s so risky and it’s so terrifying to even conceptualize the notion of bringing a child into this world.

Photos: ‘The Walking Dead’ Dead: Where Are They Now?

Do you think they’re both ultimately hopeful about Glenn’s situation, when they go back and they start erasing names off of the wall?
I do. I do. That’s the wonderful message, I think, of this show in general, is that no matter what happens, until we see it with our own eyes, and even then, let’s persevere. Let’s keep going, no matter what, because there are people that we know and love who are depending on us. I think both of them in that moment, it’s a symbolic gesture to say, “We’re not giving up hope … We’re not saying that we agree with this, or that we’ve admitted certain death for our friend and our loved ones. We are going to maintain a stance of positivity, and we’re going to hold out hope that these people are still going to make it.”

What is Aaron thinking when Maggie tells him she’s pregnant? Does he feel like a bombshell has been dropped on him?
Oh, yeah. I also imagine that this is the first person that she had told … This admission is so insane. Of course, he’s going to keep this from everybody until she wants to go public with it, but she was the first person that met Aaron. Last season, she and Sasha were the ones that met Aaron in the forest, and they’ve known each other the longest of anyone in Rick’s group. I think during that time, they’ve gotten to know each other. They bonded, and that’s the greatest thing that we’ve seen about their relationship, is that she does trust him and she’s saying, “I need you to help me get back, because I wasn’t thinking clearly about this. We need to get back so that I can protect my child.”

I love the moment where he embraces her, and they’re framed in the background by all this death and all this destruction, literally reaching for them. They’re framed by this totally disturbing site of absolute decay and death around them, and they’re saying, “No, we’re not going to die today. We’re not going to let this devour us. We’re going to keep going.”

Where did you film the sewer scenes? Was it down in an actual old sewer?
No, but I’m glad you said that, because it certainly did look like it, didn’t it? Our production team, to this day, I’m still blown away by what they’re able to construct and put together, especially on such a tight schedule. They essentially constructed an entire conduit — massive sewer pipes that went the entire length of our soundstage. And it was really ingenious how they cut away certain sections of the corrugated steel so they could pop in with a camera. There were certain sections that had to be a little deeper so that when I fall back and almost get eaten by the huge walker, it looks like we’re both submerged, and I’m trying to find my knife and everything. Yeah, it was incredible, and what they filled the sewage with was ground-up oatmeal, candy bars, egg yolks, and paint chips to really create that look of actual sewage. I remember just walking in there, looking at Lauren [Cohan], and saying, “This feels like a real sewer.” Truthfully, it smelled like a real sewer, too.

We’re really getting deeper with Aaron. That scene in “JSS,” after the attack in Alexandria where he finds the bag with the photos: You can see everything rushing through his mind, that he’s putting the weight of it all on his own shoulders. What was that scene like to film?
It was pretty intense. We were losing light. We almost weren’t able to film it because it was sundown, and the rest of the crew had been shooting for well over 12 or 14 hours, I think, at that point. We were really fighting the sunlight, and it was towards the end of the episode, so it was looking like we might have to nix it, and luckily our incredible crew just got everything lit as fast as they possibly could. I think we only got one or two takes of that scene.

Personally, I love how that came together. I think it was a mixture of just working fast and everyone being on their A-game that was able to create the world that we needed to put together, and the wonderful stunt man who took the knife to the head. I felt so bad, because I tossed him aside so harshly, but he was incredible and such a great sport about it. It was a really tough scene to shoot, probably one of the tougher scenes that I’ve ever had to do … you had to say so much without saying anything, and going through those pictures over and over again in my mind before we shot it was really helpful in just getting into the mindset of acknowledging that these people, these savages, have come here because of my mistake.

I’m sure you know that people are very anxious about the way the timeline is shifting this season, and when we’ll find out about Glenn. What was your reaction when you read the story for the first half of the season?
My first reaction, honestly, was: This is so sad because, one, I love Glenn. I think he’s one of the best characters in the show, because he is so optimistic, because he’s very much a window character for Aaron, too. He’s constantly looking for the good in people and wants to redeem people who have even tried to kill him, like Nicholas. What an incredible gift he had given Nicholas: redemption, and really believing in his goodness. I think when I read that, I just put my head in my hand, and I said, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Because obviously I love Steven [Yeun], too. He’s become a good friend, too … it just really tore my heart out.

What can you say about what we should expect for the rest of the season? The same breakneck pace?
I think that the fans are going to be blown away by where we go. Before we even aired the season premiere, I was telling people this is going to be the best season of the show yet. I think so far we’ve proven that. It is the most relentless, the darkest, and I think also the most cohesive. We’ve all gotten to this place where these characters are so incredible, and they’re so fun to watch, but we’re also of this mindset that anything could happen, that all bets are off and everyone is potentially at risk. That is a scary, scary place for everyone to be, which I think makes the show more intense to watch every week.

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC.