There’s a new face in town, and she’s wearing a pantsuit. In this week’s episode of The Walking Dead, “The Key,” the decidedly non-violent Georgie comes bringing “gifts” to Maggie, Michonne, and Enid. Played by Jayne Atkinson, who may be familiar to House of Cards fans as Secretary of State Catherine Durant, Georgie is the affluent leader of a separate new group making themselves known for the first time.
In “The Key,” Maggie — who currently leads the Hilltop — makes contact with a new community whose leader asks for vinyl LPs in an introductory trade. When they later meet down the road, out walks out Georgie, in a fairly clean and pressed pantsuit, which can only mean there’s a level of comfort where she comes from. Her only request of the LPs: “No spoken word.”
Although strangers are almost never to be trusted in the apocalypse, Maggie and her group entertain the idea of connecting with them in memory of the late Carl Grimes, whose dying wish was for everyone to rebuild in peace instead of strife. While Maggie is still suspicious, naturally, it seems Georgie and her still-unnamed community have something to offer: “knowledge.”
"The 'Batman' soundtrack?" "Throw it."
In an interview with ComicBook, Atkinson said of Georgie: “There hasn’t been a person like her … She’s not dirty. You can tell she’s very educated. She’s very unafraid. And there’s a strange sort of light and innocence to her. She’s not childlike in any way, but she’s just open and not afraid.”
Atkinson further teases that Georgie’s community isn’t as rough and tough as everyone else is. Which also means they probably haven’t encountered the nightmare that is the Saviors. “Wherever she’s from and however things happened, she has not been touched physically in the way that everyone else has,” Atkinson added. “So I wouldn’t say psychologically she hasn’t, but, however, she has come out of this more than just surviving.”
Pamela Milton, who may or may not be the basis of Georgie, on the cover of 'The Walking Dead' #176.
For comic book fans, Georgie may remind them of Pamela Milton, who was just introduced a short month ago in issue #176. In the Walking Dead comics, Pamela Milton was the leader of the Commonwealth, a bustling community with stable luxuries and nearly 50,000 survivors. But Atkinson was not informed if her character was actually inspired by Pamela. “[Producer] Scott [Gimple] keeps everything close to the chest,” she told ComicBook. “And so basically when I spoke with him, he gave me a quiet overview of the kind of person she was, but no back story, no front story. But he gave me enough to create, I think, a very dynamic and interesting person.”
Perhaps the bigger mystery than who or what Georgie is for fans will be what her deal is against spoken word LPs. Hopefully it doesn’t take an entire season to figure out.
The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 p.m. Eastern on AMC.
