'Walking Dead' Season 9 Spoilers: Star Says Flashbacks May Answer Questions

The Walking Dead Season 9 jumped forward in time right after the survivors lost Rick (to movies, not death, like the other characters think). Since then, we’ve only gotten hints as to what happened in those six years. It’s possible the answers could come in the form of conversations between the current cast, but one cast member was a better idea.

Spoilers for The Walking Dead Season 9 below.

In the midseason finale, Jesus (Tom Payne) died, but that doesn’t have to be the last time we see him (and no, not as a walker). When Jesus, Daryl, and Aaron found Eugene and decided to bring him back to the Hilltop, they encountered what they thought was a herd of walkers. It turned out the enemy following them was really The Whisperers, a group of humans who wear walker skins as disguises, and one of them killed Jesus.

However, Payne thinks one of the fan theories he recently read in a video for French site Serieously is possible. The theory? That “Jesus will be back for a flashback episode.” And Payne says it has “potential.”

As the actor points out, there are plenty of unanswered questions about those six years.

“Jesus has been at the Hilltop with Maggie and we’d maybe find out how Maggie left and what happened in that storyline,” he says. “Maybe how Michonne and Daryl got their scars. Maybe if Aaron and Jesus had a thing.”

Rick’s last episode was also our farewell to Lauren Cohan’s character Maggie, though we didn’t know it at the time. Instead, we found out that she left with Georgie’s group at some point over the past six years from a conversation between Jesus and Tara. If the series does do a flashback that shows Maggie at the Hilltop before she left (and how and when she left) it would likely be in Season 10. That’s when showrunner Angela Kang told ComicBook.com they “will hopefully come back to Maggie’s story.”

The episodes after the time jump have also revealed that both Michonne and Daryl have X scars on their back, but we don’t know if anyone else has them or how they got the scars. We can speculate that they’re why Michonne closed off Alexandria from the other communities and to outsiders, but it’s unclear if they’re connected.

As for the possibility that Aaron and Jesus were in a relationship, that was part of the comics and some fans think the two men meeting away from their communities was a nod to that. But whether the show will ever address that plot point remains unclear.

The Walking Dead Season 9 returns Sunday, February 10 at 9 p.m. on AMC.

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