‘The Walking Dead’ Showrunner Breaks Down Latest Episode & Importance Of ‘Princess’

Showrunner of AMC’s hit series The Walking Dead, Angela Kang, is explaining the importance of the most recent episode of Season 10C and how it expands upon the character of Juanita “Princess” Sanchez (Paola Lázaro). The episode titled “Splinter” focuses on Princess as she attempts to escape the soldiers of the mysterious new group “The Commonwealth,” who have taken her, Eugene (Josh McDermitt), Ezekiel (Khary Payton) and Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura) prisoner for questioning. While Eugene and Ezekiel reluctantly agree to comply, Princess does not trust the Commonwealth soldiers and attempts to escape, developing a major case of anxiety and PTSD while she is being held captive. During the episode, Princess starts to hallucinate before once again being taken prisoner after finally agreeing to give into the Commonwealth soldier’s demands.

Kang revealed that she wanted to have an episode centered around Princess due to her only recently being introduced to the group and deserving more time to be explored as a character. She also explained how the twist at the end of the episode where it was revealed that Princess was hallucinating came together. “So we went through [the episode] multiple times to try to figure out, ‘Do we think we are holding the illusion well enough?’ and then finding those moments with little clues where it’s starting to break,” Kang told EW. “There are things that if you go back and look, it’s like, ‘Wait a second, why was it so easy for her to get from one train car to another?’ Even in the way that the episode is shot, it’s very, very subtle, but the stuff that is ‘real’ is shot one way, and then the stuff that is fantasy is with a little bit of handheld shake, which we don’t always use. It’s very subtle, but there are just ways like that where it differentiates itself.”

The tenth season of The Walking Dead will conclude after the last two episodes air on March 28 and April 4 on AMC.