With season eight of The Walking Dead approaching, suddenly a lot of attention is being paid to Maggie’s pregnancy, and for good reason. Despite knowing that we will see a time jump of a few years in Season 8, showrunner Scott Gimple has told us that Maggie will not give birth in the upcoming season.

So, what happens with Maggie and Glenn’s baby? There are a few of possibilities here: 1) Maggie does not appear in the time jump, and therefore, the status of her and Glenn’s baby remains unknown; 2) Maggie does appear in the time jump, but she lost the baby along the way; 3) Maggie does not appear in the time jump because both she and the baby were killed; or 4) she does appear in the time jump, but the baby does not.

It’s quite possible that it’s the first option: Maggie doesn’t appear in the time jump, and we will simply have to wait until season 9 (or later) to find out if she will give birth. However, what is odd is that we haven’t seen any evidence of Maggie’s pregnancy on the show yet. We found out that she was pregnant midway through season six in the episode “Now.” That episode aired on November 8, 2015. It’s been nearly two years, and yet, here’s a photo of Maggie in season seven:



Here she is in the trailer for the upcoming season 8:

Nothing. No evidence whatsoever, and she’s not giving birth in season eight, so the soonest that we’re likely to see that baby is October 2018, when the ninth season starts, a full three years after Maggie revealed she was pregnant.

What’s going on?

In comments to Entertainment Weekly, Scott Gimple clears up the confusion:

For how long can this woman actually be pregnant? Well, if you take a look at the timeline of the show, it has actually not been all that long. The on-screen timeline of events for season 7 was actually only 19 days, according to co-executive producer Denise Huth on the most recent Blu-ray release, and Gimple tells EW that season 8 picks up just a few days after that — meaning Maggie still has a way to go before her and Glenn’s child arrives. “It’s quite early in, as it was in the book,” says showrunner Gimple about the pregnancy.



In other words, if viewers add the days in The Walking Dead universe since Maggie revealed that she was pregnant in season six until season seven (about 40) plus the 19 days in season 7, Maggie is about two months pregnant, so the fetus is only about 12-20 mm large. So, it’s not like there’d be much, if any, evidence of Maggie’s pregnancy yet.

However, if one would like to get pedantic about the timeline, if there is less than two months between season six and season seven of The Walking Dead, how do we explain Judith’s sudden growth spurt?

Here she is in season six:

Here she is in season seven:

Either that baby’s hair grows really quickly, or we should cut The Walking Dead some slack when it comes to the timeline. After all, if we were to take the timeline at face value, the bodies of most of the zombies would completely decompose within the next year, leaving nothing but walking skeletons.

(Via EW)