Did Lydia die in final season of The Walking Dead?

Actress Cassady McClincy portrayed Lydia, a character introduced in season 9 of The Walking Dead. She was the daughter of Alpha (Samantha Morton), leader of the Whisperers. Lydia suffered many tragedies and physical and psychological abuse from her mother. After the death of her mother, she was able to experience some healing and begin a new life. Did Lydia survive the final season of the series?

Viewers would learn some back story of Lydia and her mother before the creation of the Whisperers in flashbacks on The Walking Dead and an episode of the spinoff Tales of the Walking Dead. The poor child (played by Scarlett Blum) had always lived under the harsh discipline of her mother and then endured the drastic change in the world after the outbreak. This made her hard yet cunning, and like many children, she didn’t realize the truth from her childhood until she was older.

The Walking Dead – Lydia

When she arrived at Hilltop, she experienced significant childhood flashbacks, and memories flooded in. This was when she began to see that her mother, not her father, had heaped the abuse on her. It was a turning point for Lydia, and once she broke away from her mother, she flourished into the person she really was.

She fell in love with Henry (Matt Lintz), possibly the first person to show her kindness, and was overcome with grief when her mother killed him and eight others in the Pike scene.

After her mother’s death, Lydia continued to open up to others but still didn’t like violence and killing, something necessary in an apocalypse. She chose to use Henry’s staff as a weapon instead of something more lethal.

She would later fall in love with Elijah (Okea Eme-Akwari) but keep herself at arm’s length, fearing she would lose him as she did Henry and unsure if she could stand to be hurt that badly again. When she loses her arm to a walker bite, Aaron (Ross Marquand), a fellow amputee, shares with her his experience of love and loss, which helps her to see how much she is loved and that she needs to love again to truly live.

In the one-year time jump of The Walking Dead series finale, Lydia is happy and healthy and still in a loving relationship with Elijah.

If you want to learn more about Alpha and Lydia’s back story, be sure to check out Tales of the Walking Dead episode 3, “Dee.” This is available on AMC+, The Roku Channel, or DVD this summer. 

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