‘The Walking Dead’: Josh McDermitt on the Stephanie Conundrum and That Big Twist

Emily Aslanian March 6, 2022

josh mcdermitt, the walking dead — Josh Stringer/AMC

[WARNING: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for The Walking Dead Season 11, Episode 11, “Rogue Element.”]

Time to pack up the evidence board. In the March 6 episode of AMC’s The Walking Dead, Eugene Porter (Josh McDermitt) finally learns the truth about his girlfriend Stephanie (Chelle Ramos), or Stephony as fans have dubbed her online.

As suspected, the woman being wooed by Eugene was a Commonwealth mole, placed in Eugene’s path to covertly obtain as much intel as possible about the survivors and their surrounding communities. But there is one big twist at the end of the episode that gives us some hope — Max (Margot Bingham, who was initially cast as the voice of Stephanie in July 2020) reveals herself to Eugene in the final minutes as the woman he was speaking to over the radio.

So, what does this all mean exactly? We spoke to McDermitt below to figure out what’s coming for his heartbroken guy.

Fans had the theory of a “fake Stephanie” for a while, but at what point did you know that was the direction you were headed in the show?

Josh McDermitt: I don’t think I knew about the “fake Stephanie” until we started shooting at the beginning of this season. You know, they map out what’s going to happen and I knew the journey that he was going on and I knew that it ultimately would come to a head during this episode, “Rogue Element.” And I knew all along that Chelle Ramos, was not [playing] the person I was talking to on the radio, obviously. Sometimes I like to not have that kind of information though, so that I’m actually surprised by it and we can show that as opposed to having to play against it.

josh mcdermitt, chelle ramos, the walking dead amc

Josh Stringer/AMC

I can see how that can help with the journey, especially considering where Eugene winds up at the end of this episode. But first, we had Eugene Porter: True Detective. How was it to get to do this major genre slant for this episode?

That was really exciting. I’m a big fan of noir, and this had a nice noir-ish feeling to it, something Michael Cudlitz, who directed the episode, and I talked a lot about. David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick wrote a fantastic episode. And it was cool. I like to see how The Walking Dead plays with different genres, and this is a unique episode in that sense. It’s a full-on whodunit, and it is True Detective — he’s trying to team up with Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson [Laughs]. But I think that this whole story lends itself to that. I don’t know that it would play well if it wasn’t played in the shadows and in the dark, so I think they did a great job in coming up with that idea.

How was it working with Michael Cudlitz again? He was there at the start of Eugene’s story as Abraham, so this was a bit full-circle for you two.

It was so much fun. He just brings a lot of expertise, a lot of experience that I think would’ve been missing, at least from my performance, and the episode, for sure, had he not been there. He’s directed a few episodes of our show, and I was in a couple of them, but I was only in a scene or two, where I was maybe in the background or something. I didn’t get a chance to mix it up and work with him. So I was happy that I got like a whole episode to myself because I’m a selfish guy, and I just want him all to me. [Laughs]

Now, Eugene’s friendship with Princess (Paola Lázaro) is tested quite a bit in this episode too. I love their relationship because they’re both kind of the oddballs of the group, but what do you think draws these two characters together? And will Princess forgive Eugene for all of this trouble that he put her in?

I like that you called them oddballs, because yeah, I just look at them as outsiders. They’re people who have mostly lived their lives on the fringe of society. And I think Eugene recognized that in her [when he first met her]. It’s nice that they’ve formed a friendship, but it’s certainly tested with her coming over and looking at this whole rat’s nest on the bulletin board thinking that he’s spinning out of control. But in his mind, he’s not.

She may not understand what’s up on that board, [but] he feels like he can trust her. I think he’s always had deeper connections with people who are outsiders, in a sense. But she’s getting to a point, as we see in the episode, where she’s like, ‘OK, look. Even this is too crazy for me, and I’m ready to peace out.’ And that’s jarring to him because he feels like she’s the only person he can trust right now, and if she’s going to turn her back on him, where else can he turn? That’s a scary place to be.

Josh Stringer/AMC

Absolutely. And the breakdown at the end with Josh Hamilton’s Lance Hornsby in the warehouse — how was shooting that? It seemed like you had to cry yourself out all the way for that and it was so emotional.

That was incredible to shoot. I think that Josh Hamilton is a tremendous actor and I loved working with him. He’s very giving. As he would stand there, stoic, and just be calm watching [Eugene] break down and unravel, to just say, ‘Yeah, so what? So what I did that?’… Josh almost had a smugness to him, which would then piss me off, and then I would use that to further Eugene in his state of mind.

He knew exactly what the scene needed and he was in it the whole way. There’s a lot of shows where you might be doing a scene like that to a piece of tape, because the other actor’s gone home for the night, but not Josh. He was right there the whole time. The interesting thing with that scene too is, I don’t think Hornsby’s wrong with what he’s saying. Unfortunately, Eugene just got swept up into this whole machine that was already running and cruising down the road. Also, Lance is probably one of the only people who Eugene’s ever encountered who’s on his level intelligence-wise, and Eugene let his guard down, and didn’t even know he was having to play a game with this guy and now, he’s paying the price for it.

Now that he knows that the Commonwealth played him, how is he going to feel about sticking around?

Well, I think that’s the question at the center of his heart right now. [He’s thinking] ‘What have I done? Who else is possibly caught up in some sort of ruse?’ But he’s also looking around and I think he’s seeing that ‘OK, well, we’ve got ice cream, and Ezekiel’s about to get on the list to get the surgery he needs, and this person’s happy and that person’s enjoying living here.’ So, it’s like, does he need to raise the red flag about these people? Even though he himself is not feeling great about living there, I think that’s the crossroads that he’s at. Hopefully, he’s able to lean on his friends for counsel and advice.

I hope so! And then at the very end of the episode, we have the reveal of Max being the woman that Eugene was really talking to on the radio. What is going on in Eugene’s mind in that moment? Is he just in total shock?

Yeah, I think he’s shocked. He doesn’t know if he can trust her. I would venture to guess that the Blue Weevil and Taterbug line was some information that was not given to Lance and the decoy Stephanie. So, right then and there he’s thinking, ‘That’s information that I had not previously given, so who are you?’ He’s still not like, ‘Oh, it is you!’ He’s more like, ‘What else is going on?’ I don’t think he’s in a state of mind to welcome anyone in.