X

Join or Sign In

Sign in to customize your TV listings

Continue with Facebook Continue with email

By joining TV Guide, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy.

The Walking Dead: Will Eugene and Rosita Get Together?

Josh McDermitt weighs in

liam-mathews
Liam Mathews

In "Sing Me A Song," Sunday's episode of The Walking Dead, Rosita (Christian Serratos) bullied Eugene (Josh McDermitt) into making a bullet for her so she can kill Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and avenge the death of Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) -- who saved their lives on more than one occasion. Rosita's revenge plot puts together two characters with a shared history and a shared grief.

And though it might seem a little unlikely right now, after Rosita told Eugene he's a coward who's only alive because people feel sorry for him, putting them together could lead to some consolation in the romantic sense between the two characters. After all, Rosita and Eugene end up together in the comic books.

TVGuide.com talked to Josh McDermitt about the possibility of #Eugita, as well as Season 7's timeline and that thing Eugene did to Dwight (Austin Amelio) last season.

​Christian Serratos and Josh McDermitt, The Walking Dead

Christian Serratos and Josh McDermitt, The Walking Dead

Gene Page/AMC

TVG: I was kind of confused by the timeline a little bit... Eugene still has cuts on his face, even though it seems like its been a while since the premiere. Do you know how soon after Abraham and Glenn's deaths this episode takes place?

Josh McDermitt: I can't say specifically with accuracy, but I know it's only been around a week, maybe less. The cool thing that the show does is they give you little clues and markers as to when things are happening. If I could just connect some dots for you -- so basically in episode 4 when Negan's crew comes to Alexandria for the first time and takes everything, including the mattresses, then Michonne (Danai Gurira) rolls up on them at the end of the episode and the mattresses are burning on the side of the road.

This episode picks up with her still looking at those mattresses. So this is moments after. The show plants little clues like that, which is neat. I do know that when Negan came to Alexandria for the first time to collect, and again I can't say with certainty, but I know it was less than a week. It may have been like four days later. So it's all still very fresh in everyone's minds. We're not doing any major time jumps here.

And it's not told exactly linearly.

McDermitt: We have to jump around to show other people's storylines. We may have to back things up a bit or go past a certain point that we may be checking in with other characters just so that everything can start to line up down the road. We're planting seeds. We're setting things up for payoff down the line.

Interesting you say that, because this episode sort of felt like the beginning of the Eugene/Rosita relationship. It's a pretty audacious start to a romance, her telling him that he's worthless.

McDermitt: Well, isn't that what most relationships are? One person feeling like they're right and one person feeling like they're a piece of s---. I kid, obviously, but working with Christian Serratos is a lot of fun. I love her to death. She's like a sister to me. We showed up in the same episode back in Season 4 with Michael Cudlitz, and we have a bond that I don't really have with other cast members just based on the circumstances of our entrance.

So any time we get to work together, there's a love there that I have for the other actor, and I hope that she loves me as well [laughs]. I think she does. Taking away the idea that there might be a relationship between Eugene and Rosita starting, I think just the fact that she and I love working together any chance we get, you can see us moving closer together. So there may always look like there's groundwork there for a relationship, whether or not it happens, just because we have that relationship.

And so do the characters, to be honest. They've been traveling companions for a long time, and this isn't the first time that Rosita has yelled at Eugene, like, "you're a wuss and you're a coward and you're useless, you need to step up and do something." That's just kind of the brother/sister relationship that I think they have. She doesn't mince her words, whereas someone like Tara (Alanna Masterson), we've seen her in her interactions with Eugene saying, "I know you're scared, but sometimes you just gotta suck it up and do it."

She's a little nicer and softer about it, where Rosita's just got that hard edge. She also has her own mission where she's decided to be basically the one-woman army who's going to take out Negan. That's her goal at this point, to avenge the deaths and get rid of this threat. Anyone who's going to stand in her way, she's going to toss aside. Eugene, while he's not necessarily trying to stop her, he's just, as he says, trying to get her to slow her roll because he cares for her, he cares for the other people in the community, he knows that it may not be her or him, but someone else could get hurt by her actions. Even though he feels like she's completely justified, he wants to slow her down a bit.

He is right. And her calling him weak came at kind of an interesting time, because he has established himself as a survivor more than he has at other times she's said mean things to him.

McDermitt: It's kind of like Pavlov's dog a little bit. I don't know if Christian thought about this, but I was definitely thinking about it, where every time she calls him weak or calls him a coward, he'll step up. It's like the bell ringing for him. Especially now that he feels that he's a survivor. Anytime someone calls him out about his past behaviors, he's gonna prove them otherwise. And ultimately he ends up making the bullet for her. He doesn't want to, but he goes and does it.

Do you think they would be a good romantic match? Maybe if they get together, he could temper those hurtful impulses she has.

McDermitt: Yeah, but is there something wrong with her being fiery? [Laughs]

Well, the manipulating people.

McDermitt: Eugene manipulated people, too. Everyone has to manipulate in order to survive. I think they would be a good fit for each other, just because they know each other so well. And we're starting to see that Spencer (Austin Nichols) has kind of lost his footing with her. She's free and clear. But we're a week out from the deaths, maybe less, so I don't know that they're thinking about relationships at this point. Eugene is still reeling emotionally from all this, and I don't anybody's thinking romance, even though the fans might. I would love to do that just because that would give me the opportunity to work with Christian Serratos more.

The Walking Dead: Welcome to The Negan Show

Okay, one last question before I let you go: When Eugene bit Dwight's junk last season, how much damage did he do? Is it like a The Sun Also Rises situation now?

McDermitt: I actually don't know how much damage Eugene did to Dwight, but what Josh McDermitt did to Austin Amelio, that damage is irreparable.

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.