A The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live star reacts to episode 5’s big death, explaining what it was like for the major character’s story to end.

A star of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live has reacted to their big death during episode 5 of the ongoing spinoff. During the penultimate episode of the series, Rick and Michonne try to strike a deal with Jadis, who is swiftly attacked and bitten in the neck by a Walker. She decides to tell the pair where she hid her file on Alexandria, before Rick shoots her so she doesn’t turn.

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Pollyanna McIntosh described what it felt like for Jadis to die in The Ones Who Live‘s latest episode. The actor said she used 1935’s Joan of Arc as a reference, while also expressing happiness at having a lengthy death speech for the antagonist’s sendoff. Check out what McIntosh had to say below:

When I first came onto set for The Ones Who Live and got to hang with Andy and he very democratically said, “Oh yeah, so how are you feeling about your death?” I was like, “Oh, cool. Yeah, good now that I know for sure it’s happening!” [Co-creator] Scott Gimple, as you know, keeps things very close to the vest, and I think that’s just as it should be. But Andy being an exec on this one, he was privy to a lot of information. So I was really glad to hear that from him because that felt right.

And it’s always exciting because joining The Walking Dead , you’re going to die at some point, and when it finally gets to happen for me, I’m like, “Wow, I die in three different ways!” And boy, that is the longest death speech I could have ever imagined giving! I didn’t have any turmoil about it. I just thought this is great. I hope I get to earn it.

I thought there was a real opportunity for a lot of physicality. I also felt it was a long time coming. I had a lot of Joan of Arc inspiration with this character. Joan of Arc was not doing terrible things like the CRM, but she truly believed in her mission, and I wanted to bring that to her.

So I started watching the original Joan of Arc film from the 1930s. And because I had so much dialogue, I wanted to ground it in a space where I could go internally into my memories and explain so much about my feelings and what brought me here. So I think you’ll notice there’s a certain amount of blinking and movement from the pain — the body headed towards its end. But for Jadis, I wanted her to be very at peace, in a way, with her recognition of what brought her there.

Jadis Had The Perfect Ending In The Ones Who Live

After getting bit by a zombie, Jadis realized that her entire worldview had been built on the fear that nothing she had would ever be permanent. She viewed the CRM as something that would last beyond her, joining it simply because she didn’t want to feel the pain of losing the people she loved ever again. However, in her final moments, she wishes she had died using her real name, Anne, and that she hadn’t chosen to live her life for the militarized group.

Alongside her ending realization were flashbacks in The Walking Dead timeline, showing her secretly meeting with Father Gabriel throughout the show. They revealed a hidden layer of humanity still left in her, which made her want to escape the CRM just as much as the couple she was chasing down in the present day. During her last moments, Anne became the person she always wished she could be, telling Rick and Michonne where her file on Alexandria was hidden.

Beyond her character arc coming full circle, Anne’s demise also breaks a Walking Dead actor streak, with McIntosh ending her run as the only actor in the franchise to have a major role in three of its shows. Her death is also the first time a character introduced in the original series has died in one of its spinoffs. This lays the groundwork for an unpredictable future, but also marks her death as the most important so far in The Ones Who Live.