Jessie Anderson was a supporting character in Seasons 5 and 6 of The Walking Dead. She and her husband Pete, along with their sons Ron and Sam, had moved to Alexandria during the zombie outbreak and had lived through the apocalypse in relative safety before the arrival of Rick Grimes and his group. After Rick's arrival, Jessie builds a close friendship with him that may potentially have turned to romance under better circumstances. She was portrayed by Alexandra Breckenridge.
History[]
Before the apocalypse, Jessie and her family lived in Virginia. While Pete attended medical school, Jessie tried to make ends meet by taking on several different jobs, including hair stylist. After Pete earned his doctorate and took up work as a surgeon, his relationship with Jessie suffered as he took to drink to cope with the stress of his work. This eventually turned to outright abuse as Pete would start beating his wife and even his children, but Jessie stayed with Pete out of fear.
When the apocalypse occurred, the Andersons moved to a safe-zone established by the military called Alexandria. They remained there in relative safety and comfort while the dead dominated the outside world. However, Jessie and her kids still suffered under Pete's abuse and because Pete was Alexandria's only doctor, the community did nothing to stop him.
Over a year later, Rick Grimes and his group of survivors arrived at Alexandria and were welcomed into the community. Jessie is quick to build up a friendship with Rick, offering food for him and his kids as well as offering to cut his hair. As time goes on, however, Rick becomes aware of Pete's violent behaviour toward Jessie and tries to convince Deanna Monroe to do something about it. Because of his medical skills, Pete is considered to be too valuable to the community and so no one is willing to do anything at the risk of losing him. Rick eventually takes matters into his own hands, beating Pete in the middle of the street while Jessie and many others look on.
After Rick is punished for his outburst and Pete is moved into a different house to protect Jessie, a meeting is held among the rest of the community to decide on further action. The meeting is interrupted when Rick reveals that the main gate had been left ajar, allowing some walkers to get in. Pete then arrives at the meeting and demands that Deanna banish Rick and his people, slashing Reg Monroe's throat when the latter tries to calm him down. Pete is subdued and Deanna permits Rick to kill him. Jessie witnesses the whole thing, but is not distraught over losing her husband.
Some time after Pete's execution, Alexandria faced a dire threat. A massive horde of walkers had been discovered in a quarry not far from town and was about to breach the barricades keeping it in, so Rick orchestrated a plan to lead the horde away. While Rick and the more capable members of the community worked on establishing a route to lead the horde through, Jessie remained at home trying to help her sons come to terms with the loss of their father; Sam was becoming more withdrawn following the incident and Ron had developed a hatred for Rick.
While the herd plan was underway, Alexandria was attacked by a group of marauding survivors called the Wolves. They breached the town walls and began butchering residents indiscriminately, taking whatever they wanted. However, the people of Alexandria managed to fight back thanks to training they had received from Rick's people and most of the Wolves were killed. At one point, Jessie fought against a Wolf that broke into her house and repeatedly stabbed the intruder with a pair of scissors.
Though Alexandria survived the Wolves' attack, the threat of the undead mega-horde remained. Because of the Wolves and the air-horn on their truck going off continuously, half the horde had been attracted by the noise and were headed straight for the town. The walls were repaired before the horde arrived, but the damaged chapel just outside the wall had been compromised further during the attack and the tower collapsed, crushing a segment of the wall and allowing the walkers inside.
As the undead flooded the streets, the residents took cover in their homes. Rick, Carl, Judith, Michonne, Deanna and Gabriel became trapped in Jessie's house with her and her boys and the agitated zombies outside were forcing their way in. The group retreated upstairs, blocking off the stairway with a sofa and grabbing two zombie corpses. Rick decided that they could get out by disguising themselves as the dead, covering themselves with zombie guts and blood to smell like them and pass among the horde unnoticed.
Death[]
In the episode "No Way Out", Jessie and her sons dress themselves in zombie gore and navigate the infested streets with Rick and Carl, holding each other's hands in a chain. However, Sam panics and his whimpers attract a number of zombies which attack and devour him. Jessie cries out as she watches her son die, but in doing so attracts more zombies which then swarm over her and start feeding on her too. Jessie is still holding on to Carl's hand as she is being eaten alive and Rick is devastated that he has lost the woman he had grown to care for. In order to save his son from the same fate, however, Rick is forced to take a hatchet and chop off Jessie's hand in order to free Carl.