In the comic book series, Andrea is a 25-year-old law firm clerk who develops from an insecure and inexperienced young woman into a mature and hardened warrior, having killed more than any other character.

She forms a relationship with moral compass Dale and they raise a short-lived family with adoptive twin sons, Billy and Ben.

During this event, the stress of war and grief over the loss of her family brings her closer to group leader Rick Grimes, with whom she becomes romantically involved thereafter, also becoming a surrogate mother to Carl, who begins calling her "mom."

In the television series, Andrea is eleven years older, and a former successful civil rights attorney who forms a strong, but platonic, relationship with moral center, Dale Horvath.

[4] The group moves on, first to a gated community named Wiltshire Estates where Andrea and Dale engage in sex and thus begin a relationship.

No sooner after their arrival are they ousted from the farm by Hershel, and soon afterward while on the road she and Dale discover a path leading to a prison facility.

#10), en route to DC, Dale attempts to convince Andrea to again break from the group and start a new life with Billy and Ben in an abandoned farmhouse.

[26] While she later shares a series of flirtations with Douglas Monroe's son, Spencer, that culminates in their almost kissing,[27] she terminates their fledgling relationship when he suggests they abandon the zone while the other inhabitants are under attack by zombies, including his own father and her friends.

[30] She attempts to convince him that their shared experiences make them uniquely compatible, and insists on joining him in his journey to a neighboring safe zone twenty two miles away known as the Hilltop Colony to demonstrate that he need not worry about her safety.

[30][31] Andrea, along with Rick, Michonne, Carl, and Glenn, go to the Hilltop Colony by ambassador Paul Monroe, a community hoping to start a trading network with them.

[34] Andrea and Rick later find Abraham's corpse on the way back to the safe zone after she kills more Saviors to save Eugene who was left as a hostage.

Andrea spends her time in recovery and bonds with Carl until Negan bombs the safe zone and they are forced to leave to the Hilltop, which Maggie Greene now rules over.

[39] Once they are held hostage by the Whisperers, a tribe of thousands disguised as roamers, she sees the marked border of territories where she witnesses dozens of people she knew from each of the communities with their heads on spikes.

Due to several events, the group is allowed to take shelter on Hershel Greene's farmstead while they search for Sophia who went missing in the midst of a walker horde passage.

When they see a helicopter crash nearby, they go to investigate but find that it is already being scoured by Merle, who managed to escape by sawing off his hand and since replaced it with a prosthetic bayonet, and other men.

Michonne seeks out the Governor herself, discovering he has kept the still-animated heads of several walkers alive in fish tanks, as well as the re-animated body of his daughter Penny.

[42] In the eleventh season, Andrea is remembered in the form of flashbacks by both Michonne and Rick Grimes in the finale episode, "Rest in Peace."

[44] Prior to the show, Holden had been in two of Frank Darabont's films, The Majestic (2001) and The Mist (2007); in the latter she starred with three other The Walking Dead cast members (Melissa McBride, Juan Pareja and Jeffrey DeMunn).

[45] Andrea, as she appears in the comic series, is described by The Hollywood Reporter's James Hibberd as "a key member of the survivor group who has a proficiency with a sniper rifle and falls for a man twice her age.

She explained that "every move that Andrea makes from that point forward is about honoring Dale, and that means being a leader, having a stronger moral compass, being compassionate and really lending her hand more so than she would have before.

"[48] Former showrunner Glen Mazzara deemed Andrea the only character who could "hold [her] head up" after Dale's death, as she alone supported him against killing Randall and is "the one person who feels that she stood by him at the end.

Andrea's death, for example, I knew Rick was going to finally open up the gates of the prison after a season in which he's trying to hide away from the world and lock everybody away and keep them safe.

He realizes what that means -- that our group is now becoming isolated and will be picked off, that his own son is on the road to becoming the Governor (David Morrissey), so he has to open up the gates and let other people in and be compassionate.

I plot my stories down with a pencil and paper, and there I was in my seat, blocking out scenes and writing dialog notes, surrounded by strangers who probably thought I was jotting down a shopping list.

"After a season of whining, there had to have been at least a few fans pulling for the walkers in her early scenes, but she quickly became Linda Hamilton-badass, braining zombies with her foot," he said.

Darren Franich of Entertainment Weekly commented negatively on Andrea's actions and her relationship with The Governor, invented for the show, saying: "The characters on Walking Dead appear stuck in their tracks, reliving the same traumas over and over.

"[77] Conversely, Josh Jackson, writing for Paste called the death "a heartbreaking end for the woman who tried to make piece [sic] between the two gangs of survivors.

"[78] Despite the negative reception Andrea received for the third season, Holden was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for her work on The Walking Dead in 2013, and won.

She had a good run though, with Laurie Holden playing her as shrewd enough to see through the Governor's beneficent facade, and friendly enough to bring the lone wolf Michonne into the fold.

Her actions were dangerous and ill-advised, but she truly believed she was sparing Beth from ending up in the same boat [...] It’s why she clung to the false promises of the Governor -- the creature comforts of Woodbury were her only reason to live.