Last night on The Walking Dead, there were not one but two major developments. The first was Negan joining up with the Whisperers, despite Beta’s objections and outright sabotage, the second was Eugene making contact with a new person on the radio in some other community somewhere else.
The two had an extended conversation that was mostly about their personal lives before the apocalypse, and Eugene seemed overjoyed to have someone, anyone new to talk to, despite probably giving away too much information on his end.
While The Walking Dead is constantly making big changes from the comics, like for instance, eliminating Rick and Carl Grimes, lately the show has been exactly on point with big comic turns. The Negan storyline is more or less identical to an important comic arc that should result in something…significant. And how this Eugene situation is playing out so far is the same as the introduction to the next big TWD storyline as well.
Usually I say that talking about the comic isn’t necessarily spoilers, but in this case, I think it might be. So if you really want to know who is on the radio, you may want to turn back now.
It’s almost 100% clear that it’s Stephanie, emissary of the Commonwealth, on the radio speaking with Eugene. The voice already has an actress attached to her, Margot Bingham from Boardwalk Empire, with The Walking Dead “welcoming her into the family,” implying that she’s going to turn into more than just a voice soon enough.
The obvious idea would be that this is some kind of trick. A nice person getting info out of you on the radio in the apocalypse is almost always going to turn into something bad. And yet it’s kind of a surprise when that isn’t what happens here and Stephanie is genuinely nice and the Commonwealth isn’t some community of cannibals or something.
Rather, the Commonwealth is a 50,000 person community larger than anything the series has seen so far. They even have their own football games in a stadium. The Commonwealth isn’t “evil” per se, but it is ruled by an oppressive classist system which turns out to be the main point of the arc. Many fan theories wonder if we already have been introduced to the Commonwealth through the helicopter people or Georgie’s group, but my guess is no, we haven’t, and Stephanie is our first real into to this community and storyline.
This dance on the radio between Stephanie and Eugene goes on for a long time, pretty much the rest of the Whisperer war, and the Commonwealth stuff doesn’t start until the Whisperer arc is put to bed. Much to the surprise of comic fans, the Commonwealth arc is the last storyline of the entire series, with Rick Grimes ending up getting killed by the Governor’s (not that Governor) son, and the series ends with a Carl Grimes future flash forward in the next issue. But obviously that’s not what’s going to happen here.
It stands to reason that The Walking Dead show will not be ending with the Commonwealth storyline, even though it will probably be season 12 by the time it catches up with the comics in full. But now we know that it’s almost certain that they are going to go down this road, even if it’s going to play out way, way differently without Rick, Carl and Michonne, who will all not be on the show by the time it comes around.
So yeah, that’s who is on the radio, and I really doubt they’re going to change anything from the comics in this regard. The Commonwealth is coming, and I am very curious to see how it unfolds under Angela Kang.
Follow me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Pre-order my new sci-fi novel Herokiller, and read my first series, The Earthborn Trilogy, which is also on audiobook.
