Don’t be fooled by the half-smirk you see on the face of Hershel in this picture. This boy is a killer. This boy has murder in his heart, and you can’t really blame him.
Hershel is the son of Maggie and Glenn and in Sunday night’s episode he puts two and two together and realizes that Negan killed his father. I have to assume that he’s seen the way his mom looks at Negan, caught on to some of the bad juju in the air when the two are around, because there’s no way he guessed it just because Negan is a “bad man.”
That’s how it plays out on screen, though. Negan saves Hershel—who apparently stowed away in Maggie’s magic pickup truck last week—from one of the incompetent Commonwealth stormtroopers. He takes him back up to the secret room where everyone is hiding. Inexplicably, after being rescued, Hershel asks Negan if he’s a bad man and when Negan says that he used to be, Hershel draws a gun.
“My mom told me my dad was killed by a bad man,” he says, pointing his firearm with a surprisingly steady hand, directly at Negan. “Was that you?” (I’m paraphrasing).
Negan fesses up and then looks Hershel right in the eye and tells him that while he may deserve to die for what he’s done, shooting him would alert the bad guys and lead to everyone else’s death. The kid lowers the gun, Lydia takes it, and then he storms out. Later, when Negan encounters Hershel again, he tells him to go home with his mom, grow up a few years, and then they can settle this like men.
Maybe he should mention the part where Glenn brutally murdered a man in his sleep just days (weeks?) before Negan bashed his head in with a bat. Maybe someone should remind Maggie that her husband wasn’t the only person who died in the Savior wars, that Glenn’s hands were plenty bloody, along with her own and Rick’s and Carol’s and Daryl’s and all the rest.
Negan killed Glenn and Abraham in a truly brutal manner, but it wasn’t that unique in the big scheme of things. A few episodes ago, Maggie executed two dudes by shooting them in the back. Gabriel has gotten his murder on several times lately. Rick wasn’t exactly known for his gentle touch.
When Maggie tells Negan’s new wife, Annie (yes that also happened offscreen during the confusing time-jump!) that “he shouldn’t be allowed to forget” and she answers “he hasn’t” I find myself mostly annoyed. Annoyed that Glenn’s death is still used, years and years later, like some unique event. It’s been years in our world and far longer in the fiction of The Walking Dead, yet we’re supposed to act like it’s fresh every episode. Yes, we get it, Maggie doesn’t like Negan. Can we move on now?
I mean, the very fact that we already know about a Maggie/Negan spinoff (set in Manhattan) tells us 100% of what we need to know, and like 85% of what we want to know, about these two. They won’t kill each other in Season 11 of The Walking Dead, that’s for sure. All that we have left to guess is “Will they screw?”
Oh, and maybe “What about Hershel?” Is he going to be in this little zombie RomCom event, too? What about Annie, the new Mrs. Negan?
The time jump stuff is stupid.
It’s deeply silly that one week we see Negan leaving Maggie and the rest of that group and the next time we see him he’s not only set up with an entirely new crew—that’/s both religious fundamentalist crazy with huge scythe weapons and skulls on the wall, and basically an NPR public radio station’s workforce at the same time, somehow—he’s also tied the proverbial knot with a brand new character.
It’s just too hard to follow the timelines here. Last week’s episode jumped all over the place, which made it even harder to follow, and this week we have to sort of put together how much time has passed on our own. Apparently in the time it’s taken Daryl and co. to get setup in Alexandria, and Maggie to discover new deposits of gasoline for her truck, Negan has made new friends and bagged a new wife. I mean, good for you, dude, maybe you should have left all the jerks in Alexandria years ago. Maggie did.
Maggie is another source of endless frustration for me. They’re doing the Madison thing to her character right now. Madison, from Fear The Walking Dead, is always treated like this very special Strong Woman no matter what she does. She could literally ruin your entire community, kill your best friend and forget to put the leftovers in the fridge and the next scene you’d have two other characters remarking on just how tough and amazing and strong she is.
This is Maggie in a nutshell. Maggie who ditched everyone and started a new community far, far away (aka within the 10 mile radius that apparently encompasses not just Alexandria, Hilltop, the Kingdom, Oceanside and the Sanctuary, but also the Commonwealth, Maggie’s old digs and this apartment building). The Oceansiders, despite not having seen Maggie for years, won’t sign on with Hornsby out of some bizarre, misplaced loyalty to her.
She’s so myopic that she gets almost her entire community killed by the Reapers, but people still follow her blindly. I am still a little shocked that bow-and-arrow Brienne of Hilltop and a handful of others ditched her given how much of a pedestal this show puts her on. I’m also utterly confused why she would try to, ahem, rekindle a community at Hilltop, which we all know burned to ash when the Whisperers burned it down.
Sorry, I’m on a little tangent. Anyways. The long and short of this plot, other than the interesting Negan vs Hershel stuff, is that Maggie, Aaron, Elijah and Lydia show up to Save The Day. They get into a tense encounter with Annie which Negan diffuses. They all decide they should somehow escape Crazy Carlson and the Commonwealth Crew, but before they can do that, Annie insists they go floor to floor to find other survivors.
This is, ironically, exactly what Carlson and his soldiers are doing (jinx!) but somehow the two groups not only never cross paths, but never find a single other survivor to rescue or throw off the roof. Weird!
From here, they reconvene and come up with a Very Smart Plan. This plan involves Aaron and Gabriel running on to the roof as bait. When they’re cornered by Carlson and his soldiers, Elijah will jump out and kill all of them!
I’m not kidding. The plan, despite having a number of other fighters, some armed with guns, is to have Aaron and Gabriel lure the bad guys on to the roof and then have Elijah sneak up and attack them. This genius tactical pincer move relies on three men with no guns defeating twice that many with guns, and you betcha it works.
Pretty soon, Carlson’s men are all dead and he’s blubbering for a diplomatic alternative. Aaron, who waffles between nice, compassionate dude and stone cold killer, shoots him three times in the chest. Apparently the armor is bullet proof because he’s only knocked off the roof to the ground below, where—get this—the people he threw off the roof reanimate as zombies and devour him. I think they call this “poetic justice” in creative writing programs at those big, fancy universities where they teach people how to write TV scripts and whatnot.
I guess the strategy of ambushing Carlson and his dudes in the hidden apartment would have been too risky, and the idea of running some kind of guerrilla warfare, where they Ewok the stormtroopers since they know the building better, would have been too expensive and time-consuming to shoot. Whatever the case, it’s a pretty silly plan but I guess all’s well that ends well.
On the other hand, Carlson—with his trusty bottle of whiskey that he never drinks—is kind of a more compelling and interesting character than most of our heroes, so it’s kind of a shame he’s dead. I think maybe a Carlson/Negan spinoff could have been really cool. Maybe Carlson kills Annie and then Negan hunts him down in an epic game of cat and mouse set in a zombie apocalypse literally anywhere other than here.
Meanwhile, In The Commonwealth!
Plot, the second, takes place back at the Commonwealth, where sniveling rich boy stereotype, Sebastian, is caught bragging to the soldiers about how awesome he is at killing zombies. When Daryl doesn’t play along, Joffrey—er, Sebastian—gets some revenge.
Daryl and Rosita, the only stormtroopers who are allowed to waltz around the precinct without armor on just because, are sent on an assignment but two other stormtroopers waylay them and tell them they need to come help put down a herd.
When they arrive at the location, Sebastian shows up and tells them he has other plans. They need to cover themselves in zombie guts and make their way to a fancy mansion surrounded by zombies where they’re to access a safe filled with cash. Apparently the Commonwealth uses American paper money as their currency, and since his mom, Pamela, has cut off his line of credit, this will allow him to continue his lavish, douchebag lifestyle.
In any case, he threatens Daryl and Rosita’s kids and so they agree to go in and get the money. They “gut up” and head in and make their way into the mansion with the key code Sebastian provides. Once in, they hear a woman calling for help. She was apparently sent in with another group of about twelve to retrieve the cash and she’s the only survivor. When the generator went off, she was locked inside.
The moment you hear this woman’s voice you know she’s a goner. When you see her scared face a bit later, it’s just confirmation. This is a character who isn’t going to make it to the end of the episode.
One thing leads to another and they get into the room after Daryl fights some zombies. They get the money but an alarm goes off and that brings more zombies to their door. Just when they think they’re going to have to “gut up” again and escape, there are gunshots. Miraculously—and I do mean miraculously in the literal sense of the word here—Mercer and Carol are outside and have just mowed down the zombies outside their door.
You see, okay, it makes perfect sense. Daryl was supposed to meet Carol for lunch. When Daryl, who is a cop basically now with the kind of job that could easily lead someone to miss a lunch date, doesn’t show up, Carol gets a feeling. A premonition, if you will. So she goes to Mercer, the head of the Commonwealth army, who she not only has on speed dial, but wrapped around her thumb. Just, well, not the thumb she has Hornsby wrapped around.
Carol, you must understand, isn’t just good at finding lost wine cellars, she can also control powerful men through her bewitching smile and bedeviling social graces. She’s so influential in this new community, that she’s able to attend all the fancy balls, and doesn’t even have to work an actual job like everyone else. She just does whatever the hell she wants all the time including, you see, fetching Mercer from whatever important task he had to go find out if Daryl is okay.
Better still, once she has found Mercer, using her uncanny sense of smell she can lead him directly to wherever Daryl is at that precise moment. So she and Mercer show up and save everyone at the precise location and time through the sheer muchness that is Carol.
I have to say, that is some mighty fine writing, The Walking Dead writing team. I, for one, am totally convinced that this all makes perfect sense and isn’t in any way, shape or form utterly contrived gobbledygook. Bravo.
Of course, it’s only a temporary respite. Trapped Woman With Perpetual Panic Expression is still alive and that just will not stand. There will be blood—it just won’t be the blood of anyone we give a crap about.
They have to “gut up” because, although Mercer and Carol made it this far, they can’t make it back out. For reasons we will never comprehend, Rosita doesn’t just wipe zombie blood all over Chicken Lady, she gives her her blood-stained armor. Rosita, for her part, goes pretty half-assed at this point. She doesn’t even put zombie guts on her face! If all you have to do is put a little blood on your wrist, like it’s a cologne tester at JC Penny, why is everyone still getting eaten by zombies?
Bewildered Woman seems to be doing okay, but since we’ve seen this before we know that she’ll probably sneeze or something. Sure enough, her stormtrooper armor gets caught up in a zombie sleeve, and next thing you know she’s stabbing left and right and everyone is freaking out and they kill all the zombies.
Like, all the zombies are dead. They could have just done that to begin with, right? If it was this easy, in a panicked reaction to an unfortunate accident, surely it would have been easier and more efficient to just fight your wat out?
Lack Of Courage Mom is now dead, Rosita’s armor to blame, Mercer is staring at everyone like he’s equal parts disappointed and not sure where he is, and all for what?
They get back to the rendezvous point where Sebastian’s goons are waiting. These guys “don’t work for” Mercer and are quick to remind him of that, so he shoots them both in the head. But he tells Daryl and Rosita that they still need to give Sebastian the money or he’ll make their lives miserable. They do and Sebastian acts like an ass about it, giving them a tiny cut of the proceeds. He doesn’t seem too worried that Mercer knows about it all.
Later, Carol shows up at Hornsby’s office and we learn that the whole thing was his idea. He’s the one who’s been sending groups to try to retrieve the cash from the mansion, presumably without his boss finding out (though surely Mercer finding out poses a risk, since he seems to be loyal to Pamela?) I’m not sure what Hornsby’s game is, but while he may have succeeded in getting the cash (perhaps to destabilize the Commonwealth’s currency, leading to devaluation of the monetary supply) he’s lost his other battle. The guns he lost were not retrieved and his men were all killed.
We do find out who did the killing and thieving, and I suppose it’s meant to be this Big Reveal that makes us all oooh and aaahh but it’s just deeply unsatisfying. It’s Leah, the Reaper who got away. Oh cool, how exciting, look at me look how excited I am at more Reaper stuff. I am just bouncing with joy and excitement at this Crazy Twist.
Fade to black.
This was the best episode since the start of Part 2, far better than the Ezekiel episodes and quite a bit better than last week’s disaster, but it was still not good. It’s still riddled with contrivances and goofy action that we’re just supposed to think is cool. Fake tension, Super Carol, the stupid Commonwealth with its stupid ice cream. What has this show become?
Carlson deserved better.
What did you think? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.
Read my other Season 11, Part 2 reviews here:
P.S. We are now 14 episodes into Season 11 of The Walking Dead, its final season and longest. There are a total of 24 episodes in Season 11, which means we have ten left. Two in Part 2 and eight in Part 3. Almost nothing of any significance has happened across all 14 of these episodes. It’s absolutely incredible how little has actually taken place. Every important thing could easily be condensed into two or three episodes tops. I have no words.
You can follow me on Twitter and Facebook and support my work on Patreon. If you want, you can also sign up for my diabolical newsletter on Substack and subscribe to my YouTube channel.
