The Walking Dead – Acts of God

By: Kelly Kearney

You know the apocalypse is here when the locusts descend on the earth and that’s just what happened in the midseason finale. With swarms buzzing overhead and bullets zipping through the woods, by the time the end (or in this case, the midseason finale) comes, death and destruction is all around. With a fight brewing between Maggie and Lance Hornsby, an old enemy with an axe to grind offers to hunt the widow down and take her out. A confrontation, a truce, a couple of murders,and one crazy-eyed and power-hungry Hornsby closes the book on chapter on 11b and teases what’s to come for the final stretch of this long running zombie drama.

A Truce and a Betrayal

After Maggie (Lauren Cohan) tossed Lance (Josh Hamilton) and his troopers out of Hilltop last week, now she is waiting for the moment she will have to deal with him again. And, statistically speaking, it won’t be a friendly meet and greet. Considering all her options, Maggie along with Hershel (Kien Michael Spiller), Elijah (Okea Eme-Akwari), Lydia (Cassady McClincy) and Marco (Gustavo Gomez) decide to ask a surprising favor from the Rhee family enemy. Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) has proven himself to be trustworthy when it comes to keeping Hershel safe – he saved the boy at Riverbend and, according to him, would do it again without pause. Maggie will never forgive him for what he did to her husband, Glenn, but risking his safety for her boy proves he might be on the right path and certainly an excellent babysitter for the kid. “I got you, and I got your boy,” Negan promises, opening up a new chapter in the book of redemption.

Elsewhere, Daryl (Norman Reedus), Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) and Aaron (Ross Marquand) are in a tough situation. Lance is forcing them, along with some of his loyal troops, to search the surrounding areas for any clues as to who stole that cargo shipment. In the meantime, the three men know there is a good chance they won’t be making it out of this mess alive because, as Daryl learned, the elites of Commonwealth have no problem sacrificing newcomers for their own prosperity. They devise a plan to lure the troopers to an open area filled with abandoned vehicles and when the storm troopers aren’t looking the three open fire. The shootout is intense, with bullets whizzing by out survivor’s’ heads and catching Gabe and pal Aaron in the arms – as if he can afford to lose another. The injuries aren’t life threatening, giving them plenty of chances to take out all the troopers and then radio back their betrayal to Lance. Now Hornsby knows the three Alexandrians jumped The Commonwealth’s ship and that means no more Mister Nice Guy.

The Romance Goes BOOM!

Back to Maggie who returns to Hilltop after dropping off Hershel at Negan’s literal hide-out hole in the ground, so she can concentrate on this situation with Lance. All this time she has been protecting the walls of her community and just now is starting to realize Hilltop is about the people, not their connection to a patch of dirt. So, with that in mind, Maggie rigs Barrington House with explosives and blows Leah’s men sky high the second they enter the property. The problem is that in the fire and fury Maggie and pals never saw Leah (Lynn Collins) coming until she stormsg out of the flaming building like some kind of Terminator killer, blasting at them. She manages to hit Marco with a bullet – killing him instantly. And that’s Maggie’s cue to get Elijah out of there. Leah is on the hunt and now she is freestyling these kills – much to Lance’s dismay. He isn’t happy she took out so many of his men and even less thrilled when she shrugs off his concern with a “collateral damage” remark. Considering how often it seems Lance and Sebastian use others as pawns in their schemes, one would think he would respect Leah’s dedication to the catch, but he seems more out of control than her.

Eventually, Maggie and Leah do come face to face when a swarm of locusts block out the sounds of the woods making way for Leah to sneak up on her target and knock her out. When Maggie comes to she is in that cursed lover’s cabin and tied to a chair – sitting across from her is an unhinged Leah with a gun aimed at her head. At this point most people would be begging for mercy, but not Maggie. She uses her final moments to taunt Leah and brag about how much she wanted to kill her Reaper family. She practically pleads with the woman to pull the trigger, which must catch Leah off guard because she doesn’t realize Maggie is slowly untying her hands. Before Leah can pull the trigger Maggie attacks her and the two women get into a fight to the death. Trading brutal blows they roll around on the cabin floor until Leah gets the upper hand and starts pounding Maggie’s face in. Just as she is about to deliver the final nail in the widow’s coffin, Daryl shows up and without pause shoots Leah in the head. It looks like their break up is official! Leah is dead and Daryl finally answered the question she asked all those years ago; if the choice is between the woman that he spent a couple weeks in cabin with or the family he has been dedicated to for well-over a decade, he is always choosing blood over Reaper water. Maggie barely gets a second to catch her breath when Lance’s troopers, who must’ve ran towards the sound of gunfire, show up outside the cabin and start shooting into the windows and through the walls. Daryl manages to get a few rounds in, grazing Lance’s face and leaving him with a very noticeable gash he won’t be able to hide from his boss. Enraged, Hornsby orders his men to storm the dilapidated structure only to find a very dead Leah and no Daryl or Maggie. He is livid! This entire mission, from the hijacked cargo to the Riverbend massacre to this cabin, was all a secret to cover for Lance’s little power grab scheme. He cannot hide all of these dead troopers and injuries from The Commonwealth and the fear of losing his power inspires his inner fascist to acquire the communities that do not belong to him. “Now, we take it all!”

Activists Unite!

Speaking of the land of ice cream socials and journalists searching for justice, we head back to The Commonwealth where we catch up with Eugene (Josh McDermitt) who spent the night with Max (Margot Bingham). Yes, Eugene somehow became the romantic lead in this horror show and during some pillow talk discusses the plan to steal files from Governor Milton’s (Laila Robins) office; something that is quite easy for Max to do since she is Pamela’s trusted assistant and virtually moves through her life unnoticed. That is until a very drunk Sebastian (Teo Rapp-Olsson) notices her hovering over Mommy Milton’s file cabinet. Apparently, this pop-in to the office has to do with looking for a raise in his allowance. But if he is with it enough to know she is up to something, he doesn’t mention it. He is too worried about his own financial situation to care, but something in his eyes says he made note of it for the future.

Later that evening Max, Connie (Lauren Ridloff), Kelly (Angel Theory) and Magna (Nadia Hilker) all meet up at Eugene’s apartment to discuss the list of names the journalist found when she was digging up information about Trooper Davis’ whereabouts. The list is much longer than the amount of people Sebastian risked for his prepper money stash, but they do spot the name of the trapped woman, April, on it. The whole thing is coded and Connie is convinced it proves there is something nefarious gong on just below the surface of this place. Until they crack the code and figure out what it all means, Connie is going to release an article detailing Sebastian’s safe heist. That should open the door to community suspicions and weaken the Milton propaganda they are surely feeding the masses. She hopes the transparency will help the citizens see that the Miltons are not who they portray themselves to be. It’s always about greed and power with those two and it’s about time their subjects knew it.

As the finale draws to a close, we get a series of shocking flashes forward that finds Pamela angrily tossing Connie’s front page news story onto her desk with a headline calling her a lair. Elsewhere, Lance has decided to drop the niceties and go full on authoritarian tyrant when we see his guards raise The Commonwealth’s flag at the gates of Alexandria and Hilltop. The final moments are unsettling when we see the crazy-eyed Lance ordering his troopers to round up the chained women of Oceanside. As he flips his lucky coin into the air you just know whatever the result is he is ordering their deaths or imprisonment. The Commonwealth takeover is complete and with Daryl, Aaron and Gabriel on the run and Hilltoppers hiding out with Riverbenders there is no telling how much danger their loved ones are in back at Commonwealth. Thank goodness Carol (Melissa McBride) is there because it won’t be long before her family will need her lone wolf killing skills.