The Walking Dead – Family

By starrymag | November 20, 2022

By: Kelly Kearney

 

 

The plot to take down Pamela and save their friends and the people of Commonwealth is a go, but it doesn’t come without a cost that fans of this show were not prepared to pay. In Faith. Judith is in danger when the group breaks back into the community to end this oppressive dictatorship once and for all. Outside the walls, things don’t look much safer when a swarm of walkers is spotted near the gates that could cause a problem for Mercer and his troops. Since this new variant bunch can climb, grab knives, and fight, things get out of hand quickly. There is only one episode left in this 11 season drama, and every second of this penultimate episode is a heartstopper.

 

ONE FIGHT DOWN, ONE LAST FIGHT TO GO

 

Last week Alexandria was liberated by our group, and this week, everyone is gearing up to head back to The Commonwealth to fight some more. We catch up with Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Carol (Melissa McBride) as they sit down with Judith (Cailey Fleming) and R.J. (Antony Azor) to talk about what’s ahead. They quickly learn Judith has her heart set on going to fight with her aunt and uncle. In the opening sequence we watch as Judith reached into her trunk of weapons to grab her father Rick’s sheriff’s hat and her mother’s Constitution that was signed by the four communities they called home. This pint-sized warrior wants to be present for the revolution her brother and family fought so hard for.  The people of The Commonwealth need hope and as a Grimes she wants to be a part of the fighters who deliver it. At first Daryl shoots her down; war is no place for a child, but he and Carol share some knowing looks like their little Ass-kicker is all grown up as she rattles off a list of reasons for wanting to come along. After more parental glances back and forth, Daryl agrees to let Judith come along, as long as she listens to everything her uncle says. In the meantime R.J. will stay behind in Alexandria and keep his father’s hat safe.

When we next see everyone they’re boarding the prisoner transport train they hijacked between Alexandria and Commonwealth. Knowing they can’t just walk up to the gates of The Commonwealth and politely ask to be let in means they’re going to have to sneak in and go for the surprise attack. Nobody knows they took over the train, so none of the troopers protecting the gates will be expecting them.

 

MERCER FLIPS AND PAMELA GETS A REPLACEMENT GENERAL

 

Speaking of The Commonwealth, Mercer (Michael James Shaw) proves he’s a team player when he delivers Eugene (Josh McDermitt) to his distraught sister Max (Margot Bingham). Last week we saw that he intercepted Eugene’s final moments after he was found guilty in the trial of Sebastian’s death. Instead of facing the firing squad, the guilty man faced a smirking Mercer and the best line of the season, “Time to f*** s*** up.” That’s exactly what he plans to do too! He tells Eugene, Max and Yumiko (Elenaor Matsuura) to stay out of sight while he gathers a group of soldiers willing to turn on Pamela (Laila Robins) – he is done being the general of her mess and it’s time he protected the people from its leader. Eugene sort of argues, always wanting to help, but Mercer makes it clear the best way to help is to stay out of sight until he has formulated a plan. The problem is that Pamela is on to Mercer now and she also knows he’s onto her. When he meets her to discuss Eugene’s escape, he lets Pamela know his sister’s boyfriend isn’t the only one who has gone missing in their town. What he really means is that he knows that she’s responsible for other community members disappearances and says it in a passive-aggressive way, but the message is clear – her days of propaganda are over. Mercer never fully comes out and says what he’s thinking, but everyone in the room knows the loudest accusations for the quietest ones. So, as soon as Mercer leaves to go handle the search for Eugene, Pamela turns to his second-in-command Colonel Vickers (Monique Grant) and orders her to keep an eye on the disgraced general. She doesn’t trust him any longer and she’s pretty aware that the feeling is mutual. Things are not looking great for Pamela; her general is a possible traitor and the people of The Commonwealth are in the streets protesting Eugene’s verdict while their lying governor while she is holed-up in her office looking down upon the masses concocting a plan to fight chaos with chaos, It’s time for another one of her false flag lockdowns, where she orders her troops to act as a sort of pied pipers of the dead and lure them into threatening groups outside the walls. Their job is to guide the swarm towards the general vicinity of the town, just enough to feel like a threat without being one. People can’t demand Pamela be pulled out of City Hall for her crimes if everyone is locked inside their own homes hiding from a walker breach of the gates. The lockdown will end the civil unrest but can it force them to forget what they know? Pamela outed herself as a liar when she asked her people to ignore what they heard on that tape. Now they’re questioning everything, and she must know that leaders are only as strong as their support. As of now, her support is on a massive downslide.

 

LYDIA LOSES MORE THAN LOVE THIS TIME

 

In those hordes of Walkers being lured to the gates we see Aaron (Ross Marquand), Jerry (Cooper Andrews), Lydia (Cassady McClincy), Jules (Alex Sgambati), Luke (Dan Fogler) and Elijah (Okea Eme-Akwari) all slathered in zombie guts and hiding in plain sight. The troopers never see them as they’re doing their emmy-winning best to stagger along with the dead. Knowing they can’t stay in the pack forever, the group spots a trailer in the distance and they decide to take their chances by breaking off from the herd and hiding inside.  Jerry and Aaron make it to safety, but Luke and Jules get swept away in the horde, as does Elijah whose struggle to reach Lydia sets off one of the more traumatic moments of the episode. Lydia just found love again, so when she notices Elijah being dragged away by the horde’s momentum she reaches out of the trailer door and tries to grab him. In her efforts she gets bitten by a walker and can’t save Elijah, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t keep trying. Eventually, Aaron drags her inside the trailer reminding her she can’t save anyone if she’s dead. Luckily, he knows how to fix this situation but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. These two have come a long way since their first meeting and it’s nice to see Aaron in the fatherly role here, something Lydia hasn’t had since Negan left to go from his own group. They don’t have much time, so Aaron hands Lydia a belt and she ties it around her arm like a tourniquet just as Jerry draws his sword. With one downward swipe the sword chops Lydia’s arm off and the scream that comes ripping out of her lungs brings Aaron almost to tears. The scene is brutal, and the only thing that seems to soothe Lydia’s pain is Aaron reminding her that she is loved. Eventually, Lydia passes out from the pain and when she comes to she’s groggy but ready to head out and find her boyfriend. It seems kind of insane since they’ve only been together less than twelve hours and all she got for it was one less arm and a whole lot of trauma, but the two men slow her roll because she’s in no shape to fight walkers and troopers. She’ll need someone to stay behind until it’s safer, so Jerry chooses to leave the trailer and go find their friends while Aaron stays to look out for her. What we hope is not his  prophetic last words, Jerry throws his gore-covered jacket hood on and takes one look at Aaron and says, “See you on the other side.”

 

A DEADLY MISTAKE

 

Back on the train and everyone is in deep thought as they approach what could be their last fight. Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) thanks Ezekiel (Khary Payton) for standing up for him and Annie, but the former King admits he might’ve been wrong about this new Negan. He was willing to sacrifice himself for everyone and that’s nothing like the man who killed Benjamin and burned the Kingdom to the ground. When he asks Negan why he tried to take one for the team, Negan admits he wanted to do something his kid could one day be proud of. He doesn’t just want to be the leader of the Saviors who killed Glenn, Abraham and Sasha. He wants to be more than that. Ezekiel understands because he too has changed over the years. With each tragedy he’s faced, and some he never thought he would survive, he says, “Still I smile.” We also catch up with Judith, who sits with Carol and Daryl as they talk about her parents and Carl and what they wanted for this new world. Daryl promises her that when this fight is over he will tell her all the stories about the people who loved her. After a quick checkin with Rosita (Christian Serratos), who is still determined to burn Pamela’s world to the ground for taking Coco, we go to Princess (Paola Lázaro) who gets a surprising call from her ex! Mercer, who is now referring to her as his girlfriend, apologizes for how things ended and says he will be waiting to let them in the back gate once the train arrives. The problem is that Pamela is on to him and them, ordering the lockdown to clear the streets and tighten security. Now Mercer has no other choice but to abandon his reunion with Princess, but before he leaves to deal with the swarm, he orders all the guards to leave their posts and join him for the walker fight. This should leave the closest enterance to the train station unguarded.

When the train does arrive the group hides behind the back fence waiting for Mercer’s cue. Carol has never been one to wait, so she tells Daryl she is going to look for another way in. “Be careful,” they tell each other, along with one of their famous looks that say more than words ever could. She leaves to do her lone wolf thing in case they need a Plan B while the others find their way inside from underneath the train station.  From the minute they enter the main hall something feels off. Daryl notices the doors to the station are chained shut and he yells for everyone to get down because it’s a trap. Pamela knew they were coming and she placed armed men inside the hall waiting to ambush them. The shoot-out is intense, with bullets flying and not many corners to hide in. The troopers have them cornered, and feeling like she has the upper hand. Pamela walks out to get a taste of her victory. That’s when the unthinkable happens. A trooper closest to her gets killed and Pamela loses it. She grabs his gun and starts shooting and as a bullet goes whizzing dangerously close to Maggie, Judth acts without thinking and rushes into the line of fire to push her out of the way. In slow motion we see an enraged Pamela pull the trigger and a bullet go tearing through Judith Grimes’ abdomen! Everything stops as Carol shows up and takes one look at Daryl hovering over a fading Judith and starts sniper executing the troopers closest to Pamela. She somehow manages to get away, but not before blaming them all for Judith’s possible death. The gunfire becomes too chaotic and they can’t make their way out the door without getting shot. With some quick thinking teamwork, Ezekiel grabs a fire extinguisher and tosses it into the air as Daryl fires his gun, hitting the metal canister and filling the room with enough fog to mask their escape.

 

THE SWARM

 

Everyone is determined to get Judith out of the building and to somewhere safe, but safe places are dwindling fast. We catch up with Mercer who loses contact with his team of troopers trying to direct the herd away from the gates of the city. One of those variant walkers climbs up into the trooper’s jeep in a surprise attack that leaves both men dead and an unmanaged herd on the loose heading straight for The Commonwealth.  To make matters worse, Pamela instructs her new General Vickers to arrest Mercer for treason! He’s accused of helping Eugene escape and while he doesn’t deny it, he does tell the troopers to go defend the wall while he’s led away in handcuffs.

WIth the detail outside the walls now dead and Mercer heading to jail, nobody is prepared or even aware of the threat heading their way. They realize it way too late when hundreds of walkers show up outside and start climbing the walls and the guard towers. The only guard on duty is immediately killed, but in the struggle he winds up leaning on the lever that opens the city’s gates! The dead start pouring in and the people of The Commonwealth have no idea what’s coming, and even less of a clue on how to handle it when it gets there.

Back at City Hall General Vickers comes to deliver the good and the very bad news: she arrested Mercer but now the dead have breached the walls and they are filling the streets. She has a plan, with blueprints and all, on how to save as much of the city as they can. Pamela has her own ideas: protect the wealthy estates and her life at all costs. The haves get to live, but it’s her plans for the have-nots that have her General shaken in her white armored boots.  The lower wards (where our group is and the population’s poorest live) is the first neighborhood the walkers will enter, so Pamela orders her General to wall up the streets and trap everyone in with the dead. Vickers is shocked knowing this action will result in the deaths of thousands, but all Pamela cares about is saving the elites…herself included. This sort of leadership is why they make “eat the rich” T-shirts.

At the train station our group manages to get out with the help of Eugene who did not listen to Mercer’s orders to lay low. After knocking out a trooper sweeping the building he was hiding in, Eugene’s timing is impeccable as he shows up just in time to help Daryl carrying Judith and his friends out of the locked station doors. Everyone starts running looking for a hospital or some medical help but everywhere they turn Troopers are blocking the streets. Carol realizes the soldiers are not hunting them, they’re blocking them in. But why? The why comes around the corner and from all sides as the streets are instantly overrun with walkers. Judith is fading fast and they have to act quickly so everyone pulls out their weapons and starts shooting through the swarm to clear the path for Daryl. Like Michonne did for Rick when he carried a dying Carl, Carol leads the way opening up a space in the crowd of the dead for Daryl, and a bleeding and dazed Judith. Once on the other side of the barricades we see the group left behind get overtaken by the swarm and the scene seems unsurvivable. Daryl searches for help, and we see Judith’s half open eyes fixated on her uncle as she whispers, “Daddy.” It’s more of a question than a declaration, and that leaves viewers wondering if we could be getting a Rick Grimes dream- hallucination in the finale episode! Fans can only hope that the man who started this series, like a waking dream from a hospital bed, will end its twelve year run with that same man’s dying daughter dreaming of her daddy.