The Walking Dead – Lockdown

By: Kelly Kearney

Twelve years, eleven seasons, several spin-offs, and enough dead bodies to the Grand Canyon, the end of zombie Sundays is only eight episodes away and the 11C premiere set the stage for an epic goodbye. When we last left our survivors, Lance Hornsby was hunting down Daryl, Maggie, Aaron, and Gabe having no idea they teamed up with the unknown (to Lance and the Commonwealth) Negan. Now Negan is their best bet to stop Lance before he radios back orders to harm their friends and family. Meanwhile, at the Commonwealth, Connie’s anonymous written article– outing Sebastian’s misdeeds created a stir in the community and the citizens took to the streets in protest of the Miltons. Pamela is losing her grip on the people and it’s all thanks to her sociopathic punk of a son. Things are heating up fast in the land of ice cream and oligarchies, so let’s dive in and see what the mid-mid-season premiere was all about.

THE PAST BROUGHT US HERE

We begin with a voiceover from Judith (Cailey Fleming) who talks about the start of the fall. Glimpses of loved ones they’ve lost along the way, and the change our protagonists have through to get them to the present. We see Rick (Andrew Lincoln) waking up in the hospital, and quickly bleeds into the original Atlanta group, Woodbury, Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Lucille, Alpha (Samantha Morton) and the threats they’re facing today at the Commonwealth. It sets the mood for, not only one final goodbye to those we’ve lost, but a reminder that the living made a choice–some chose the light and some darkness, but those choices all led them to this current fight.

Speaking of fights, we see Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan) clearing a building of zombies while Lance (Josh Hamilton) and his stormtroopers hunt them down outside. The two hear the gunfire and know Lance is close and Daryl is amped to “take ’em out one by one.” When they hear footsteps they hide and prepare their weapons but it’s just Gabe (Seth Gilliam) and Aaron (Ross Marquand), joined by Negan and Annie (Medina Senghore). If they are there then where is Herschel? Maggie instantly panics but Negan and his wife, Maggie’s chosen babysitters, promise her the boy is safe and hiding with Elijah. Why did they abandon their post and wind up in this Hornsby fight? Negan says. “We’re here to take out sh**head and the d*ckless brigade.” After some disagreements over their next move, the group decides their best course of action is to send Negan into the Commonwealth to warn the others trapped behind the walls, unaware of the threat that could be coming for them. No one in that community has laid eyes on the former Savior and has no idea he’s tied to Maggie and Alexandria. He’s the perfect mole.

In a trick he learned from his last freaky girlfriend, Negan straps on a skin mask and hides amongst the walkers until he gets close enough to Lance’s troopers and stabs one, which creates a distraction, and he manages to punt the trooper like a football into a pack of hungry walkers. They tear the young trooper to bloody dinner shreds – a gruesome kill that satisfies any horror fan’s hunger…so to speak. When Lance and his team roll up to find him and other troopers in pieces, he orders the remaining soldiers to find the escape vehicle and set up a radio signal to tell the others about the traitor Dixon, back home. If he approaches the gates of the Commonwealth, his orders are to shoot on sight. Too bad these troopers are all bad shots! Once he’s able to sneak past Lance’s goons, Negan and Daryl team up in one of the best duo car chase scenes and shoot-out sequences we’ve seen on the show. Negan draws the remaining troops’ fire as he zips through the streets in an SUV while Daryl picks off Lance’s team one by one. He eventually kills so many he is able to slip away in a truck but it isn’t long before he emerges, slamming into the troopers jeep in hot pursuit of Negan. He risks his own life to ensure Negan has a clear path to the Commonwealth. The only threats left are a small group of troopers and one tiny pistol-waving floppy-haired menace named Lance. He is determined to set up an antenna and radio back home and orders one of his troopers to find a signal while he searches for Maggie and Dixon. He never does radio home because later we see Maggie and Annie team up to take out the guy tasked with setting up the antenna. Now Lance is on his own.

PROTESTS FOR JUSTICE

Speaking of the Commonwealth, Connie’s (Lauren Ridloff) article dropped, anonymous of course, in the local paper and it rips the curtain back in the Miltons and their murderous leadership–particularly Sebastian (Teo Rapp-Olsson) and his trips to that mansion-money grab. With loved ones missing and now assumed dead, the citizens of Commonwealth are fuming and take their rage to the streets to protest the town’s leadership. Outside Governor Pamela Milton’s (Laila Robins) office, the crowds are heard chanting their demands to turn over her son. “We want justice!” they yell, and Connie and her friends are in the thick of the crowd too. Upstairs in Pamela’s office, Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura) and Max (Margot Bingham) pretend to be on the Governor’s side, all the while plotting and planning the woman’s fall from grace. It’s a bit of “keep your enemies closer” at city hall, and minus one dig at Connie’s possible involvement with the tell-all story, she

After kindly ordering Rosita (Christian Serratos) back to work on her day off, Mercer (Michael James Shaw) heads to the interrogation rooms to meet a recent newcomer who asked for him. There, he comes face to face with a smiling Negan, who tells him he was sent by Daryl to inform him of Lance “cutting up our people outside,” and now the people inside the walls need protection. That’s typically Mercer’s job but Negan wants to be fast-tracked into the community to make sure they have a backup. Mercer isn’t sure he can unleash this cocky menace into the community without breaking their protocols. Negan laughs at this pumpkin-spiced powerhouse and wonders out loud why he is bothering to follow the rules when nobody else there is. Good point. Negan is in, and his first order of business is to find Carol and kick this plan into overdrive.

Planning and killing are Carol’s (Melissa McBride) forte but espionage and pancakes are what she’s serving for breakfast today and she hopes Gracie and the Grimes kids like them burned and served with a dagger! While looking at some spy photos she took of suspicious people Carol burns the pancakes but saves the littles when Lance’s two goons, Shira (Chelle Ramos) and Calhoun (Michael Tourek), show up to arrest or maybe kill Daryl’s family! The kids play the quiet game and hide while Carol–armed with a knife is ready to kill to protect them. The fact these two undercover assassins didn’t smell Carol’s burnt breakfast the second they broke into the apartment is a bigger mystery than when Heath went missing, but they don’t sniff them out but they will be back. Let’s hope Carol is three deadly steps ahead of them.

THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD

After convincing Mercer to let him into the Commonwealth, Negan gets sprung from lock up just in time to soak up the general atmosphere. The look on his face as he hears the chants from the protesters is a perfect combination of eye-rolls and headshakes. In the streets is where he runs into Jerry (Cooper Andrews), who’s also mixed with smiles and suspicions, wondering what that bat-swinging menace is up to now. In typical Negan fashion, he skips the pleasantries for a pointed “I’m here to save your asses. Now, where is Carol?”

When he does track his pal Carol down he tells her that her suspicions about the place were spot-on. Hornsby used Hershel to draw Maggie out and now he’s coming for Daryl. Even with their recent falling out, everyone should know by now if you want to live to see tomorrow you don’t touch a hair on Pookie’s head! Besides? Who’s going to raise these kids? The “look at the flowers” lady” No, Daryl needs help. So, Carol tells Jerry to take the kids and hide in an attic he’s been stocking up with supplies. She and Negan are going to find themselves a little life insurance before they all bounce. City hall has blueprints of the entire town and it can pinpoint where the infamous Sebastian has been hiding. While digging through the file cabinets, Negan shares his worries with Carol over his wife and child. She is a bit taken aback by the good news, but after a beat, she recognizes his fears and tells him everything is going to be ok. It’s a shame we never had more scenes with these two; the chemistry between McBride and Morgan compliments the often misunderstood characters they portray and highlights their similarities. With blueprints in hand and pretty much all of Mercer’s enforcers dealing with the protesters and a rumored walker horde, it isn’t long before Carol and Negan find Sebastian passed out in a secret room full of food, trash, and jars of urine.

Meanwhile, Yumiko finds Magna (Nadia Hilker) and fills her in on what’s going on. The two ex-lovers and current flirty friends talk about plans for keeping Milton off their tracks–with Yumiko admitting that if they all choose to run she’s staying behind with her brother, Tomi. Magna refuses to hear this because they’ve been through too much; if one goes, they all do. Their discussion is interrupted by an announcement on the loudspeakers ordering everyone back to their residences immediately. A lockdown has been ordered due to that swarm of walkers approaching the gates. Outside we do see a slow-moving horde but this lockdown feels terribly convenient now that Pamela lost control of the streets to the protesters. As the crowd quickly disperses, Jerry spots Shira and Calhoun charging toward him and the kids and recognizes them as the threats Carol warned him about. Quick thinking and some hustling and he winds up losing them when he and the kids climb up a fire escape and into the apartment of a helpful woman.

CHECK-MATE

Back to our survivors outside the walls, Maggie apologizes to Daryl for having to kill Leah to save her life. Years wracked with guilt over how Glenn died means Maggie never has to apologize-he always has her back; it’s what Glen would’ve wanted.  Almost flanked from all sides by Lance’s men, Annie pops up to point out a sewer grate and an idea to get through the remaining troops. “They’re going down under!

Outside the walls readying for the swarm, Rosita and Mercer take a moment to talk about something that has been weighing heavy on the big man’s mind. He wants her to know that when he killed those guards Sebastian used in the mansion heists, it wasn’t ok and it won’t happen again. He respects Rosita and promises to help her get out when and if she chooses to leave the Commonwealth. They get interrupted by a MAYDAY call from another Jeep carrying two of their own. It overturned and now they’re fighting off the horde alone. Mercer and Rosita rush to their side but he is too distracted by his guilt to think clearly. When one of his men dies he’s desperate to save the other from the vicious pack. He fights to pull the dying soldier up to safety but in the struggle, Rosita can’t hold them off and the Jeep gets crowded with the dead. Eventually, the trooper is ripped in half and that’s when Mercer pulls back and the two flee.

Meanwhile, out in the streets, people are breaking curfew to gather for a memorial to honor Sebastian’s victims. When the troops roll in they aim their guns at their own people trying to force them back home. The mourners are shocked; it’s just more proof that what Connie wrote was true. The troopers wind up lobbying tear gas grenades at the mourners and everyone takes off running.

In the tunnels, the group decides to lure Lance and his people down into a trap, and at the same time, back in Commonwealth, Carol is setting her own trap to force Pamela into helping them. She offers to take Sebastian back to his mother to blame this whole thing on Lance, and at first, the kid doesn’t want to take her up on it. He doesn’t believe Carol can convince her into forgiving him. That’s when Negan refers to Carol as a magician he’s seen “pull rabbits out of her ass.” Carol’s face is priceless, but he’s right, and Sebastian takes the deal. When they make their way to Pamela’s office she greets her missing son with a hug and a slap across the face. So much for that Mommy of the Year award, and what about Carol’s rabbits? Well, they’re as magical as ever because she manages to convince Pamela that Lance went rogue. The woman buys–or maybe she just wants to, that it was never Sebastian who committed those crimes but was her loathsome second-in-command, Hornsby! She out-maneuvers the Governor just as Daryl does the same to Lance– who finds himself trapped in the underground tunnels with Dixon’s buck-knife to his throat.