The Walking Dead – Promises Broken

By: Kelly Kearney

After last week’s stand-alone horror themed episode with Connie and Virgil, the penultimate to the mid-season finale has landed, and with it, a new dynamic between enemies Maggie and Negan. After losing some of her best fighters, Maggie finally shelves her hatred for Negan and takes his advice on how to infiltrate Meridian like an apocalyptic Trojan horse. Negan, acting as the teacher to her pupil, shows Maggie the ways of the Whisperers, once again proving that with every choice these survivors make, whether right or wrong, can ultimately be their savior rather than their undoing. Over at The Commonwealth, Eugene and friends are sentenced to the hard labor of clearing walkers out of buildings while their highly educated friend Yumiko lands an interview with Governor Milton. Daryl, who is keeping his eyes and ears open, is still learning about the Reapers and all of their weaknesses; while Gabriel encounters the group’s own holy man on a stake-out. “Promises Broken” lays the ground work for the first arc’s finale and all we can hope is that it’s explosive enough to tide us over until the show’s return in 2022. So, lets dive in, zombie fans!

Back to Class

We pick up right where we left off with Maggie (Lauren Cohan), Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Elijah (Okea Eme-Akwari) as the last of the fighters ready to take down the Reapers. There is just one problem: they overheard Daryl (Norman Reedus) say they are outnumbered and without nourishment to keep them steady and soldiers to fight the battle they are looking at a suicide mission. It’s one Negan has been talking about since the subway tunnels in the premiere and he could be right. They cannot win this without a plan and, lucky for Maggie, Negan has one: return to Alexandria with what little supplies they grabbed at the safe house and cut their losses. Maggie shoots that down, telling him he is free to go but she and Elijah are moving on towards Meridian. They have no other choice as their family back home will starve if they don’t. Besides, Maggie is still convinced their other friends will show up to help and Gabe (Seth Gilliam) agrees with her, much to Negan’s dismay. Out of options and still wanting to help the people back home, Negan offers Maggie a truce. If he risks his life on this no-win mission and they both somehow make it out alive, they will agree to leave the past in the past and move on from their intensely homicidal feud. Maggie scoffs at this because she cannot believe he is going to trust her, but a deal is a deal and the two shake on it. A truce for now but that doesn’t mean she thinks they’re even; they won’t ever be even, and she makes sure the ex-gym teacher/Savior knows it. Their seemingly hostile handshake gets interrupted by a group of walkers led by a young woman who appears to be the best friend of Elijah’s missing sister. The three jump into action, but they do not kill all the zombies. They leave some tied to trees for a little obstacle course only Negan can guide them through. That’s right, the former Whisperer picked up a few things when he was playing friends with latrine benefits with Alpha. While Gabe goes ahead to scout out the perimeter of Meridian, Negan shows the other two how to walk like the dead. How to wear “someone else’s face” as Negan says, takes skill and, at first, he relishes in the fact Maggie isn’t in charge and laughs off how  resistant she is to taking orders. To be a walker one must become death or at least ignore Negan when he laughs at how badly she fumbles her first try at zombie cosplay. Practice, they say, does make perfect and after a few close calls with the jaws of literal death, she gets he hang of hiding in the herd. Negan, who acts like a proud Papa with his two kids bringing home straight A’s, tries once again to convince Maggie he is a changed man, and maybe not much different than herself. As the head of the Saviors his job was to keep his family alive and many of those people had families of their own, just like she has with Hershel in Alexandria. They all do what they have to in order to keep the people they care about alive. Maggie shrugs off his family as people who didn’t earn the right to be saved, but when he reminds her Aaron’s daughter, Gracie, was one of those people a new view of the Saviors starts t take form in her head. Right up until she asks him if he would have done anything differently that fateful night when they first met. The truth hurts when he says he would have killed all of Rick’s people that night, not just Glen and Abe. She is stunned by this honesty and asks him how he could say that to her. It is easy for him because to survive this battle with the Reapers, truth is going to have to be their guiding light. The fact is, without Rick and company her family and Gracie’s would still be here. Perception is everything in a world with no easily distinguishable good and bad guys. If everyone is fighting for survival than it is hard to tell the difference between two fighting sides. The world is not so black and white anymore.

Hard Labor at the Commonwealth

When we last saw Eugene and his group they were all in trouble for breaking The Commonwealth’s law, but thanks to Lance Hornsby their trial and subsequent banishment was downgraded to walker duty. The four have been tasked with clearing the buildings of the dead outside of the community’s walls for redevelopment. Stephanie (Chelle Ramos), who hasn’t killed walkers in years, struggles a bit compared to her seasoned co-workers Ezekiel (Khary Payton), Princess (Paola Lázaro) and Eugene (Josh McDermitt). Everyone is tired but not like the cancer-stricken Ezekiel, who Princess notices is fading fast and pleads with the guards to find her friend some medical attention before he keels over on the job. While all this clean-up is going on, we catch a glimpse of a preppy bro and his date, both dressed to the nines and heavily under guard by Princess’ pumpkin flavored spice boy, Mercer (Michael James Shaw). Elsewhere, Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura) is all cleaned up and in business-casual wear as she waits to talk with Governor Milton about her role in the community…after her brother (Ian Anthony Dale) was led away by guards for presumably lying about his former life as a surgeon, Yumiko wants answers and fast. Those questions will, unfortunately, have to wait thanks to Eugene who decks the preppy kid who just happens to be Pamela Milton’s son, Sebastian (Teo Rapp-Olsson). Not that Eugene knew this privileged punk was anything more than an ungrateful brat in need of saving from the gnashing teeth of a walker. Eugene lands in jail and is facing a very disappointed Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton), who was working on the newcomer’s integration into the community. Now that’s all gone and it’s life in prison for the lonely hearted mullet-man unless he wants to spill the tea on Alexandria’s location. It seems like there is always a catch with The Commonwealth’s elites and both Eugene and Yumiko are getting a front row seat at how their quid pro quo works. Like the offer he posed to Eugene, Hornsby also went out of his way to use Tomi’s arrest to get the upper hand with Yumiko. So, who is really in charge here? Pamela, the Governor, or Bruce the cheesy video guy who seems to be pulling all the strings?

A Glimpse of Hope?

While Maggie and the others are prepping for their big Whisperer inspired attack Pope (Ritchie Coster) sends Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Leah (Lynn Collins) out in search of his enemies in the surrounding woods. While tracking the two talk about the Reaper life, with Leah confessing her love and loyalty to Pope and the family they’ve built. Daryl keeps his mouth shut on the topic of family because he is still trying to pretend like he is the woods living loner Leah knew before. On their search the two come across a man who winds up leading them to where his injured wife and son have been hiding from the Reaper sweeps. When Leah radios it in to Pope, he nonchalantly orders her to kill them all, but the cries of the boy and the willing sacrifice of the woman who is ready to die touches her in some way so she orders the husband to take the son and go. Once they leave, the woman begs Leah for the mercy of death, but as her finger hovers over the trigger she cannot do it. Daryl sees her pause and takes matters into his own hands by shooting an arrow into the woman’s head and fulfilling Pope’s orders. Leah says their leader will be impressed with him, but it is clear she is having some kind of crisis of conscious over Pope’s swift decline into brutal madness. The moment seems to force Daryl to admit to Leah he has something important to tell her but before he can reveal the Maggie truth they get interrupted by the walkie talkie calling them back to home base.

Meanwhile, Maggie and Elijah unlock the doors to a warehouse full of walkers they were probably storing up for this epic battle because they have made themselves a nice little horde to hide in. As the two, along with Negan, start to shuffle the pack of the dead towards Meridian, Elijah, who has been looking for his sister since the moment the viewers met him finally sets eyes on his sibling in an emotional reunion he hoped would never happen. His sister is a walker and the reality of this search ending in her death hits him hard and he almost crumbles and breaks their cover. Maggie sees he is struggling and slowly takes his hand as a sign of support. And as the herd draws closer to the gates of Meridian, she knows she has her man on the inside keeping that glimmer of hope alive that this suicidal mission might work. An Alpha-inspired plan with Negan by her side seems like a sure-fire win, as long as Daryl can drop those puppy dog eyes and actually see Leah for the killer she is and not the cabin friends with benefits she was six years ago. The undercover Dixon is on the precipice of blowing their whole cover for a woman who had him waterboarded days ago. I guess those abused child dynamics are a hard habit to break, especially for a guy like Daryl, who always looks for the good in people, even if that good died long ago.