The Walking Dead – Trust

By: Kelly Kearney

Leah is back and, thanks to Lance, gearing up for an epic battle between her and Maggie in the mid-season finale. Lance tracks Leah down in her wooded encampment after he learns it wasn’t Riverbend or Maggie’s group who hijacked the cargo shipment of weapons but the lone reaper harboring a serious vendetta against Maggie and pretty much anyone else who crosses her path. After his search at Hilltop turns up empty and he angers Maggie for accosting her son, Lance wants the Hilltop leader to pay and who better than the woman skilled enough to take out his guards and looking for an excuse to kill Maggie and her friends?

The Search is On

We begin at Riverbend where Lance (Josh Hamilton) and his team of troopers survey the massacre that seems to only have two survivors: Father Gabe (Seth Gillium) and Aaron (Ross Marquand). Obviously, this looks suspicious because how did one holy man and his one-armed pal take on a group so vicious is left a trail of troopers and Toby Carlson (Jason Butler Harner) in their wake? Something isn’t adding up, but he chooses to take the two men’s word for it thanks to Daryl (Norman Reedus) acting as back up. However, Lance asks the three to lead his team through the woods on a mission to find the missing cargo.

After a deadly encounter with a few walkers, who test Aaron, Gabe and Daryl’s mettle in the field as fighters, they all end up outside the gates of Hilltop demanding entry to search for Riverbend hijackers and stolen goods. Maggie (Lauren Cohan), of course, declines them entry, but when Daryl steps up and promises her he will make sure the search is quick and not too intrusive both giving each other those silent clues like they know Lance is dirty and they hope he doesn’t find out she helped Riverbender’s escape. Gabe and Aaron filled him in during their trek through the woods, so he knows this search could kick off a fight with this mini army that they might not win. It’s a tense moment when Lance finds the truck Maggie took to on the rescue mission. It seems in good shape, which she makes sure to claim that it isn’t. She says she has been trying to restore it but just cant get it started. Lance, with his creepy smile, offers to give it a try and everyone watch holds their breaths while he slides the key into the ignition. If it is dead, Maggie is telling the truth. If the engine turns over, she is a liar and Lance’s troopers will probably shoot first and ask questions later. Luckily, the truck doesn’t start and both Daryl and Maggie take a sigh of relief but even that keeps Lance interested in what she could be up doing. The thing with Lance is that he has nothing left to loses her. He is keeping this whole mission and the missing cargo and dead troops from Governor Milton (Laila Robins), so if she is in the dark about that, she would be in the dark about slaughtering this whole community. He has to return to the Commonwealth with that cargo as if he and his team never walked outside the gates. If Maggie, or even Alexandrians, got in his way he wouldn’t hesitate. He would order their deaths, take what he wants and go back home like nothing happened.

So, when he corners Hershel (Kien Michael Spiller) alone and threatens Maggie’s life if the kid doesn’t tell him where his mother was the previous day things go from tense to volatile. It seems Lance knew Hershel was at Riverbend because he located Hershel’s baseball cap. It fits his head perfectly and was found on the ground outside the compound. How did it get there? He grabs Hershel by the shirt and that’s when Elijah (Okea Eme-Akwari) swoops in and pins Lance to a wall, which then turns into a stand-off between his troopers, Daryl and Maggie who all have their weapons trained on him and each other. One wrong move and the bullets will fly, so both Maggie and Lance de-escalate the situation but not before she reminds him to bever go near her son again.

A Deadly Employment Opportunity

Later that night Daryl tells Aaron and Gabe that he doesn’t think Lance is going to let them go back to Commonwealth until they find that cargo. Even then he might consider their trio an “acceptable loss” since that seems to be the Modis operandi of this community’s elite. They use people up and hide their deaths from their loved ones.

Daryl is right. Lance has no intention of facing Governor Milton with the news about all the things he has been keeping from her, so when one of his guards finds Leah’s (Lynn Collins) camp and the cache of weapons Lance takes off into the night with a few troopers to find her. Things do not go well for the guards because almost instantly sniper Leah starts picking them off one by one, not killing them but shooting them in the limbs. When they are disarmed she waltzes out of the shadows and comes face to face with Lance. For his part, he looks enamored with her like she is some kind of rock star,. He then offers her a chance of a lifetime. If she can take out his guards and hijack a heavily guarded cargo shipment, then she might be just the person to kill Maggie Rhee. “I want to hire you,” he says and lucky for him taking out this particular target is all Leah dreams about.

Elsewhere, romance (or more importantly sex – lots and lots of sex) blooms in the air at Commonwealth between Princess (Paola Lázaro) and hunky General Mercer (Michael James Shaw). The two are in a full-blown relationship (pillow talk about their feelings and all) and Princess couldn’t be happier. There is just one thing that seems to be bugging her about their perfect night together and that is the fact Mercer never seems to sleep. She questions if he is a robot, but he isn’t a big sharer and just shrugs off her questions and keeps his issues to himself. Later, we find out what’s been keeping him up at night is guilt over the two troopers he killed and the deaths of the thirty others he covered up for Sebastian (Teo Rapp-Olsson). We later see him talking to his sister, Max (Margot Bingham), about what it is like to be in his position – someone the whole community looks up to but who really doesn’t have any power at all. One wrong move, like Max’s on-air secret relationship with Eugene (Josh McDermitt), and he would disappear like the others. He reminds his sister to keep her nose clean because he has enough balls in the air he is juggling, he doesn’t need another, but Max has faith in her brother “Mike” and wonders if he might not be right person to change Commonwealth for the better? Like all leaders who should lead, Mercer doesn’t want that role, nor does he think he is deserving of it. He does; however, think he has earned the right to love the quirky Princess. That’s why later he opens up to her about what he did and the worry about what that means for the who he is becoming. It isn’t so much guilt over taking those lives as it is the realization that he would do it again if he had to. What has this place and his role as General done to the loyal and ethical boy his parent’s raised? Whoever he is, Princess is in this for the long haul with him and lets Mercer know they are a team will figure it out together.

Many Shades of Grey

Speaking of together, besties Daryl and Carol must be sharing parenting duty when we see Carol (Melissa McBride) dropping R.J. (Antony Azor) and Judith (Cailey Fleming) off at school. She wishes them a good day and then runs into an Ezekiel (Khary Payton) who tells her he is feeling better since his surgery for which he can’t thank her enough for. She agrees he is looking good and he admits it might have something to do with a little project he has been working on. He invites her to his petting zoo to come see, but she asks for a raincheck because she is busy with her own side plots and schemes. She won’t reveal what it is she is working on and that prompts her ex to rattle of an observation about The Commonwealth, “You’d think this place would make life easier, huh? Feels like there’s a lot more gray instead.”

Later the two do meet up when Carol has to use her new powerful role as Hornsby’s side kick to get Ezekiel and Tomi (Ian Anthony Dale) out of custody for stealing hospital supplies. What was this unlikely duo up to? Underground surgeries for the less fortunate, of course. This is what has kept that smile on the former King’s face. Ever since Carol gave him his second chance at life he found a way to pay it forward and has now roped surgeon Tomi into helping those in need too. When Carol sees the make-shift clinic he set up behind the zoo she is impressed, but not as impressed as Tomi must be at her nursing skills when she and Ezekiel lend a hand during an emergency appendectomy. With a life saved and a feel-good mood embracing the former couple, they have a quiet moment to reflect how far they have come. The King flirts a little with his former Queen, saying she is the light in the darkness, and she jokes with him that they aren’t getting back together. It is nice to see these two remain friends after everything they went through as Carol has so few in her corner these days.

Meanwhile, Max doesn’t listen to her brother’s advice to stay out of trouble because when Eugene tells her Connie (Lauren Ridloff) and Kelly (Angel Theory) uncovered a conspiracy to hide the deaths of people they sacrificed for these money-finding missions, she agrees to help him get incriminating evidence. Who better than the Governor’s most trusted assistant and person with access to her files? After listening to her brother wrestle with what he has been forced to do for the Commonwealth’s elite, Max knows there is no turning back now. Everyone she cares about could be at risk, but if Eugene is right then maybe they already are?