Sharat Raju | Through the Shattered Lens

The first third of The Walking Dead‘s final season came to a conclusion on Sunday night with For Blood. With the Alexandrians trying to figure out how to protect their community from a combination of bad weather, shoddy craftsmanship, and walkers gathering at the wall, Maggie launched her assault on Meridian.

Considering that it was the first finale of the final season, it was a surprisingly low-key episode. The majority of the running time was taken up with Darryl, Leah, and Pope watching Maggie, Negan, and the walkers they had culled approaching Meridian. When Pope revealed a willingness to sacrifice Reaper lives, Leah killed him and then took over the Reapers herself. Darryl revealed to her that he was a double agent. Leah proceeded to start shooting fireworks at the invaders and, as the episode ended, it looked like a rocket was heading straight for Maggie.

It was simple but it was effective. I liked it. In the past, talky episodes like this one have driven me crazy but, in this episode, all of the talking actually advanced the story. We learned more about Pope. We learned more about Leah. We even learned a little bit more about Darryl, a testament to the fact that Norman Reedus has managed to keep the character fresh for 11 seasons.

The highpoint of the episode, not surprisingly, was the death of Pope. Personally, I’m happy to have Pope out of there. Pope always came across as being a less effective but somehow even more longwinded version of Negan and it was hard to take the Reapers seriously as long as he was in charge. It was like finding out that a town’s most fearsome gang was led by someone who played Dungeons and Dragons every weekend. I was seriously dreading the prospect of having to spend this entire season with Pope as the main villain. But now, Pope is dead and Leah is in charge and Leah seems as if she’ll be a much more worthy adversary. Certainly, her relationship with Daryl adds a new element to her battle with the Alexandrians.

Darryl tried to convince Leah to join the Alexandrians. Leah, instead, starting shooting fireworks at Maggie. My hope is that Maggie will duck out of the way but still, this episode dealt with something that I think is too often ignored on The Walking Dead. Not everyone wants to be a member of Alexandria. That was something that Rick Grimes never quite understood and I think it’s also something that Maggie needs to learn. Just because the world has changed, that doesn’t mean that people don’t want to find their own community. Some people just aren’t going to want to embrace the Alexandrian way of life, which is something Rick, in his attempts to nation build, often missed

It was a good episode. I look forward to seeing what happens when the show returns next year. I’m looking forward to seeing what else is going to happen with the Commonwealth. I’m definitely looking forward to the moment when Maggie and Negan realize that they’re in love. (Sorry, Glenn. But, that’s just the way of the world.) I’m looking forward to Gabriel’s inevitable sacrifice. (Seriously, Gabriel is so obviously doomed.) I’m looking forward to Darryl and Carol going off to have adventures in their own spin-off. And I’m looking forward to seeing what Leah can do with The Reapers.

If you have told me last year, at this time, that I’d be looking forward to the return of The Walking Dead, I would have given you one of my epic eye rolls. But these past few episodes have won me over. Here’s hoping the rest of the season lives up to the potential of the first third.

It’s been such a busy week that it was only about an hour ago that I was finally able to sit down and actually watch last Saturday’s episode of The Walking Dead.

As I watched Promises Broken, I found myself asking one question over and over again. Can Maggie and Negan just kiss already? Seriously, it’s totally obvious that Maggie and Negan are in love. Even if the writers didn’t necessarily plan for them to be in love, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan definitely have the right chemistry for some Maggie/Negan action. And I know some people are going to say that it’ll never happen because of what happened in the past but listen …. Glenn’s been dead for a long time. Because of the time jump, he’s been dead even longer on the series than he has been in reality. The world of the Walking Dead is a different place and traditional periods of mourning no longer hold much currency. It’s time to move on.

This week, Negan did convince Maggie to stop plotting to kill him. That was definitely a step forward. Then he taught her how to wear a whisperer’s mask. Awwwwww! But then he said that he should have killed Rick’s entire party when he had the chance and that …. well, that was awkward. I know I’ve been critical of the way the show has used Negan in the past but, this season, he’s gotten on my nerves a lot less and Jeffrey Dean Morgan finally seems to have a handle on the character.

As for the Reapers …. eh, who cares. Pope sent Daryl and Leah on a scouting mission. They came across a family of survivors. They didn’t kill the survivors like they were supposed to. Pope will probably be pissed off but Pope’s always pissed off so who cares? The Reapers are like totally squaresville. Real melvin.

Meanwhile, in the Commonwealth …. well, listen, I just love the Commonwealth! There’s just something so brilliant about this gated, suburban community just sitting there in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. So far, this season’s best scenes have been set in the Commonwealth and that continued to be true this week. In the latest episode, Eugene and the Gang had to do community service by killing walkers. Unfortunately, this led to Eugene and Stephanie interrupting a date between Sebastian Milton and his girlfriend, Kayla. Sebastian, who is basically the preppy from Hell, got mad about the interruption. Words were exchanged Eugene punched Sebastian. Uh-oh! Sebastian is the son of Governor Milton! Eugene ended up getting thrown in jail, where he was informed that he was going to stay imprisoned unless he gave up the location of Alexandria. Is it is possible that all of this was just a set up to get Eugene to turn snitch? Bravo, Commonwealth, bravo!

Interestingly enough, Sebastian Milton played a small but key role in the final few issues of The Walking Dead comic book. After Rick (who was still around in the comic book) took over the Commonwealth and started to form an alliance with the recently deposed Governor Milton, a jealous Sebastian ended up killing him. On the TV show, of course, Carl is dead and Rick is believed dead. Unless the show is going to go super dark and kill off either Judith or Rick, Jr., there are no members of the Grimes family for Sebatian to kill. In theory, who would Sebastian kill? Ezekiel, with his leadership experience and his messianic tendencies, seem the most likely to take power in the Commonwealth so he might want to watch his back.

Next week is the finale of the first half of season 11. So far, season 11 has been a bit uneven but it’s started to pick some momentum with the previous few episodes. Hopefully, that momentum will continue to build and season 11 will give this show the conclusion that it deserves.