Even though the show walks and talks like it always has, the path it takes finds ways to be unexpected and engaging.Īs this is the first episode of a two-parter, we’re left with half of the story and plenty of questions still up in the air. This is a familiar arc for The Walking Dead at this point, and yet we can’t look away. Inevitably our protagonists and the Commonwealth will butt heads, before finding reasons to trust one another. After the brutal treatment they receive, the group tries to leave, before Yumiko discovers her sister might be among them and wishes to stay. They're a militarized faction, and the main characters must prove themselves to their captors. Upon arrival, Eugene and the group are locked up and interrogated by Stephanie’s community, a group called the Commonwealth.
This storyline has been building since Eugene heard a mysterious woman, Stephanie, over a ham radio and their developing relationship became a core plot point in the previous season.īeing strung along that whole time without any real answers has been grating, so you'd think we'd get some closure in this new season, right? Sadly, that's not the case just yet. Meanwhile, a different detachment from Alexandria seeking aid finally reaches a community of survivors. Though this conflict involves more undead and gunfights then your friends’ bickering, we’d wager. Your loyalty to Maggie as a viewer and the recent humanizing of Negan does make it hard to root for one over the other – it's sort of like when your friends are arguing, and you don’t want to pick sides because they're both making good points. Her return brings that tension with Negan back, and it looks to be the real internal conflict going forward with our group, to the point where they each almost kill the other in this episode. Funnily enough, she’s kept a grudge against him.
While Negan began his ‘redemption’ arc, Maggie had left the group to raise her son after he killed Maggie’s husband Glenn and their friends in a bloody spectacle. Things haven't changed, of course, for Maggie. Though clearly unwelcome, Negan being trusted to lead the people he once terrorized says a lot about how things have changed. The once-villainous Negan has turned into a closely-watched ally, as he guides the Alexandrians through an underground railway to the Warden’s ransacked settlement for supplies.