The true villain is revealed as The Walking Dead surveys what’s left
The Commonwealth makes its case to Hilltop and Oceanside as Eugene tries to make peace with his predicament
TV Reviews The Walking Dead
You know Benjamin Franklin’s maxim about how those who would give up liberty to purchase temporary security deserve neither? Funny thing about the people who tend to quote it: You don’t often see them scrambling to avoid starvation. So while Maggie is perfectly content to blow off Lance Hornsby and Pamela Milton, the well-to-do overseers of the Commonwealth, in their quest to make a goods-for-infrastructure deal with Hilltop, it’s a lot harder for her to hear it coming from her own people. Especially when those people then leave—because in their mind, she was too proud to take the deal. Ignoring pompous wealthy types? No problem. Being called out by people she trusts and respects for possibly letting her pride put their entire community at risk? Ouch.
“The Lucky Ones” is one of those table-setting episodes of The Walking Dead that manages to wring some drama from a few conversations, thanks to the long-lasting effects the decisions made will have upon the rest of the season. The Commonwealth offered a seemingly benevolent assistance program to each of our three beleaguered communities: Security, infrastructure, and more, with guaranteed protections that would come with the outposts essentially turning into remote sites for an expanding Commonwealth empire. Lance tells Aaron that all three locations need to agree, or else none of them get the deal. Alexandria happily said yes. Oceanside said it would do whatever Hilltop did. And Hilltop—well, Maggie is running Hilltop, and Maggie doesn’t like people who think others need to fall in line beneath them. Yes, that’s ironic.
At the very least, we finally get an argument in favor of the Commonwealth that sounds a lot more plausible than the “this place sucks” introduction it got at the beginning of the season. Lance may not realize just how bad he comes off most of the time, but his sales pitch to Maggie is actually quite compelling. Proposing a brighter future for her child is the smartest way to the Hilltop leader’s heart, and he makes the most of it. Safe travels between all the communities, as easy as visiting a friend? Riding up the river, maybe even to a school Herschel could attend? Culture, arts, safety? He makes it sounds awfully good. And her people certainly want her to say yes.
So why doesn’t she? The simplest answer is also the simplest imagery: After the Commonwealth stormtroopers help put down the walker attack on Hilltop, Maggie looks to one side, where she sees grunts, soldiers, being ordered to fall in line or risk punishment. Then she turns to the other, and sees Milton, Hornsby, and the other leaders laughing and strolling around, as though there weren’t just a life and death struggle. It’s a disparity that’s too much for her to accept. It’s like she says to Milton when she rejects their offer: “Everything costs something.” And the cost here isn’t one she can accept—even if the alternative costs her Hilltop itself. You can see why Dianne would be pissed. And then leave.
This also offers at least a little more explanation for why the others are making their peace with the Commonwealth. The Alexandrians all see it as a temporary situation, a stopgap residence until their home can be rebuilt. “It works for now,” Rosita says to Eugene, summing up why so many of them are rolling with the punches, both metaphorical and literal. Aaron and the others still living in that husk of a home desperately need the wealthy community’s aid. Even Daryl sees a chance to not have to lose sleep every night worrying about Judith and the rest of his people. (Though Daryl is also ignoring some gigantic red flags from his new buddy, Mercer. Seriously, Daryl—you’re just going to shrug off his, “Remember: They’re always watching”?!)
Structurally, this episode was perfectly fine, a little limp at times but successfully cross-cutting between the various plots, even if it’s tough to remember they’re all happening simultaneously, given how much we’ve jumped backward and forward in time recently. And although the Ezekiel plot was the thinnest, it also happily didn’t give in to the character’s own personal hand-wringing about being bumped to the top of the surgery list. He makes his concerns known to Carol, and then next time we see him, he’s drugged and being wheeled into the operating room. Points for efficiency.
And the other subplot—Eugene learning about the “true” Stephanie, a.k.a. Mercer’s sister, Max—actually ends up nailing some strong character beats. As it turns out, Eugene’s not the only one who suffered thanks to his dalliance with the fake Stephanie; after Mercer discovers his sister is the one illegally communicating with Eugene, he forces her to break off contact, informing her that Hornsby has been listening in. So when someone appears, pretending to be her and taking up with Eugene, Max has to stand by and watch this person easily fool the man who supposedly got to know her on a profound level.
It’s a moment that lands for how simple and relatable her sense of betrayal feels, once she articulates it. “How could you not know it wasn’t me?” she says, and actor Margot Bingham lands the necessary blend of hurt and accusation—just as Josh McDermitt, again doing yeoman’s work in an oft-thankless role, buffets Eugene’s shame with the appropriate sense of pitiable desperation. When he explains how the very fact that fake-Stephanie didn’t push him away, as any prior romantic interest has done, helped him believe the lie, you can almost feel the sadness that has been a core part of him for so long. Kudos to episode director Tawnia McKiernan for lingering just the right amount of time.
And then: That ending. We already knew Lance Hornsby was a creep—honestly, Josh Hamilton’s intentionally shit-eating grin has sort of telegraphed it from the very start, in a fun manner just this side of campy (someone’s been watching Jeffrey Dean Morgan on the show!)—but now, it’s out in the open. Pamela Milton isn’t ill-intentioned, just out of touch and unaware of how actual people are affected by the cruel class striations of her society. (In other words, she’s sort of a Biden Democrat.) But Hornsby wants power, and in getting permission from the governor to pursue his plan of taking over the remote communities, he’s got a blank check to cash. Yikes.
Stray observations
- It’s always enjoyable to see a veteran character actor join the show and do their thing, and Josh Hamilton is nailing the very particular type of oily superciliousness needed for Hornsby to come alive. It’s absurd good fun.
- Lydia, telegraphing her own desire to be out of there and relocate to wherever the fuck Negan is: “How do you know when it’s time to walk away?”
- Enough people have now confessed they miss the “freedom” of Alexandria that it’s clearly going to tip into resistance within the next episode or two, no? Even with the whole flash-forward to Stormtrooper Daryl confronting Maggie at Hilltop, which I’m still convinced is a feint. (See: Maggie asking why Daryl would trust anyone, Commonwealth or no. Daryl: “When do I ever?”)
- Nice to see Oceanside, even if just for a few minutes. And even the governor isn’t immune to the appeal of dipping her toes in the ocean.
- Maggie, explaining to every rich person ever why they don’t make their own goddamn luck: “Luck is about opportunity—and I don’t know anyone who’s had more opportunity than you.”
- Seriously, though, Daryl: So many red flags from Mercer about the Commonwealth! “You got your role to play. I got mine.” Mercer may as well hand him a “Join the resistance—ask me how!” business card.
53 Comments
Haven’t been watching TWD in while now – did I miss a Star Wars crossover?
Nope, just original material from the comics. Can’t comment on the originality of the uniform however haha
no
So, you know how the Walking Dead survivors found a place safe from zombies, and started to feel like life could be normal, but then the people running that place turned out to be terrible, and it all ended with violence that showed that people are the real terror all along?The seventh time that happened, it was a Star Wars crossover.
Honestly I was less surprised by the storm trooper and more wondering if this is just a bad shot or if Norman Reedus is letting himself go.
that’s one of the reason it’s hard to take the commonwealth seriously
I’m sure black voters, who largely backed Biden, would be interested to learn that they’re “unaware of how actual people are affected by the cruel class striations of society.”
So you’ll pretend to be entirely unaware how there’s a MASSIVE contingent of liberals that pretend like Barry and Joe are the two most progressive candidates ever while both of them are still lame duck capitalists who say they like gay folks more than republicans do? That’s the point made up there, but your implication that the author is racist for saying it is SUPER COOL
I’m asking that the author (and you) take seriously the thinking of people who vote for more moderate liberal candidates, and that he acknowledge that the coalition for those candidates include lots of people who are well aware of how unfair society can be. Black voters tend to care a lot about electability. That’s not surprising, since they’re likely to feel the effects of Democrats losing in ways that, frankly, I won’t. That’s a perfectly good reason to back a candidate like Biden, who promised the best chance of beating Trump and then actually did it, precisely because he was not an easy figure to scaremonger about. And look, maybe it’s a waste of time to fight about the direction of the country in an article about The Walking Dead. But that’s also a good reason not to slam millions of people in a random parenthetical that has nothing to do with the article.
Yeah, Joe Biden is doing a lot to make America better for black people, that’s for sure. And man, the working class really is thriving right now. Oh wait. Neither of those are true and his “powerful and brave” VP is a fucking cop. Maybe we need to stop accepting capitalists with blue ties and start making some actual changes around here.
OK, you get right on that. Since so far the far left hasn’t demonstrated much ability to win more than the most liberal House seats in the country, you’ll forgive me for not holding my breath.I’m sure that expressing utter contempt for most of the voters who are necessary for your candidates to win is a good first step.
Joe Biden’s approval rating is in the shitter, he has some of the most condcending public officals in maybe all of history and trump got the most votes from black people as a republican ever, your racism is clearly showing when you see black people as a means to accomplish your center right goals and nothing else.
its so clear that you only see black people as an object. If Black people as a group largely voted for bernie or trump or anyone beyond the center right like biden you would wash your hands of them and treat them like objects not people.
Expressing contempt for the voting choices most black people made is an interesting way to demonstrate you care about them, but whatever.
“I’m sure that expressing utter contempt for most of the voters who are necessary for your candidates to win is a good first step.”It is demonstrable that voting in this country will change nothing about the status quo. Something else will have to change.
Well, until you have an idea for what that “something is” — and I’m not hearing one — I’ll keep voting. For all it’s flaws, voting is also at least an attempt at identifying what people collectively want, which is important when you’re . . . you know . . . . using government’s coercive power to force them to do things.Your argument is a strange one. You express disdain for moderate Democrats who “who say they like gay folks more than republicans do.” But gay rights are an area where voting — and specifically voting Democratic politicians who might not be as liberal as you’d like — achieved results. The court ruling requiring gay marriage to be legal nationwide came about became moderate Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama nominated justices to the Court who were then confirmed largely through the votes of moderate Democratic Senators. Before that, laws legalizing gay marriage came about in a number of states because of voting. In fact, Barack Obama first made public his support for gay marriage because (guess who) Joe Biden announced he was in support of it, and forced Obama’s hand.
“Well, until you have an idea for what that “something is” — and I’m not hearing one”Oh, it’s violent revolution and overthrow of the capitalist system. That’s the only way change can be effected. Marriage is far less important than ending the class war.
Hahahahahaha… and you guys wonder why you’re always marginalized. Have fun storming the castle.
A violent revolution against the largest military in the world, a heavily armed police force, and millions upon millions of your fellow citizens for whom gun ownership is one of their foundational beliefs? Seems like a solid plan.
All of whom are members of the working class. All war is class war, and the working class has the numbers.
yet a fair number of working class people have a problem with LGBTQ+ people or the amount of melanin in someone’s skin. What’s your class warfare doing to protect the marginalized?
Oh neat, someone read the Sparknotes of The Communist Manifesto!In the real world, there is no reason to assume that rightwing voters, police forces, and the military would join your little revolution. Marx may have been convinced that all these groups are naturally aligned, but it hasn’t played out that way. If you were right, socialist candidates would be winning landslide elections across the country — after all, you believe your group “has the numbers.” Indeed, you would think socialist candidates would perform best in poor rural and industrial areas, and do most poorly in areas filled with the ownership and professional classes. Instead, the opposite is closer to the truth. Many of the most fervent supporters of socialist candidates are people who are, in effect, voting against their economic interests, and many of the strongest backers of capitalism are people at the bottom of the economic ladder.You’re believing a fantasy.
Marx may have been convinced that all these groups are naturally aligned, but it hasn’t played out that way.Marx wrote in the 1850s in Europe. The people who most closely align with working class and poor Trump voters (or “right wingers”) are European peasants. Marx observed that these people were oppressed and exploited, but because they owned a little bit of land (and various other reasons), they tended to hate the government but love “The King”.
This describes the MAGAt perfectly. The government is out to git him, deep state, coastal elites etc, but Trump – the supposed LEADER of that government – is the Sky Daddy who will protect and enrich the ‘working man’ Republican voter. Before heavy urbanisation, America’s divide between “city folk” and “country folk” was more apparent, now it’s a bit more subtle – the “peasants” call themselves “working class” even the ones who own motor dealerships.
You’ve just made the argument for why we need a new system.
Lol you tried that on January 6th and it didn’t work. Better luck next time!
Oh, it’s violent revolution and overthrow of the capitalist system. That’s the only way change can be effected.I’m down with that. What’s your timetable on that? Can you get this revolution rolling before my friends in Texas lose more rights to being considered people? You revolutionary types with your “all warfare is class warfare” talk are all the same. See you have no intention of actually ending social classes you just want to change the existing hierarchy. You want to be at the front of this nebulous “revolution” so when the dust settles YOU are on top. The actual value of peoples lives is unimportant to you. The reality is, if you weren’t a fringe element you’d actually be be making some sort of headway in the political realm. You need to be the underdog until your magic revolution happens.
“See you have no intention of actually ending social classes you just want to change the existing hierarchy. You want to be at the front of this nebulous “revolution” so when the dust settles YOU are on top. The actual value of peoples lives is unimportant to you.”Speak for your fucking self, don’t put words in my mouth. I don’t want anyone on top of anything, hierarchies shouldn’t exist.
How in the world did you go from “when does the revolution begin?” to “you just want to be in charge”?
Tell that to a married gay couple.
Maybe if corporate dems didn’t undermine a fight against their own progressive wing than they do against GOP. And seriously, there is no such thing as “far left” in this country. Bernie Sanders is a moderate in the worldwide Overton window.
You’re right, it’s everybody’s fault but your own that your victories amount to a few house seats.
If you believe that you are not paying attention. Sanders changed the dialog. Did you even hear Biden’s SOTU? We can thank Bernie Sanders for putting those words anywhere near the podium. And yeah, we blame the establishment dems for undermining us or we would made much more progress.
If we’re having a discussion about whether Sanders has had a positive impact on the direction of the Democratic Party, and the direction of the country, I totally agree with you. The Democrats support better policies and have better messaging because of him. He should rightly be proud of that, as should the people who have voted for him.But the reality is that success in actually winning office has been elusive, and you can’t blame that on establishment Democrats. People who don’t agree with you about the direction of the Democratic Party are not going to help you win office — you can’t expect them to. If Sanders’ policies are as popular as his supporters loudly proclaim that they are, then people like Sanders should be able to win primaries. If they can’t — and they haven’t — that means their message isn’t resonating somehow. That may well be frustrating. God knows I wish the messages of, say, Donald Trump didn’t resonate with people, but I have to live in the real world.
Or it means that the corporate dems executed a strategic plan to destroy the Sanders campaign with a bunch of shill candidates. Sanders was way in front and Biden hadn’t won a single delegate in multiple campaigns. It was a highly coordinated take down. Democrats fight 100 times harder against their own progressive wing than they do against the GOP. The only reason they ever get any votes is because they are the only alternative to republicans. But they suck.
What crybaby horseshit:https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/09/politics/cnn-poll-biden-lead-sanders/index.htmlBiden was preferred by Democratic voters over Sanders by a significant margin. They didn’t pick Biden because he was “the only alternative to Republicans.” Voters had the chance to choose Sanders, and most of them picked Biden. You evidently are strongsad that people made that choice, but don’t pretend the choice wasn’t offered to them.And there was no conspiracy by “corporate dems.” Biden performed well in South Carolina, and a group of more moderate candidates who preferred that Biden be the nominee and realized that they themselves weren’t going to win endorse him. They aren’t required to stay neutral to give the guy they think would be a worse nominee an advantage.
Sanders performed well in the caucuses where people who had both the time and home support to actual participate could participate. It’s telling that he performed well in white population heavy early states. There was no coordinated takedown. The fact that Sanders demanded the rule that super delegates should go to the primary candidate who had the most total votes revealing how he intended to win. Sanders had no intention of actually winning the states, he needed a widely divided field and hoped his loyal contingent of voters would provide him with more overall votes and thus shift the superdelegates to him. Arguing that the other candidates dropping out was a “coordinated takedown” really highlights the underhanded tactics Sanders was using. He was trying to game the system rather than actually win over voters in the primary. The point that many of his supporters miss is that while Biden may not have been many peoples first choice for a presidential candidates, Bernie Sanders was many peoples last choice.
I’m with you. Was part of the union bargain for the writers to require a shoehorned in random insult about Joe Biden now? That was how that read to me, completely out of place and also completely unexplained.
Exactly. I’m happy to talk about the political implications of films and TV, and even just straight politics with no pop culture angle, but I don’t see what’s accomplished by making a broad, dumb, dismissive argument about millions of people in a single sentence of a review.
How does black voters supporting Biden so that Trump doesn’t become president imply that Biden knows how actual people are affected by the cruel class striations of society? I voted for the guy who isn’t a Nazi. The end. Biden is and always was a horrible candidate for president outside of his capacity to not be Trump.Given that 75% of white people according to Facebook’s analytics have zero black friends, I’m going to guess I have a larger sample size than you do when it comes to what motivates black voters.Here’s the secret: White people always vote 60-40 for the fascist in every general election. Black people aren’t ignorant of this fact. If white people stopped constantly voting for fascists and moved the Overton window over here with the rest of society, the Democratic Party wouldn’t be flush with horrible neoliberal douchebags in the general.We didn’t load the gun pointed at our heads, so I would appreciate it if you stopped pretending the choices we make under duress are complicity.You know who the most popular presidential candidate among black voters was? Bernie Sanders. 88% approval rating since the 2016 primary, higher than any other candidate for president, about 20 points higher than it was among white people and even the Latinos that provided his largest base.Black people didn’t vote for Biden because he’s a good presidential candidate that understands us. We voted for the presidential candidate that endless scheming behind the scenes, mail-in ballot shutdowns by the party that supposedly loves mail-in ballots, and forced in-person voting during a pandemic allowed us.Also, Jim Clyburn gave him inroads with black leadership in the South in exchange for a black woman on the Supreme court. He’s getting what he paid for.
Show me a link to where you got the number 75% from.
Holy shit, do you whip this out whenever someone criticizes Biden? That’s ghoulish.
The author wasn’t criticizing Biden. He was making a broad, dumb, dismissive comment about Biden’s supporters, despite seemingly having no fucking idea who they are.
“People who voted for Biden” =/= “Biden’s supporters.”
People who voted for him in the primary don’t count as his supporters? OK, then I guess Sanders has no supporters either.
Holy mother of god. No. No, people who voted for him in the primary don’t count as his supporters, particularly for a president who’s seen a dropoff in support unprecedented among his contemporaries. You need to wake the hell up.
OK, got it. No one has any supporters, but somehow that means the politicians you like have all the support, despite all the elections indicating the oppposite.
I don’t like any politicians because I’m not a sycophant, though I know that’s very, very hard for you to wrap your head around. Yes, people tend to vote for one person or the other when they have, like, two options. I voted for Biden and he’s done even worse than I feared.It’s really telling how far you’ve fallen back on your argument when you’re literally putting words in my mouth. This is some post-truth shit.
Why the fuck are yall talking about president stuff? Talk about zombies, jesus fucking christ.
I’ll have to refer to politics as “president stuff” from now on. Thanks.
I watched The Sopranos for the first time during the pandemic (apparently this was fairly common) and one of the best parts was reading Emily VanDerWerff’s old reviews as I made my way through.
Man, was that eye-opening as to how the tenor and point of AV Club reviews have changed. They used to peel shows apart, or discuss symbolism (so much going on under the surface that I didn’t pick up on in Sopranos!) or at least have a critical point of view about the work that they actively argued for.Now we get plot recaps and snipes about Biden voters not caring about marginalized groups. Nice insight, Alex, that’s GREAT, that really helps me understand more about TWD as a piece of film and creative work.
Maggie looks to one side, where she sees grunts, soldiers, being ordered to fall in line or risk punishment.
in particular she sees Darryl fall in line like a vulgar faceless grunt; and the fact that he wasn’t bound to following orders before appears for what it was; a ruse to woo her into joining the commonwealth.
I stopped watching about 4 seasons ago. Is it good again? The commonwealth sounds interesting, and I liked the time they spent there in the comics. I’m curious as to how they handle it without Rick. Is it worth it to come back?
Ehhhhh… same problems as always about giant plot holes, caused by writers who I am guessing have never been outdoors before or can do math.