In the final mid-season premiere, our group returns to a familiar position: being hunted down
BY: JACOB POLITTE
Managing Editor
The Walking Dead: “Lockdown”
Season 11, Episode 17
Airdate: 10/2/2022
The final stretch of “The Walking Dead” episodes has arrived, and it’s hard to come to terms with the fact that we’re approaching the end.
This episode, while action packed and full of intrigue, doesn’t necessarily feel like an episode of a show that’s slowing down, either. As a matter of fact, a brief monologue by Judith that accompanies a montage of characters both past and present is the only indication that the show itself is drawing to a close.
After “Acts Of God,” the group stuck back in Virginia is being hunted down, and the now crazed Lance Hornsby is hot on their trail, with his militia just behind him. Eventually, the group comes up with a diversion: sending Negan to the Commonwealth, as they’ve never once seen his face. Negan will warn the others, while the others will stay behind and fight.
The Commonwealth shenanigans take up a majority of the hour. An uprising is in full swing, and Sebastian is a wanted man, hiding out in the walls of an old building. Carol and Negan find him, and the former brings him home to his mother, who is having quite the day dealing with protests against her family. But Carol has a solution, and appears to sell Lance Hornsby down the river to protect her friends and family and to stop the children from being followed by Lance’s goons for use as collateral, while ensuring that Sebastian lives to see another day.
What exactly she plans to do, and whether or not Pamela agrees will be revealed next week.
SCATTERED OBSERVATIONS AND NEWS UPDATES:
– Is everyone teleporting everywhere? How much time passed during this episode? How did Negan get to the Commonwealth so fast? Why am I still asking these questions after twelve years when I know the answer is “because the plot demands it” and logic doesn’t matter?
– Watching Lance yell “KILL HIM” towards Daryl like a mom that was just robbed of her kid’s toy on Black Friday was very funny.
– Pamela seems to know that Connie was behind the article that revealed the truth about the Miltons, but is she aware that Connie brought down her family the same way before the original fall of civilization? It’s not made clear.
– Seeing Negan as a fully accepted and appreciated member of this group is the strangest thing in the world. He wasn’t even given nearly this high level of acceptance in the comics, and I honestly think he was much more heroic there.
– There will never be enough Carol/Negan scenes on this show. It’s a crime they never shared a scene together until Season 10 anyway. They’re a match made in hell and it’s wonderful. I would genuinely watch and review a spin-off of these two running a detective agency. I’m really not joking about that.
– That being said, if Carol and Negan shared a scene during the “All Out War” arc then Negan probably would’ve been dead in 30 seconds or less, so maybe it was for the best that it took this long.
– Super glad that Jerry got to be a key part of an actual storyline for what has to be the first time in at least three years!
– I genuinely felt Rosita’s pain about having to come into work on her day off.
– Full disclosure: I’ve seen next week’s episode, and it’s a doozy with a crazy ending scene. More on that next Sunday night!
