The Walking Dead – Acts of God review – S11 E16

I’ve enjoyed most of the Commonwealth arc once things actually started happening. It’s not as clear if something truly happened in this second chapter mid-season break.

It felt like the tone was supposed to be this significant pivot point with the communities and The Commonwealth, but it landed a little flat. This is the consequence of announcing two spinoffs and expecting audiences to be invested in cliffhangers.

The episode begins with a timestamp indicating events that played out 19 hours and one act of God ago. Nothing beyond this suggests this time shift was needed as the rest of the episode plays out fairly linear.

Maggie sends Herschel to a Whisperer worm home where Negan and Annie’s crew are hiding. Maggie is starting to trust Negan, which is…weird. This feels like a breakthrough more for the sake of the Maggie/Negan spinoff than a logical development. I guess it’s been a decade since Negan BASHED GLENN’S HEAD IN WITH A SPIKED BAT, but that seems like something still very hard to get over.

Just to tie in with the episode title, a swarm of locusts fly over. This didn’t play into anything at all in the episode and was simply a thing that happened.

Hornsby is confusing himself with Harvey Dent using a coin to decide which of his men to keep in armor and which ones he wants to go undercover to aid Leah in killing Maggie.

Meanwhile, another stormtrooper crew is with Daryl, Aaron and Gabriel searching for the phantom gun thief. It seemed like they were getting set for an Order 66, but Daryl starts the conflict. Aaron gets grazed and a snake shows up. It seems like you can’t just randomly throw a snake out there with no payoff, but it was just slithering around during the shootout. BTW, the stormtrooper armor looks cool, but it’s so worthless or it’s just simply got too many wide open, vulnerable areas.

Naturally the firefight brings out walkers, but they’re no problem for our hero trio either. TWD has always kinda protected certain characters, but the walkers are never a threat any more to interesting characters. And now human threats are proving just as inept. I griped a lot about the Saviors arc during the rinse wash repeat “the Saviors are mean old nasty bullies” phase, but at least they felt competent. Ditto for The Whisperers.

Now the main threat seems to be the upper class who’s gotten so comfortable they’re no match for Daryl, Maggie and crew.

This gets proven out fairly quickly when Leah leads her squad to Hilltop. Although her tactic of booby trapping a mansion to draw out Maggie wasn’t the best plan as it just killed most of her backup.

The others got burned and eventually turned into walkers. Leah does get some payback in killing redshirt Marco. That’s probably not fair. Marco has been around for a while but was never someone that remotely felt important.

And didn’t everyone learn the Denise lesson of not standing straight up while in the field? Leah eventually captures Maggie while Elijah and Lydia presumably are avoiding the rest of Hornsby’s men.

Leah ties Maggie up to drag out killing her, but Maggie gets free leading to a pretty decent fight. The problem with this faceoff was one character already has a healthy coating of spinoff plot armor so there was no suspense no matter what low-tiered Maggie ally got killed.

Just as it seems like Leah has the edge and is about to plunge her knife into Maggie’s chest, Daryl arrives and kills Leah. Given all the back story between the two, this should have felt more impactful, but Daryl just acts like he killed another random person. There wasn’t a lot of time for grieving or reflection as Hornsby and his reinforcements arrive at the cabin.

Sharpshooter Daryl, who we just saw kill Leah with a headshot, somehow manages to only graze Hornsby as they escape. This ticks off Harvey Hornsby, who declares they’re going to take it all now.

Again, why does Hornsby care about Hilltop, Alexandria, etc? They’re barely functioning communities and this whole hostile takeover Hornsby plot now feels a little stupid. Wouldn’t it make more sense to just rebuild and repurpose communities that clearly don’t have a crack paramilitary team defending it?

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In the C subplot, Max goes to steal some of the Commonwealth files when Pamela’s prick son, Sebastian, runs into her. This felt far too coincidental and will likely result in something bad for Max later. Sebastian is a terrible character and feels like the lazy version of the bastard son/heir everyone hates.

Ezekiel joins the revolution of Eugene, Rosita, Connie, Kelly, Max and Magna. The weird thing is there was already a resistance force fighting against the Commonwealth propaganda, but Connie and company have essentially co-opted the revolution for themselves.

The writers wanted to make this a big deal, but it didn’t connect since the wealthy elite Commonwealth has always felt like a time-killing subplot to the more important storylines. And we already know Rick’s old crew is a wrecking ball to any community they inhabit anyway. This one’s just going to take longer.

Pamela is upset with the newest headline saying “Pamela Milton is lying to you.” Gotta assume Connie is now filing stories remotely now, right?

In a nice parting shot, the gates of Alexandria and Hilltop now hang the Commonwealth flag while Hornsby tosses a coin to decide the fate of the Oceanside prisoners. Not in one instance have we seen the Commonwealth troops (at least not led by Mercer) prove the equal of the three communities. How did this occupation happen exactly? Whatever. This at least provides a very strong focus for the final act. Can Rick and Michonne show up to help save the day? Asking for a friend.

Hornsby gets his crappy real estate with battle ravaged communities and Pamela has to restore her image as Maggie, Daryl and crew now get to wage a guerilla style war against the Commonwealth. That sounds far more promising so if nothing else, this second break point suggests an entertaining conclusion.

 

Rating: 7 out of 10

Photo Credit: AMC

Pick up The Walking Dead Vol: 31 – The Rotten Core trade paperback for the comic take on The Commonwealth on Amazon.

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