The Walking Dead – A New Deal review S11 E18

Communities that let in members of Rick Grimes’ crew into their gates don’t know it, but they’re willingly let the locusts in that will destroy their entire sanctuary in no time. In A New Deal, the Commonwealth learned the lesson of so many communities before them and it’s only to get worse for them from here.

Like the kickoff to the third act of this final season, everything is progressing on fast forward. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s wild how the series conditioned viewers to expect a long, drawn-out payoff for every significant subplot.

Mercer, Pamela, Carol and Negan arrive at the sewer face off in record time to stop Darryl from killing Lance. Daryl goes along with it, but stabs Hornsby through the left hand as a reminder. The scar from Daryl’s shot last episode probably would have sufficed, but Daryl doesn’t believe in half measures.

With the riff raff cleared away, Lance reminds Pamela she still needs him. That’s true since she plans on making him the fall guy for all of Sebastian’s indiscretions. Despite their cozy lifestyle in the Commonwealth some of the citizens aren’t buying it.

Carol negotiated a sweet deal to end this brewing quiet war and get some badly needed supplies for Alexandria, Hilltop and Oceanside. Elijah, Lydia, Aaron and Jerry head back to Alexandria to start prepping the reconstruction efforts. We still don’t know the state of Oceanside, but it’s probably best not to dwell on it.

In a nice moment, Lydia tries to apologize to Carol for getting close to Elijah and insisting she hadn’t forgotten about Henry. Carol assures her she has nothing to apologize for and to embrace her newfound happiness. Good advice.

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It doesn’t seem like Carol can take it though as Ezekiel is staying behind. He feels obligated to helping the Commonwealth citizens as he clearly doesn’t trust the Miltons. Annie’s pregnancy concerns probably mean she and Negan should stay as well, but both are ready to head back to their nearly depleted community.

This episode had a lot going on and you can see the challenge the writers are having in navigating all the characters. It seems clear now that The Whisperers probably should have taken out a lot more of the gang to winnow down this massive cast. This really felt like an episode where Connie, Kelly, Yumiko and Magna would have been heavily involved with pressure mounting against the Miltons.

Sebastian is still being bratty and throwing a temper tantrum when Pamela wants him to read a prepared speech. He’s really not interested in even playing leader and is just content to chill with his privilege of being a Milton.

Max (via Eugene) goes to Lance looking for dirt on Pamela and Sebastian and he warns them not to cross the Miltons. This warning isn’t out of much concern for Eugene, but because Hornsby has his own method for destroying the Milton’s legacy.

Step one is having Shira and Roman kill the maintenances workers to unleash a mini squad of walkers during Founder’s Day. They’re taking a little time to cook, but Max has her own plan namely recording a ton of incriminating evidence from Sebastian.

Oblivious that anyone would plot his downfall, Sebastian rails on about the facade of the Commonwealth even mentioning that Pamela chooses the winners for the lottery. Oops. After a little fun wrestling match, Pamela cues Max to play the Commonwealth founder’s message. Max cues Eugene who blares Sebastian’s diatribe and things aren’t looking great for Team Milton right now.

A mini-riot breaks out, but before that gets too chaotic the walkers emerge and start munching on folks. Daryl and Judith take some out while Mercer politely checks Pamela that his job isn’t to protect her, but the Commonwealth. That just might cost him a promotion come review time…

Sebastian sees his moment and tries to toss Max into an oncoming walker, but Max slings her onto him. Shockingly no one comes to his aid until the walker takes a huge chomp out of his neck and Judith kills it. Turns out the citizens don’t like their leaders lording their power over them. This for sure is not going to bode well for Max and Eugene, but the rest of the crew probably needs to have their bags packed and ready to go ASAP.

There’s no time to delay anything at this back half of the season. This is almost playing out to the show’s detriment as there’s a casual feeling like major events are being rushed through, but it’s certainly made for an eventful pair of episodes.

Rating: 8 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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