Negan is right, and no one is listening
BY: JACOB POLITTE
Online Editor
The Walking Dead: “Acheron: Part 1”
Season 11, Episode 1
Airdate: 8/22/2021
The final season of “The Walking Dead” has officially kicked off, about two months ahead of its normal schedule. It returns with the viewers finding our remaining survivors struggling severely, arguably more than they ever have before.
The damage that the Whisperers left behind in their wake has completely crippled their communities; the Hilltop remains in complete ruins and Alexandria is essentially on life support. The remaining survivors have gathered at the latter community and things are not going well. If you will recall the events of “The Tower” and “Home Sweet Home”, the Whisperers invaded the community and torched the place. In “Acheron: Part 1” Alexandria is still trashed; it looks like a warzone. In addition to the visible damage we all see on screen, we also find out that the communities walls are no longer stable, that the animals around were scared off by the massive zombie horde and that the community is running extremely low on food. Even the mission at the start of the episode doesn’t ultimately help much… the supplies the survivors gathered will only get them through the next week.
The decision is made, at Maggie’s suggestion, to make the trek back to her most recent community, the Meridian, in order to obtain the excessive amount of food and supplies in order to carry on… even though that community has been taken over by the Reapers. You may remember them as the group that has been picking off the members of Maggie’s group, as explained in “Home Sweet Home.”
While Carol, Rosita and Aaron stay behind, many recognizable faces accompany Maggie and Daryl on this journey… including Negan. Putting Negan and Maggie together probably wasn’t ideal for our survivors, but he has an extensive knowledge of the city that the others don’t. When a massive rainstorm hits… he’s also the only person who wants to turn around and wait the storm out. He’s constantly treated like his presence and opinions hold no merit or weight, but in all honesty? He’s right. The plan to move forward during this storm is insane.
Perhaps if Maggie had never returned, things wouldn’t be so hostile with the rest of the group, and his dumb comment about Glenn certainly didn’t help matters. But no matter how much of a monster he was or how much of a jerk he can still be, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t contribute to the group, nor does it mean that anything he says should be ignored.
If anything, it feels like Maggie is pushing forward as a way, in part, to spite Negan, no matter what the dialogue outright suggests. I’m not sure that is what the show wants me to feel. Maggie just does not come off very well in this episode, but I can’t blame her for acting a little haywire with Negan right alongside her. But I also can’t blame Negan for anything he said during the entire trip, either. He has continually owned up to what he did, he arguably was the biggest factor in bringing down the Whisperers and he saved countless other members of the communities outside of all of that. Maggie may not be the same person she was when she left, but Negan isn’t either.
Elsewhere in the episode, we catch back up with Eugene and his companions, and the Commonwealth arc takes some vital steps forward. The foursome, which also includes Ezekiel, Yukimo and newcomer Princess, are taken to an undisclosed location in order to be questioned by rather stern and unemotive Commonwealth “auditors.” Eventually coming to the conclusion that they need to escape or be stuck in captivity for an undisclosed amount of time, the group steals some Commonwealth gear (thanks to Princess’s detailed recollection of the guards movements), and are about to escape when Yukimo becomes alerted to a note with her name on it on a board outside the building. The note is from her brother (who as far as I can remember, has never been mentioned), and it appears he’s alive and in the Commonwealth.
The new community will be a big force in this final season, and we’ll continue to see it’s impact in the final 23 episodes.
SCATTERED THOUGHTS:
– “He’s a dick but he makes sense.” Truer words have never been spoken, Gage.
– The smaller reprise of Negan’s introduction theme as he says that he refuses to die on Maggie’s terms is a very nice touch.
– I didn’t talk about the episode’s cliffhanger at the end because it won’t amount to much, and that should be made very clear next week.
– How the heck was Dog gonna get on the top of the train? That seems excessively far to lift him, and he’s not a lightweight dog.
– I also don’t know why the group didn’t just clear out the military base and start over there. Would have saved everyone a whole lot of trouble, and would have saved AMC some money on sets.
– Yukimo being the one to find the note was really underwhelming, but I guess the show didn’t have many options.
– I didn’t publish reviews on episodes 10×20-10×22, so I’ll give some brief thoughts here: “Splinter” was a good character study on Princess, “Diverged” was a complete waste of time, and “Here’s Negan” was amazing. That is all.
– Also, and this is completely unrelated, but Season 6 of Fear The Walking Dead actually turned out to be very watchable. I’m not sure if I’ll review it again, but it’s not a total waste of time, and that is worth saying here.
