Season 11, Episode 2
- Eugene’s group goes through expedited processing while the group struggles to fight their way out of the tunnel.
While Negan rejoins the group in the next train car and convinces them to move on without Maggie, Maggie herself narrowly manages to escape the walkers she falls into and climbs under the train car. Maggie is able to tap out an SOS so that the group can retrieve her and accuses Negan of trying to kill her. The group quickly turns on Negan and threatens him with death, but Negan points out that he simply didn't try to save her, just like she and the others did to him.
At the Commonwealth, Yumiko goes in for another round of questioning, but turns the tables on the auditors, accurately surmising a lot of details about the community and demanding expedited processing so she can try to find her brother, which earns respect from Mercer. Later, Eugene finds himself alone after waking up, but is taken in for his own questioning. Mercer demands the truth, and Eugene tells of how he fell in love with Stephanie over the radio. The next day, Eugene is finally reunited with his friends and the four are granted entry into the Commonwealth - but not before Eugene is introduced to a woman calling herself Stephanie.
Gage suddenly appears on the other side of the door to the next train car, begging for help and apologizing for abandoning the group. However, the group is dismayed to learn he not only lost the bag of guns, but also has led a horde into his train car. With the group critically low on weapons thanks to Gage's actions, Maggie forbids the group from saving him. Gage's fear turns to defiance out of anger at not being helped, and he stabs himself in the heart to spare himself from the pain of being eaten.
Alden is aghast at the group for refusing to help Gage, but Gabriel insists he was a worthless coward and Maggie says there are worse ways to die. She relates a story of a man who tried to kill her and Hershel and had a mutilated woman with an undead baby inside of her. Meanwhile, Daryl, having had to chase Dog after he ran off on his own in the tunnels, finds various debris from long-gone survivors before running into Roy, who apologizes for his actions. Gage's door opens and unleashes a horde on the train car group, and they struggle to hold them off until Daryl makes his way inside.
The walkers defeated, the group moves on from the tunnel at last with the storm having passed. They find a road with several bodies hung up, and are suddenly ambushed by none other than the Reapers. Roy is shot and killed as the Reapers quickly take on the group in bloody earnest.
- An Arm and a Leg: Cole’s hand is sliced off by an attack from the Reapers.
- Artistic License – Physics: It's perfectly realistic that a blade can cut off someone's hand, especially if the blade is heavy and the wielder knows what they're doing. But when Cole gets his hand cut off, it's with a blade light enough to be thrown and still reach him from a significant distance. Even if the blade is sharp, cutting through living bone is not easy. He likely wouldn't have lost his hand in real life.
- Asshole Victim: Gage took part in the bullying of Lydia and by extension Henry, ran off with the group’s guns with Roy, and only came running back when he was in trouble. Nobody particularly is thrilled to leave him to his death, but they are quick to accept it due to how much of a liability he was.
- The Atoner: Roy admits it was a bad idea to run off with Gage and the guns to the surface, and gives Daryl a grenade to go help the group.
- Back for the Dead: Roy only appeared in this episode and the one prior, after not appearing since Season 9’s “Stradivarius”, only to die at the end of the episode.
- Better to Die than Be Killed: When he’s abandoned by the group, Gage stabs himself in the heart to die before the horde takes him. He’s mostly gone by the time the walkers do finally get him.
- Big Damn Heroes: Daryl is able to get the drop on the walkers entering from Duncan’s side, and helps the group escape from the siege coming from where Gage came from.
- Blood Knight: Mercer says that he loves the way his heart gets pumping when battling walker hordes.
- Both Sides Have a Point: Regarding Gage’s fate.
- Gage is ultimately a scared teen who made a mistake in running off with the group’s guns to save himself (and Roy). Alden argues that he doesn’t deserve to die for this, and considering he’s a former Savior, he’s right to subtly remind the group they’ve given second chances to people who’ve done far worse. The fact that the group is able to later acquit themselves well against the horde proves that they weren’t incapable of defeating them, though they do struggle quite a bit due to tight quarters and low ammo (and potentially would’ve been overwhelmed by another wave approaching from behind). Finally, Maggie and Negan’s feuding over being left to die without help is very relevant to the situation.
- On the other hand, the reason the group doesn’t have enough ammo is because of Gage in the first place. All he did was become a liability to the group, and after his final display of cowardice backfired and just brought down more trouble on the group, they’re unwilling to give him anymore chances. This is after Gage has had a history of bullying and outright lying (as seen when he tried to pin the blame on Margo’s death solely on Lydia). Gage has done little to make amends for his actions, and while joining the mission to Meridian was intended to be his amends, he squandered it by running off again. As noted above, the group does struggle against the horde Gage leads right to them.
- Character Death: Gage is the first casualty of the season. At the end of the episode, Roy is shot dead by the Reapers.
- Comically Missing the Point: Princess is initially more psyched that Yumiko’s brother was so devoted to her he kept his wallet photo of her for years, likely due to her own abusive upbringing.
- The Comically Serious: Mercer and the male Commonwealth auditor become a bit nonplussed by Eugene’s confession, especially when he says he’s a virgin.
- Continuity Nod:
- The person who wrote on the dollar bill affirmed they’d get on the radio everyday to try to reach their father. Rick had a similar arrangement with Morgan back in Season 1.
- Negan says Alpha would’ve mounted everyone’s head on pikes, recalling the fates of the pike massacre victims in Season 9’s “The Calm Before”, as well as his assassination of Alpha in Season 10’s “Walk With Us”, following the Battle of Hilltop in “Morning Star”.
- Gage’s final, spiteful “liar” to Maggie is a nod to when The Governor called Rick a liar before killing Hershel and denying Rick’s plea for peace in Season 4’s “Too Far Gone”, while Maggie had to watch from the other side of a fence.
- Maggie says she found walkers that were formerly pregnant women, with undead babies in their stomachs still moving. This was a fear Lori had back in Season 3’s “Seed”, afraid she’d lost her baby and that it would reanimate and claw its way out of her.
- Eugene tries making a shiv while in captivity alone, remembering how back in Season 5’s “No Sanctuary”, the others made weapons of whatever they could to prepare for an escape. He also worriedly asks if his friends are being processed like bologna, a reference to how Rick, Glenn, Daryl, and Bob were taken away to be slaughtered for food by the Terminus residents.
- Eugene admits to watching people have sex before, no doubt partially referencing how he used to peep on Abraham and Rosita, as seen in Season 5’s “Self-Help”.
- Eugene recalls how he sang Iron Maiden with Stephanie in “Morning Star”.
- Negan is quickly uneasy seeing a bunch of hanged bodies, since it was a scare tactic he used during his time as Savior leader.
- Defiant to the End: To Gage’s credit, he stabs himself in the heart multiple times to kill himself, angry that he’s being abandoned.
- Forced to Watch: Gage tries to inflict this on the group by staying right where he is, facing the group as he stabs himself, and ultimately giving them a front row view as they tear him apart.
- Hypocrite: Everyone in the group is angry at Negan when Maggie reveals he didn't try to save her from the walkers after her hand slipped from the train car, but none of them did anything to help him when his life was in danger. (From saving one of the group, no less) Negan credibly calls them out on this, as well as the fact they dragged him along and have treated his perfectly reasonable suggestions with scorn the entire time. In fact, you could argue they are only in this situation to begin with because they ignored his advice at every turn just because they don't like him.
- Irony: The only people in the group to consider letting Gage in are the two former Saviors.
- It's Personal: It’s clear Mercer was personally stung by Ezekiel comparing him to an asshole cop, commenting that he went to West Point.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Negan does not deny he did not help Maggie when she was in danger once she tells everyone he left her. However, he declares he did not try to kill her, he just didn't help her, which is exactly what everyone did to him in the previous episode. He also points out that Maggie has been on his case the entire mission and has threatened to kill him, so all of a sudden he's the "bad guy" for not going out of his way to do for her what she refused to do for him.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Running off with the group’s guns resulted in Gage being cornered by walkers and the group being unwilling to help him. On the flip side, the walkers get through to the group eventually, enticed by their meal of the recently deceased Gage, whose undead corpse leads the horde inside.
- Mama Bear: Maggie killed the man who threatened her and Hershel during her travels and put down every walker she found in her path as retaliation.
- Mythology Gag:
- “Stephanie” is wearing a dead ringer for the outfit her comic counterpart was introduced wearing.
- There are ads for “Duane Jones Whiskey” and “Gorbelli Foods and Delivery”, references to Morgan’s late son and the company Tara’s father used to work at, respectively.
- No-Sell: Eugene is surprised when Mercer calls him a bad liar since he’s done quite a bit of lying in his time to survive.
- Pet the Dog: Mercer summoned Stephanie to meet Eugene, something he definitely didn’t have to do. However…
- Pragmatic Hero: Maggie and Gabriel refuse to save Gage because of his cowardice making him too much of a liability to bother saving, especially since a horde of walkers is closing in and they are ill-equipped to fend them off specifically because of Gage’s cowardice.
- Present-Day Past: Alden says Maggie and Gabriel’s refusal to rescue Gage is a “hot take”, a slang term that entered use in the late 2010’s, many years after society and pop culture ended in the show’s universe.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Yumiko lays into the Commonwealth auditors, accusing them of wanting to still feel as useful as your average Joe who can do physical labor, and providing a sharp analysis of their tactics and the Commonwealth’s society.
- Redemption Equals Death: Roy admits he deserves to pay for abandoning the group and losing their weapons alongside Gage, and is dead by the end of the episode.
- Ship Tease: Princess says Mercer is easy on the eyes.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Negan immediately braces himself for backlash when Maggie is not present at the beginning of the episode.
- Too Much Information: Mercer and the male auditor are clearly a bit taken aback when Eugene confesses to being a virgin.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Alden is the only member of the group willing to save Gage, and is enraged when nobody else is willing to help him.
