When we last left off, Maggie had organized an away team to find Meridian, only to be left for dead by Negan in a subway tunnel. Yumiko, Ezekiel, Princess, and Eugene had found themselves at the mercy of the Commonwealth. Then after a nearly successful, and a bit hilarious, escape attempt, Yumiko turns back after finding evidence of her brother. As this is The Walking Dead, both groups are almost certainly headed towards certain death. Maggie’s crew is walking into Reaper controlled territory, completely unsure if they’ll be able to face the highly efficient killers. And the Commonwealth’s cult-like mind games confuse their prisoners, leaving many questions about what happens behind closed doors. This is where we start with “Acheron: Part 2.”
Spoilers for this episode. But again, it’s Walking Dead. You already know things won’t go well for anyone.
1. Well, at least he’s honest
Maggie fights her way out, surviving the walkers to confront Negan in the train. When Negan is questioned about leaving Maggie to die, he freely admits it, despite being coy in the beginning. He simply said she was “right behind him.” But after a pistol whipping from Maggie, he admits that he was more than willing to let her die. After all, she made it clear that his death was always on her mind, and the only reason he’s alive is the tiny sliver of the old her that’s left. And her troops are loyal to her, willing to end him right then and there for her, simply saying “Nod and it happens.” But while Negan lives to see another day, Gage gets to see the new Maggie, when he finds himself locked out of the train car… after forgetting to shut the door behind him.
With a pack of walkers shambling behind him, Maggie declares there isn’t enough time to save him. She watches as Gage stabs himself before the walkers tear him apart. Then watches as his corpse joins the pack. When pressed to explain herself, she recounts a brutal story of a traveler she and Hershel met when they were on their own. And when I say “brutal,” I mean “brutal by Walking Dead standards.” In these scenes, we see the loyalty Gabriel has for her as well. Be it his subtle suspicion when Negan comes back alone, or when he refers to the zombie Gage as the “shell of a man who died a coward.”
The drama between Negan and Maggie feels a little forced in that “just hurry up and kill him” way. And the walkers weren’t really that close when Gage made it to the subway. But Lauren Cohan is a fantastic performer, and what amounts to a blocking issue in one scene doesn’t take away from her performance. Although it did remind me a little too much of the steamroller scene in Austin Powers.
2. Crowning Achievement in Set Design
The set design in the tunnels and Commonwealth have been great, with large chunks of exposition being implied through the items either scattered or seized. The best examples are the tunnel scenes, with the Daryl bits being particular highlights. He happens across what may have been an old settlement with sleeping bags and ziplocked personal items. One of which includes a note written on a hundred dollar bill from a child. The note explains they had to flee, and asking his father to turn the radio on every night at ten o’clock. There’s also a couple corpses in suits, and a suitcase full of cash handcuffed to a severed arm. But the most interesting bit of worldbuilding comes from a large mural on the wall depicting class warfare in front of the capitol. And a few of the characters drawn on the wall wore little golden crowns. How significant this is remains to be seen, but it’s a detail that has me intrigued. This is the second large pile of discarded cash we’ve seen this season. The first was in the Commonwealth.
3. Assessing
For a series notable for its gruesome murders and vicious antagonists, the notably restrained Commonwealth feels almost more threatening than your Negans or your Governors. The glimpses we see of their potential violence are almost more unnerving than the baseball bat murders or fish tank heads of seasons past. The finely sheened handcuffs and pliers the assessors carry in the same binder as their pens had me more anxious than Gage trapped with the walkers..As do the strange gaslighting tactics they utilize. Of the four characters held by them, three disappear before the end of the episode. When Eugene asks if Yumiko is still speaking with the assessors, he’s simply told “There’s no one in there.” When Princess disappears after using the restroom (with actual toilet paper!), Eugene asks where his friend went, only for the guard to simply respond with “What friend?” The psychological warfare they utilize are some of the most effective horror in the episode, making it all the more satisfying when…
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4. “I was a lawyer. I like rules.”
…Yumiko completely turns it against them. After seeing evidence her brother is in the Commonwealth, she decides to appeal to the bureaucracy that’s been assessing them. To quote Princess, she’s demanding to speak to their manager. She quickly deduces that her interviewers are a former forensic psychologist and academic researcher, and goes so far to break down the entire governmental structure of the town. This includes how they control the old world money that comes in, because in a desperate attempt to cling to pre-fall normalcy, their currency is the US Dollar. She asks that whatever process they have for allowing in new residents be expedited, using her former profession as leverage. It’s a great scene that turns the mind games of the previous Commonwealth scenes on its head. Though Yumiko’s interrogation is not the best in the show. That honor belongs to–
5. Eugene
As much as last episode’s escape attempt both did and didn’t work for me, the aftermath does. Eugene becomes paranoid that the guards know they tried to get out. The Commonwealth isn’t an enemy that would immediately show its hand. But Ezekiel hasn’t been seen since. When Yumiko goes back to plead her case, she disappears. When Princess uses the restroom, an armed guard follows her. This leads to Eugene being sat down in the assessing room. Mercer intimidates the shaken man sitting before him, stating that he’s going to ask “Two questions and get two answers.” While Eugene’s never 100% honest, he does get candid about the voice on the radio. He confesses his feelings for Stephanie, whom he describes as not being “repulsed by his musings,” even stating that he hoped Stephanie would be the one to take his virginity. But he also expresses his fear that the voice from “the void” might in fact be a femme fatale. Josh McDermitt’s portrayal has always been right up to the very edge of cartoony, but just pulled back enough to make him work as an actual person. And this interrogation straddles the line between heartbreaking, uncomfortable, and genuinely funny.
For the record, McDermit was apparently very insistent about Eugene being a virgin.
Eugene gets a bag thrown over his head and is taken to a trailer, where he’s reunited with his three friends. Ezekiel, who disappeared at the beginning, claims he was simply taken for medical care. After the reuniting, a woman comes into the trailer asking which one of them is Eugene. Though for the record, this Stephanie is played by Chelle Ramos. AMC has been claiming Margot Bingham will portray the woman from the radio for a year now. A fake out would make sense, giving the Commonwealth’s usual tactics.
Also, side note: This happens at daytime, with their entire plot happening over what seems like a couple days. Meanwhile, Maggie and Negan fought their way through the subway, reunited with Daryl after getting swarmed by walkers, then were attacked by mask wearing killers as they escaped. All in a single night. But with the strengths of the plotting and character in this episode, I think I can look the other way on chronology.
