Walking dead s11e11 featured Television 

Five Thoughts on The Walking Dead’s “Rogue Element”

By | March 8th, 2022
Posted in Television | % Comments

Hey it’s Season 11, Episode 11. Make a wish. It’s been roughly two months since the Commonwealth took over Alexandria. According to dialog, one month since the last episode. Time is moving rapidly this season, bringing us closer to a possible conflict between the two settlements. But in the meantime, we’re still in deep with the Commonwealth. The last episode barely felt like an episode ofThe Walking Dead, with the climax taking place at a cocktail party full of paparazzi. Now we start to comb through the fallout of that event.

**SPOILER ALERT** for crawling out through the Fallout.

1. Someone is Happy. You Know What That Means…

First of all, as KC native, props to Eugene for his good taste in barbecue. Or at least his apparent good taste based on his random Charlie Hustle shirt.

We open with Eugene and Stephanie in bed together. Eugene is still asleep while Stephanie reads the manuscript of a sci-fi novel Eugene’s been working on. More importantly, she says she loves it. Things are going great for the pair. The two have plans for ice cream later, and Eugene even offers her a key to his apartment. But alas, there’s a pattern with Commonwealth stories. We’re presented with a scenario that’s very much too good to be true, then get exposed to all the fun ways that it isn’t. It’s an obvious formula, but one that’s worked thus far. Though I’m not sure how much it will going forward, now that we’ve cleared up the last bits of ambiguity about the Commonwealth as a settlement. But it does here, as Stephanie chooses to leave town rather than have ice cream with Eugene.

2. Proper Gander at Propaganda

Connie has some major issues with her job at the Tribune. For starters, her editor Jan has little interest in publishing anything about the Tyler Davis incident from last time. At least anything not given to her from an official source. “I want you to paraphrase Governor Milton’s press release,” Jan tells Connie and Kelly, “so I don’t have to do it” So Connie spends the B-Plot looking into Davis. Only to be confronted by Mercer, who’s a bad guy again. Or at least he is until Davis disappears from custody. We also learn Mercer has personal beef with Davis, because the woman he took hostage was his sister. Sometimes the show is uneven in how it depicts Mercer, or at least his rapid losing of trust for Governor Mitchell. But this episode does do a great job chipping away at his loyalty. Now, whether or not he’s the one who sends Connie and Kelly the list of names is a matter of debate. Because they get a list of names, including Tyler Davis.

Just some names.

3. Hello Moto

Hornsby and Carol seem to have struck up a friendship. How much of it’s based on mutual out-witting is yet to be seen. But both actors play it as a shared respect. Hornsby respects her enough to show her his heroin fields (for the hospital, of course). But Hornsby also seems to have a similar friendship with the smuggler Moto. They’re fishing buddies too, which gives us my personal favorite line from the episode: “Nice when your hobby is also an apocalypse skill.” But when Carol reports that Moto’s pocketing the money he get from the Commonwealth, he still gets dragged off by white armored soldiers. Moto does call Hornsby a “mother puss-bucket” as he’s dragged off, because AMC still won’t let them have f-bombs. But I’m still curious to see how the Carol and Hornsby partnership will play out. Before arriving in the poppy fields, Hornsby mentions there’s two kinds of people: Mercenaries and patriots, implying that Carol was the former, but vocalizing that she was “smart.” But whatever their relationship ends up being, I don’t doubt it will change drastically if Ezekiel doesn’t get his surgery soon.

4. Detective Eugene

Princess brings an extremely distraught Eugene a lasagna, or at least an empty lasagna dish, because you totally have to let someone in if they have food. She’s a bit shocked to find a full on cork board and twine conspiracy theory wall that Eugene’s been working on for about three days. He has been searching for Stephanie since she disappeared, but didn’t have any real breakthroughs until he got drunk and peed by a dumpster. A bald man walked by. Eugene instantly recognizes him. He saw him leave the apartment complex at 1634 Racine in Residential 1 the night Stephanie disappeared. He comes to find out the man is Roman Calhoun, who swears he’s just a simple plumber and was only fixing a clogged sink, despite not having any tools with him.

Continued below

Eugene tracks him to Ruby’s Plumbing Services, a business that’s seemingly only open in the middle of the night, with about four or five people working them. Him and a reluctant princess sneak inside to find a suitcase full of weapons. But it gets them arrested. Hornsby agrees to let them go, having apparently talked Mr. Calhoun out of pressing charges. I’ve lost track of how many times Eugene specifically has ended up in jail, but it was nice to see his intellect on display. Eugene may have been introduced as a con artist, but he isn’t stupid. Although he does sign paperwork claiming he was “emotionally distraught” and paranoid. But that was kind of a no win situation.

5. “This is Blue Weevil to Tater Bug. Please come back.”

So obviously Eugene goes back to the plumbers’ office. And while he’s there, he meets Hornsby, who drops the information we’ve all been expecting since we say flesh-and-blood Stephanie. “Stepahanie’s real name is Shira. And she hates Iron Maiden. But she genuinely enjoyed your book. You should stick with it.” Not only that, but Hornsby informs him that the paperwork he signed to get out of jail almost marked him an prone to paranoid delusions. We get a fantastic meltdown from Josh McDermitt, though the ending was all between him and Hornsby. I would have wanted more from him and Stephanie/Shira. Her trying to justify leaving when things got too serious would have worked better for me than Eugene and some guy.

Either way, Eugene decides not to stick with it, burning his manuscript in an alleyway, along with anything else that reminds him of Stephanie. Then he hears something: “This is Blue Weevil to Tater Bug. Please come back.” He turns to find a new person waiting for him, saying she’s the person he spoke with on the radio. Who this person is should be interesting to explore in the next few episodes. And shed some light on whether or not there was an actual Stephanie to begin with.


//TAGS | The Walking Dead

Chris Cole

Chris Cole lives in a tiny village built around a haunted prison. He is a writer, letterer, and occasional charity Dungeon Master. Follow his ramblings about comics and his TTRPG adventures on Twitter @CcoleWritings.

EMAIL | ARTICLES



  • -->