Season 11, Episode 5
- Eugene’s group enters the Commonwealth while a group finds more than they bargained at the remains of Hilltop
Morning in Alexandria is disrupted when Jerry sounds the alarm that walkers have breached the damaged walls. Though everyone is able to get the situation under control, Rosita points out they must consider other options if they can't repair Alexandria. Aaron refuses to give up on the town, however, and forms a group of Lydia, Jerry, and Carol to head for the ruins of Hilltop to recover some tools to help with the rebuilding.
At the Commonwealth, Eugene, Ezekiel, Princess, and Yumiko attend orientation where they are subsequently given their new jobs in the community. Eugene is worried that the Commonwealth will refuse to let them go, but Yumiko heads for a bakery where she finally reunites with her brother Tomi. As they catch up and swap stories, Eugene goes for ice cream with Stephanie, who seems to still be interested in him. While they wait for their ice cream, Eugene asks a woman if she has rocky road, but she doesn't answer him and leaves.
Eugene asks Stephanie if they can get on the radio to phone home, but Stephanie says it's a long, grueling process to use the government-owned equipment. Stephanie agrees to help Eugene sneak in to use the radio, and he manages to contact Rosita at Alexandria. Rosita tells him of the fall of the Whisperers and that they are on the brink of starvation. However, Mercer arrives to arrest Eugene for using government property. He, Princess, and Ezekiel are arrested with Stephanie, but Lance Hornsby, director of operations, appears and asks for the group to be let off easy with community service. Stephanie promises Eugene they can trust Lance...
In the countryside, Maggie and Negan arrive at the rendezvous point and find nobody else there. Negan quickly tries to head home with the meager bag of supplies on site, but Maggie demands he stay and they soon come to blows. Maggie's faith is rewarded when Gabriel and Elijah finally turn up, and Negan begrudgingly stays put.
Back at Alexandria, Judith chastises some kids for playing with some walkers trying to get through a hole in the wall. When one of them begins taunting her over the departure of Michonne, Judith puts her sword to his neck. Later, the bully and his friends trash the treasured hand print board that she and Carl made on the last day of his life. As Rosita consoles her, Judith worries that everyone will leave her. Rosita gently tells her that everyone will die eventually, but that Rick, Carl, and Michonne all were preparing her to go on without them and that it'll suck, but she will make it.
At Hilltop, Aaron's group finds that someone has already been picking among the ruins for supplies and notice a group of walkers milling about in circles nearby. Recognizing the Whisperer herding, Aaron quickly catches and subdues a surviving Whisperer who says he is named Keith. He promises he is alone and not a threat, but soon the group finds other Whisperers hiding in the basement of Barrington House. The other Whisperers flee trying to injure Aaron, who eagerly begins to torture Keith for information on whether more Whisperers are nearby. Keith swears he means no harm and that they are the last known Whisperers, but Aaron allows a walker to bite his hand out of revenge. Carol finally stops the interrogation, telling Aaron revenge will get him nowhere.
After Keith's hand is amputated and his life is saved, he reveals that he saw Connie in the vicinity. The group quickly heads home to alert Kelly.
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: A swarm of walkers are able to invade Alexandria due to a recently repaired breach in the walls failing.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Negan asks why Maggie hasn’t tried to actively kill him yet, only for her to throw a knife close to him, albeit only to kill an approaching walker. Negan’s Oh, Crap! makes it clear he regrets tempting her.
- Berserk Button:
- Insult Judith’s family and you earn a sword at your throat.
- Jerry loses his temper when he sees that the Whisperers were using one of Nabila’s discarded hijabs for themselves.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Judith had always been a great example of Good Is Not Soft, but when the teenager insults her by saying she is why Michonne supposedly abandoned her, she puts her sword to his throat and dares him to say it again.
- The Bus Came Back:
- The unnamed blonde Wolf from Seasons 5 and 6 appears in Aaron's nightmare.
- Gabriel and Elijah return for the first time since the Reaper ambush in “Hunted”.
- The Cameo:
- Greg Nicotero makes his second Creator Cameo this season, this time as the main Whisperer in Aaron’s nightmare, marking the first time he has portrayed a living character in the series.
- Jesse C. Boyd returns as the blond Wolf from Seasons 5 and 6.
- Gus Morgan, the son of Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Hilarie Burton Morgan, plays the child walker who the kids horseplay around.
- Character Death: The survivor who was killed by walkers during their breach of Alexandria is a former Savior
who had been around since Season 7. - Cold-Blooded Torture: Aaron and Jerry threaten Keith with a walker and even allow it to bite his hands to get him to talk.
- Continuity Nod:
- In Aaron’s nightmare, he sees Saviors, Whisperers, and the blonde Wolf - a member of a hostile gang who attacked Alexandria in Season 6’s “JSS”. Aaron was inadvertently and indirectly responsible for the attack due to accidentally leaving his photos of Alexandria behind in a Wolf trap back in Season 5’s “Conquer”. The blonde Wolf himself was killed by Rick in Season 6's "Thank You".
- During this nightmare, he also sees a brief flash of Mays, who held him and Gabriel hostage in Season 10’s “One More”. Gracie is also seen with the toy Aaron retrieved for her from Mays’s warehouse.
- Once again, children play around walkers for fun, ignorant of the danger they and their horseplay poise. In early Season 4, Lizzie refused to believe the walkers were anything but her friends due to her mental instability and fed them at the prison gates, which caused them to build up and overwhelm the gates. In Season 5's "Remember", Aiden and Nicholas were shown to keep a walker strung up so they could torture it for fun; and in Season 9's "Evolution" Rodney and Gage played games with a walker they kept trapped in a pit.
- Ezekiel is assigned to work in animal care due to his past as a zookeeper before the fall.
- Aaron, Jerry, and Lydia return to Hilltop for the first time since it fell in Season 10’s “Walk With Us”. Carol previously visited the premises with Maggie back in “Home Sweet Home”.
- Judith is heartbroken to see that the boards containing the handprints she and Carl made on the last day of his life in Season 8’s “How It’s Gotta Be” (depicted via flashback in “Honor”) were damaged, presumably by the children playing.
- Judith previously confessed that she was starting to forget what Rick and Carl’s voices sounded like in Season 9’s “Who Are You Now?”.
- Carol expresses remorse for all the people she hurt throughout Season 10 during her vendetta against Alpha.
- Keith reveals that he witnessed Connie alive after the cave-in in Season 10’s “Squeeze”. Magna mentioned she and Connie escaped the cave in “Walk With Us”, and Connie was seen alive and being found by Virgil in “A Certain Doom”.
- Dramatic Irony: There are piles and piles of untouched donuts and other sweets in the bakery, and a worker even offers Yumiko something else in case she would not prefer what's on display. Yumiko is seeking aid for her community where hundreds of people are huddled together in one place on the verge of starvation.
- Foreshadowing:
- Eugene notices a woman taking ice cream including his favorite, rocky road. When he asks if it’s rocky road, the woman gives him a glance, doesn’t answer, and leaves. Later episodes will reveal that she is the real Stephanie.
- Mercer is seen closely watching as the group prepares to infiltrate the building, and Stephanie later assured Eugene that he can trust Lance. Stephanie also doesn’t have access to use the public radio despite previously having spent untold hours on it with Eugene. This would become relevant later in the season as clues that “Stephanie” is a plant from Lance.
- Rosita tells Judith her mother died when she was only a little older than Judith. In the Grand Finale, Rosita dies several months after this episode, and leaving Coco without her mother.
- Hazy-Feel Turn: Keith's surviving Whisperers aren't outright hostile to the group, but they don't become allies to them either. They are ultimately left alone at Hilltop.
- My Greatest Failure:
- Aaron’s nightmare including the Wolves is a clear sign that he still blames himself for their attack on Alexandria in “JSS” several years on.
- Carol has come to regard her dark turn during Season 10 as this.
- Mythology Gag:
- Aaron encountering a group of surviving Whisperers after the end of the Whisperer War is a nod to the comics, in which he and Jesus encountered and killed Beta (who survived the war).
- As they are filling the roles played by Michonne and her daughter Elodie in the comics, Yumiko and Tomi’s reunion has a massive nod to the comic storyline. The bakery Tomi works at is called “Elodie’s Treats”.
- Eugene and Stephanie pass “Hawthorne & Gibbs Law Offices”, a nod to how in the comics, Michonne was the one who became a lawyer in the Commonwealth.
- Not Helping Your Case: Keith’s ex-Whisperers not only still herding walkers but also taking refuge in the community they burnt down does little to impress Aaron.
- Not Quite Dead: The group discovers that not all of the Whisperers were slain during the final clash with the horde.
- Not So Stoic: The stalwart Mercer starts getting a bit flustered when Princess stops him and flirts with him to keep him distracted.
- Pet the Dog: Princess’s $2 bill was returned to her after she asked for it back.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Judith quickly has the bratty teen at her mercy with her sword.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Keith insists not all of the Whisperers were psychopaths like Alpha.
- The Remnant: Keith's group of Whisperers serve as this due to the destruction of the horde and the wiping out of all their cohorts.
- Ship Tease: Mercer seems to start to reciprocate some of Princess’s interest in him.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Sandwich: Like Elodie in the comics, Tomi drops the cake he just finished baking out of shock at seeing his sister Yumiko for the first time since the Fall.
- Tragic Keepsake: The board with Judith and Carl's handprints, which the pair made on the last day of the latter's life, serves as this for the former.
- Tranquil Fury: Jerry enters it when he finds the Whisperers have been using a hijab formerly owned by Nabila.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Keith and the Whisperers pretend to be scared and helpless only to launch a sneak attack on Aaron.
- You Are Not Alone: Gracie, RJ, and Hershel all agree to help Judith repair her and Carl’s boards. Rosita also shows up to comfort her and help.
