Last week’s episode of The Walking Dead saw Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton) handed over to Pamela Milton (Laila Robins) after Carol (Melissa McBride) struck a deal to get her people safely out of the Commonwealth.
However, everything did not go according to plan as Eugene (Josh McDermitt) and Max (Margot Bingham) released an explosive tape recording of Sebastian Milton (Teo-Rapp Olsson) that was played across the loudspeakers during Founders’ Day.
This also led to the death of Pamela’s son.
Now, in Episode 19, Pamela is on the hunt for Eugene and Max in order to lay the blame somewhere for the death of her Sebastian.
Also, Aaron’s (Ross Marquand) group is on a trip to Oceanside.
Do we finally discover the fate of this community? Well, you’ll have to read on to find out.
Pamela Milton wants a scapegoat
When Episode 19 of The Walking Dead opened with a montage of Eugene, viewers knew immediately that the scientist-not-scientist was about to get a significant story arc.
The episode immediately shows Eugene and Max escaping in the chaos still unfolding because of Founders’ Day.
Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) quickly leads Eugene to safety but Max is lost in the crowd.
In the meantime, Pamela decides that she needs a scapegoat to pay for what happened to her son, and, rather than lose her adviser, Max, she’s will willing to have Eugene take the fall.
And, we all know how Eugene is when it comes to growing a spine and standing up for what he believes in.
However, we know Eugene from before he had a girlfriend and now that he is getting some regular action rather than having to watch others bump uglies, he has decided he would rather stand up for what he believes in than have Max take the blame for him.
So, while Daryl and Rosita (Christian Serratos) are willing to bust him out of the Commonwealth, Eugene ends up handing himself in by the end of the episode. Even though this will likely mean his own death.
Also, the episode ends with Rosita being attacked, so I suspect it’s not remotely over when it comes to Pamela’s grudge.
Lance Hornsby thinks he can talk his way out of this
Lance Hornsby may think he can talk his way out of the corner he’s found himself in, but Pamela is determined to remind him that he is her minion.
While there are some creepy pseudo-sexual moments, ultimately, Pamela is the one in power and leads Lance into thinking he is going to be okay — but then brings in Sebastian’s reanimated corpse along with Roman Calhoun’s (Michael Tourek) dead body and it looks like Lance will have to fight for his very life.
Mercer is being pulled in all directions
While all of this is playing out, Mercer (Michael James Shaw) is finding out he might also have to take sides as well.
While he obeys Pamela’s instructions about locating Eugene, he is also torn because his girlfriend, Princess (Paola Lazaro), reminds him that Eugene is a good person that saved her life and that maybe he should do the right thing.
She then goes on to explain her backstory to him, reminding us all that she had a rough time before the zombie apocalypse made it even worse for her.
Mercer still appears to be Team Commonwealth but now that Princess has decided to leave him behind, it wouldn’t be surprising if he helps Eugene escape in next week’s episode of The Walking Dead.
What about Oceanside?
Unfortunately, while Aaron’s group is on the way to Oceanside, we still don’t find out their fate.
Instead, the group comes across a herd of walkers and they end up going cross-country in order to avoid them.
Jerry (Cooper Andrews) gets injured along the way and, looking up, Aaron immediately finds a conveniently located abandoned Renaissance Faire park and they head to the secure location.
Except, it’s not as secure as they think.
New walkers are discovered
While the entire park is checked and double-checked before the night’s watch, walkers still get in.
And this is because one of the undead is a new variant of walkers that we haven’t seen since Season 1 of The Walking Dead.
Remember back to when Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Andrea (Laurie Holden) had to escape that department store and the walker had a rock and was trying to break the glass?
Well, it — or another one like it — made a comeback in Episode 19.
Aaron’s group is surprised by walkers entering the park but assumes they missed checking a checkpoint and that’s how they got inside.
Then, when a walker opens a door and later picks up a rock, they suspect they have Whisperers in their midst.
However, when Aaron finally kills it, they realize they are dealing with a smart walker and, honestly, I have never seen them all so terrified as this.
As to how this all plays out remains to be seen and viewers will have to tune in next week to find out if there are any more smart walkers floating around. Or, maybe we will just have to wait until the Daryl Dixon spinoff airs next year.
And, here’s hoping we also finally get to find out what happened to Oceanside when The Walking Dead returns.
The Walking Dead airs every Sunday night at 9/8c on AMC.