Last week’s episode of The Walking Dead saw chaos at the new Riverbend community and the re-introduction of Leah (Lynn Collins.)
This week, the story continues on from the attack at Riverbend as well as clears up why exactly Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Daryl (Norman Reedus) appeared to be at loggerheads in the Season 11B premiere.
On top of that, if you were waiting to find out more about why Leah stole all those weapons, well, you had to wait for the very end of Episode 15 of The Walking Dead.
So, let’s have a look at everything that went down.
Aaron and Father Gabriel play dumb
Episode 15 of The Walking Dead opens with Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton) grilling Aaron (Ross Marquand) and Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) about what went down at Riverbend. You see, Lance just can’t understand why the pair were the only two left standing.
He thinks it might be because Aaron and Father Gabriel knew people within Riverbend, and he would be right. However, they manage to avoid trouble since Lance is totally determined to get to the bottom of what is going on.
This means it’s time for a road trip to Hillside because Lance is always eager to pin anything he can on Maggie.
The Maggie and Daryl confrontation
Back in Episode 9 of The Walking Dead, it appeared that Maggie and Daryl were in direct conflict with each other when Lance and some Commonwealth guards presented themselves at Hilltop and demanded to come inside.
That episode concluded with Daryl making a statement that appeared to put them in conflict, but many viewers were sure Daryl was just playing the part.
Well, now we learn that Daryl was just trying to get Maggie to trust him rather than Lance when it came to having Hilltop searched because of all those missing weapons.
Maggie doesn’t like it, but she agrees. She trusts Daryl, and Lance takes his lazy a** time looking like a king d**k as he searches the place, even harassing young Hershel (Kien Michael Spiller) because Lance found his cap at the Riverbend scene.
However, Elijah (Okea Eme-Akwari) turns up and throws Lance against a wall, something we have all wanted to do since being introduced to this character.
Of course, this puts the guards on high alert, and there is a tense standoff where Daryl certainly shows his true allegiance in front of Lance. Things get sorted, and Lance finally leaves Hilltop, but I am guessing Daryl is not getting a promotion anytime soon.
The plot thickens at the Commonwealth
While all of this is going on outside the gates of the Commonwealth, things are also getting juicy on the inside. And I’m not just talking about the sexy times between Princess (Paola Lazaro) and Mercer (Michael James Shaw) or the chaste peck between Eugene (Josh McDermitt) and Max (Margot Bingham).
Instead, things are moving in a direct undercurrent to what things look like on the surface.
Eugene is told about what happened at Riverbend, and he informs Connie (Lauren Ridloff). He also contacts Max and lets her know what is going down regarding Riverbend and how it all stemmed from that little douche, Sebastian Milton (Teo Rapp Olsson).
Now that Max knows, she can’t exactly “unknow” it, and now she intends to do something about it. Because, unlike Sebastian, Max is actually a decent person.
Mercer is at a crossroads
Last week’s episode of The Walking Dead saw Mercer kill two of his own rather than have them continue to be on Team Sebastian. This weighs heavily on his conscience this week, but Princess helps him through it.
This is no small feat either because his sister, Max, also gives him grief for heading the Commonwealth military but not actually dealing with Sebastian and making sure all of the other 50,000 members of the Commonwealth are looked after properly.
Please let this all come to a head in next week’s episode, and please, oh please, let Sebastian end up as walker fodder sooner rather than later.
Ezekiel starts up his own hospital for the poor members of the Commonwealth
Ever since the Commonwealth was introduced in The Walking Dead, it has been very clear that you need to be a “have” and not a “have not.” And your position in the community all depends on how important your job was before the fall of civilization.
Ezekiel (Khary Payton) found out just what that meant when he went on the world’s longest waiting list to get surgery for his cancer.
However, luckily for him, Carol (Melissa McBride) is up to her usual “look at me, I’m a sweet old lady” tricks and managed to get in tight with Lance so that Ezekiel could jump the cue and actually get surgery before he died rather than ten years after.
To replay what Carol did to help him, Ezekiel has decided to pay it forward and has set up a hospital for the poor, which he has hidden away in the veterinary section of his zoo.
He then convinces Tomi (Ian Anthony Dale) to perform an unscheduled appendectomy on a patient. They run into Commonwealth guards before they can even get there, but thankfully, Carol is to the rescue, and surgery can get underway.
Things get a little hairy for a moment there when the appendix ruptures. Still, Tomi manages to save the patient, and there is yet another person that has been swayed within the Commonwealth to oppose the hierarchy of the community.
Leah gets offered a job
Now, if you were wondering what would happen regarding Leah, who showed up unexpectedly in the last episode of The Walking Dead, it turned out you had to wait until the very end to find out more.
Sure, we know that Leah is the one who stole the weapons that Lance is so desperate to get his hands on, but we discover in Episode 15 that Lance wants Leah on his side.
So, what does he do when he corners her? Offer her a job, of course.
Daryl is going to love that when he hears the news.
Now, those that wondered if Leah and Daryl might be reunited thanks to the Commonwealth’s Wall of the Lost might actually be closer to the truth than it seemed when Leah and Daryl last crossed paths now that Lance has offered her a job.
Of course, how this all goes down and just how p**sed Leah will be to see Daryl remains to be seen and viewers will just have to tune into the Season 11B finale of The Walking Dead next Sunday night to find out more.
The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.