She has been playing dictator since we left.
I'm calling the shots
because that's how everyone voted.
As for me killing you...
it's always on my mind.
We are auditors for the Commonwealth.
You're under Level 1 assessment.
Let's go! Let's go!
No! Mira.
Yumiko!
I have to stay.
Maggie: Ahh! Negan!
Frost: It's rusted shut.
Safe bet that they all are.
Where's Maggie?
She w-- She was right behind me.
Alden: Somebody boost me up.
You go up there, you're dead.
She'd be pissed if you tried.
She'd want us to keep moving forward.
Alright, we need to get that door open.
Then we'll go from car to car
until we hit the front of the train.
Then we'll hop off.
And then we just keep going.
Negan: Look out, guys.
You know what this means, don't you? The photo board?
The Commonwealth is real.That was a wallet-sized photo of you,
which means it was in your brother's wallet,
which means he kept the wallet on him in the apocalypse,
possibly for 10-plus years, and who does that?
He sounds awesome.
What?
And also what you said.
So what's the plan?
They have structure. Laws.
Someone here's in charge,
and I'm going to speak to that person.
That's it? The plan is talking?
Yes. Cold as ice. Demand results.
What?
Nothing. It's just...
it's your bro. You sure you can be "cold as ice"?
Yeah, I was a lawyer. It comes naturally.
Look, I love my brother.
But I hadn't seen him in a really long time
before all of this, and I assumed --
It doesn't matter. I'll be fine
as long as I can speak to the --Shh! Hang on.
That was her, from last night.
Did you see how she was looking at us? She knows.
We're fine. No one knows we tried to leave,
or believe me, we'd be called int--
Ezekiel's gone.
In anticipation of your next question,
I looked everywhere, asked around.
No one's saying anything. Someone took him.
Someone knows what we did,
and he's just the first domino to fall.
In anticipation of your follow-up query,
I don't know how I know. I only know that I'm freaking out!
It's probably 'cause he told off the big guy.
Oh, God. Why'd he tell off the big guy?
We should talk to them. We should talk to them.
We can come clean about who we are and where we're really from.
Eugene, for the last time,
do not talk to their law enforcement.
Or if you find yourself in a situation
where you have to, you stick to the story.
Well, what do we do?
Wait, what? Be cool.
Ice! Ice!
You've got one of our people?
What have you done with him? I demand
to know where he's been taken!Ma'am, calm down.
I don't know where your friend is.
Then there's no reason for us to continue this conversation.
I'd like to speak to somebody
who can actually give me answers.
Who do you report to?
You wanna speak to my supervisor?
That's right! We wanna talk to the manager!
Hey, Dog! Come here! Come here!
Hey! Dog!
Come here!
Dog!
I'm not sure why you're here.
You've already been assessed.
You think you've been assessing me?
No, dear.
I've been assessing you.
You don't know anything about me --
Your community's large and organized.
There's a bureaucracy, and you're part of it.
You probably had a job like this before the world fell.
If I had to guess, I'd say
forensic psychologist.
Perhaps you were an academic.
Researcher?
Your role is to assess threat for your community.
You ask about who we were
because someone above you has decided
that that's a good baseline position
from which to judge who we are.
So you poke around the dusty corners of our brains,
test our sense of boundaries
with queries about our toileting habits.
You raked one of my people over the coals
due to a $2 bill,
which makes me believe your currency is the U.S. dollar,
and that you need to strictly control
the amount in circulation.
You use familiar money as a powerful psychological tactic,
because you know how desperately people miss the old world.
You want to understand what we're capable of
and whether we can enhance your community
or if we'd simply be a drain on resources.
But the truth of it is, you need to justify your existence, too.
Because isn't it almost more valuable now
to have someone who can haul the trash
and keep the streets free from disease
than someone who can write endless lists of questions,
given that at the end of the day,
you just need to rely on your gut instinct
about whether or not the person across from you
will or won't murder you in your sleep?
But you're both people that follow the rules.
I was a lawyer.
I like rules.
They bring order to the chaos.
Which means you need me.
I have reason to believe my brother, a thoracic surgeon,
is living at the Commonwealth and is looking for me.
I'd like expedited processing for my group,
as per your community's asylum and immigration policies.
Where did you go to school again?
Undergraduate at Oxford, JD is from Harvard,
which you very well know. Would you like me to list
my professional credentials again?
Mercer: Coffee?
Can you stop moving? You're taking my nerves over the edge
to a proverbial 11 on a scale of 10.
I can't help it. We've been waiting and waiting,
and now I have to pee really, really bad.
I shouldn't have mentioned it. Be right back.
No! No! No more splitting up!
Eugene. If that fine-ass dude in the orange suit
just walked in with a coffee,
things must be going good for Yumiko, right?
Maybe she'll be out by the time I'm back.
Uh, do you have toilet paper?
Well, shit!
I'm excited!
On my count. 3, 2, 1!
Negan: Why don't you guys handle that one?
If you get tired out, we'll take over.
Alden: Is that the roof?
Could be walkers.
Shh!
It's below us. It's Morse code.
It's SOS.
I slipped.
He saw, and he left me to die.
Negan: Yeah.
Okay. So what?
You're just admitting it?
You tried to kill her!
No, she was in trouble, and I didn't help.
There is a big difference.
Okay, so who's gonna help you now?
Who in here's got your back?
Yeah, you don't need fingers to count that number.
She was just talking about murdering me,
sooner rather than later,
and yet somehow, I'm the big, old asshole
'cause I didn't risk my nuts for her?
I have been a golden goddamn asset
for every single one of you.
Yeah, burning Hilltop, that helped, huh?
I killed Alpha, right?
So, yeah, I was helpful.
'Cause if I hadn't done that,
every person you know, their skull would be on a spike.
I did what needed to be done, alright?
I am trying.
Yeah, okay. I'm not buying a word of it.
Same.
Nod and it happens.
We can get through the city without him.
Help! Help me! Help!
-Later. -Help!
Help!
Gage?! What happened?!
We got lost in the tunnels! Walkers are everywhere,
they -- they might have --Negan: How'd you get in there?
I-I got a door open on the far end.
Did you close it?Uh --
Gage? I --
Hey, this one seems a bit looser. Sasquatch, gimme a hand.
We open that, they'll all get in.
He's right there!
I know he is.
The hell with you.
Alden?
Come on.
Are you insane? Move!
Move!
Maggie?
Maggie?!
Open the door!
Look, I'm sorry, okay?! I'm sorry --
I made -- I made a mistake, and I'm sorry,
but I just --
I want another chance. Okay?
I won't do it again. I won't do it again.
I'll do better. Please, I -- Please.
Maggie, listen to me.
We have time. We can get that door open.
Maggie! Maggie!
We don't have the ammo to clear them.
Let it go.
I'm sorry.
I can't.
Liar.
Pardon me. I've been waiting for my friend, Yumiko.
She's in that room right there.
I was wondering if you might be able to provide
or procure for me an ETA for when she might be done?
No one's in there.
But I watched my friend walk in there with the two questioners,
and I haven't seen her or them walk out.
If you could just check --
No one is in there, sir.
My other friend went to use the ladies' room --
What friend?
I need you to leave.
Now.
What is it?
Bad memories.
Of what?
You guys don't wanna look at him.
Why?
Why won't you look at him?
All that is, is the shell of a man who died a coward.
That's a hot take, Father.
He was scared,
but he didn't deserve to die like that.
In the worst way imaginable.
There are worse ways.
A lot worse.
Before I found Elijah and his people...
Hershel and I were alone for a long time.
One day, we came across this frail old man
who was kneeling by a turned-over grocery cart.
It was full of scavenged clothes
he said were for his sons and daughters,
and could we help him haul the cart back home?
And he said he'd give us food for our trouble.
I knew that he was a liar.
But I was starving,
and soon, Hershel would be.
So we followed him back to his house.
I held a knife to his throat and reached in his pocket.
I pulled out the chloroform rag he was gonna use on me.
I stuffed it in his mouth.
And then we went inside the house,
and I locked my little boy in a room,
and I went and searched the house.
There were these three...
deformed --
I wouldn't call them men.
They came after me.
But I handled them.
And then the house was quiet,
except for this thudding sound
that was coming from upstairs in the attic.
And I thought maybe they had people tied up up there
that were trying to get free.
So I walked to a door at the end of this hallway.
And I opened it, and I looked up,
and there was a set of stairs.
At the top of the stairs, there's this shadow
writhing and rocking.
I thought it was an animal.
Then all of a sudden, it fell down the stairs,
and it came right at my feet.
It was a walker
that used to be a woman.
Her arms and her legs
had been cut off,
stitched up.
Her eyes gouged out.
No tongue.
And she was wheezing
through an open, cauterized gash in her throat
where her vocal cords had been ripped out.
And her belly was round and full.
And whatever was inside of there was trying to get out.
And I went upstairs, and there were three more just like her.
But their hearts were still beating.
And do you know the first thing I thought?
The very first thing that crossed my mind?
"If they're alive,
there must be food here."
So I took care of them.
And then I found the food.
Lots of it.
And Hershel and I filled the cart with it, and we left.
I don't feel anything when I tell you that.
Do you understand me?
Because that is what's out there.
And seeing it, I lost something.
And I don't think it's a bad thing that I did.
Because it has made things so much clearer.
What we have in Alexandria,
what we had in Hilltop
and in Meridian --
it's rare.
It has to be.
Compared to everything that's out there.
Because if it isn't --
It means we were lucky.
It means that nobody has it figured out.
Nobody ever did,
and nobody ever will.
Dog?
Daryl, help me.
How bad is it?
It ain't good.
You went topside?
Bad idea.
I lost Gage.
Where's the ammo bag?
I lost that, too.
Don't -- Stop.
Don't waste that on me.
Here. It's all I got.
Tell my kids I didn't die a coward.
Frost: It's blocked.
Hey!
They're coming in from this side!
Back up!
Daryl: Shh, boy.
Negan: Come on, little more!
Hurry!
Come on, go!
Get behind something!
What have you done with my traveling companions?
They're being processed.
"Processed" as in a-administratively?
Processed as in bologna or other meat stuffs?
This inquiring mind needs to know.
I want to see them.
You like feeling nervous?
No.
Only one thing gets my heart up.
When I'm out there,
battling the dead.
The magenta swarms.
It's just...
pumping, every time.
But not in a bad way.
Here. Mop up.
I-I think that --
You can't lie for shit.
I -- So don't lie.
Okay.
I wasn't g-going to.
You weren't?
No.
That makes me like you.
Keep doing that, it'll help you.
If you don't --
You get me?
Use your words.
Y-Yes.
Yes, sir.
Good.
Now.
I know you're holding back.
Youknow you're holding back.
I'm going to give you two questions.
You're going to give me two answers. Truthful ones.
You do that?
You get to go.
You get to see your friends again.
Everything will be okay.
It's that simple.
Where is your settlement?
And why were you at that train station?
Mm, Eugene.
If you lie.
I'll know.
O-Okey-dokey.
You're right.
I have been holding something back.
Frankly, I wanted to speak up before this,
but I was afraid of what my friends would think.
I haven't always been the most emotional fella,
but my 10,000-plus hours of death, loss, and fear
have opened me up a little bit.
In the course of our travels, I found this radio.
Night after night, I would speak into the void,
holding onto a-a "what if,"
as fools are wont to do, and I am nothing if not a fool.
Then one night,
a voice came back from said void.
A beautiful voice.
We got to talking, and she...
...was not repulsed by my musings.
We spoke of train museums and ice cream cones.
We laughed.
We sang Iron Maiden.
And then we wanted to meet.
So I got my friends
to go to that train yard under the guise
of asking whoever showed up for help for us three,
because I knew they wouldn't go otherwise.
But all I was thinking about was Stephanie.
So yes, I lied.
I've been lying this whole time, because I'm afraid to lose
the three friends I have in this world.
And I lied to Stephanie about being from a large settlement
because I was afraid that maybe,
she was not who she said she was.
That maybe she was a femme fatale,
laying a trap for a lonely heart.
My track record in the romantic realm is spotty at best.
I'm not one for whom any relationships come easy,
particularly those with the fairer sex.
And I am, in fact, a virgin.
Even though I have, uh, observed the act
far more times than I care to admit.
Thank you for holding back your titters.
I was -- I was hoping
that after a suitable period of courtship,
that Stephanie might be the one to change my unenviable status,
because deep down, I was hoping that maybe, in fact,
she was my One True Love.
And now I've been forced to admit that in this room,
and I'm humiliated by it.
And...
I'm afraid that if Stephanie finds out
that I wasn't honest with her, either,
that she might want to have nothing to do with me anymore.
So here I am...
very relieved to get that off my chest.
Because everything else I've said up to this point
has been the goddamn truth.
Eugene!
Ezekiel: It's okay, man. Let it out.
I thought -- W-Where'd they take you?
An infirmary.
A medic steamed my face, gave me this nasty herbal cough syrup,
and I slept.
They spiked the cough syrup?
No, no. They took the lantern out of my room,
and I fell asleep.
Medic checked on me a couple of times,
and then they brought Yumiko to visit, and then they took us
to a holding room with Princess, and then they brought us here.
Yeah. Thank God you're here, too. We were worried.
Pursuant to Section 114A of the New Articles of Perpetual Union,
in deference to traditions established by Article 1,
Section 8 of the Legacy Constitution
and Article 14 of the Legacy UDHR,
you have successfully completed initial processing
in consideration for asylum and citizenship
in these united townships.
When you walk through these doors,
you'll be escorted to orientation.
By a beat cop.
Welcome to the Commonwealth.
I went to West Point, asshole.
I don't get it. What the hell changed? Why did they all --
Don't question it. We're in.
Um, which one of you is Eugene?
Hi.
I'm Stephanie.
What is that?
It's a letter from this kid to his parents.
It's from back before.
You found it?
Yeah, down in the tunnels.
See anything else down there?
Nah. Just the same stuff you saw.
We heading out?
We need to take a detour first.
Arbor Hills.
What's there?Hidden supply depot.
Georgie set 'em up all over, in case we ran into any trouble
when we were out looking for survivors.
It has ammo, food, weapons.
Rest up there, restock, and then head to Meridian.
Radio tower marks that neighborhood.
You know where that is?
Yeah. Come on.
Daryl: Come on. Come on, boy.
Well, this place sure has gone to shit
since the last time I was here.
Let's double back. We can cut through --
Aah! Aah!
Run!
Gabriel: You tried to kill my friends.
Man: Don't be scared. I'm not.
Negan: Things change. You need to rethink your plan.
The plan doesn't change. We need that food.
The walls are about to fail.
Carol: If we don't get those horses,
we're all gonna starve to death.
Man: I thought you were a man of God.
God isn't here anymore.
No! No!
Kang: When we start, we see that Maggie, she's down there,
she's fighting the walkers.
For our heroes, you're not a hero unless you fight
through things and you survive things,
and Maggie is a survivor. She has been through a lot.
Putting her in situations where she's really just having to be
strong and smart -- that's always a good place to put
our heroes like Maggie.
So, we just felt like it was important to start the episode
on her like that because you just see, like, how determined
she is to get through her mission.
Daryl, in a lot of ways, is in this very atmospheric part
of the story, but it's all important to kind of
remind us of stakes and what's out there in the world,
and we liked this idea of showing this mural.
We wanted to touch on these themes of high and low class,
which go throughout the season.
At the top of the mural, you'll see this family wearing crowns
and then Daryl scans his flashlight down and you see,
it's the same family and they're still wearing the crowns,
but they're now homeless and they're looking for food.
And you see people who are in crowns
that are being torn apart,
not by zombies, but by other humans,
and so we were trying to tell the story of what happened
in these subway tunnels, and the backstory of it is that
there was this massive class struggle that happened.
People wound up being murdered and stuffed in bags,
and so you see a mixing of people who are homeless
along with people who had a lot of money.
You know, there's a guy in a suit with just a suitcase
full of cash that he tried to run away with,
but you now think, like, "Well, that was useless."
And then you even see a different context for money,
because he finds this bag of things left behind
by children who were forced to be
almost adults in their own right
and you see something that was a bill that became just note paper
for this child to leave a message to parents,
and clearly, they never found each other.
You know, there was a bunny that Maggie saw on the tracks,
and then you see the photo of these two beautiful children,
and the daughter had the stuffed bunny,
so they either didn't make it or at the very least,
they had to run and leave that toy behind.
So, for Daryl as he's kind of going through,
it's a reminder for him that the mission they're on
is to prevent their people from winding up in a place like this.
Keeping them afloat is worth the sacrifice for our heroes.
Some of the things that we love about Princess
is that she is just this bright, shining light
in the middle of this dark world.
She is authentically who she is.
She has been through so much trauma, but is looking to
connect with people.
You know, we claim this character as having ADHD,
and we've tried to kind of be true to some of
the mental health struggles that sometimes accompany that,
because you just think in a different way,
and sometimes, people don't accept that.
But, you know, we've seen that she's incredibly observant,
and that because she can sort of hyper-focus on things,
she notices things that a lot of people miss,
and so that in and of itself becomes this thing
that helps our people almost escape in the first episode.
I also think, like, you know, she's not shy.
She just kind of was like,
"Well, I gotta go to the bathroom,
so I'm just going to talk to this guy."
Do you have toilet paper?
I'm excited.
The fact that she is somebody that is not afraid to
try to connect with people is something that's going to
take her really, really far, at the end of the day.
You want to speak to my supervisor?
That's right! We wanna talk to the manager.
When Maggie comes back in the train car
and says, "I slipped and he saw me do it
and he left me to die." And he's like...
Okay. So what?
That's just Negan. I don't think he feels a lot of shame
about, like, the things that he does as a survivor,
and I think he's always been oddly a straight shooter.
He pretty much tells you who he is and what he thinks,
and he tells every person what he thinks about them.
Like, a lot of times -- he can be a real bully at times,
like, to people and just kind of
call them names and things like that.
I'll tell you why I'm here, man-tits.
I'm real close to shoving a gag in your mouth.
Well, why don't you get up
on your little tippy toes and try.
There's definitely no not knowing
where you stand with Negan.
Hey, this one seems a bit looser!
Sasquatch, gimme a hand!
In the scene with Gage, we felt that it was
really important to come to a point in this story
where a horrible decision had to be made.
Gage is so young.
I mean, the guy is kind of a jerk.
He was part of the group that was bullying Lydia
at Alexandria. He was sort of complicit
in this attack on her.
But we thought like, you know, somebody like that,
who's still kind of young and growing --
he's out on this mission because he wants to try to
help and try to redeem something,
but he made some bad choices, once again.
Gage.
He took our supplies.
He runs off at the first opportunity
and he takes supplies with him.
When he comes back, our people would have let him
back in if they could have, but I think when they look at
the math of, like, you've got a herd of zombies
coming after you, you were a coward,
if we let you in, now we're going to use our ammo,
we're going to use our energy. You might die anyway
and we might all die. I think that Maggie kind of
looks at that and she thinks like a general and goes,
like, "You're an acceptable loss
in order for the rest of us to go on."
But that doesn't make the decision any nicer
or easier, because he also takes his moment to kind of say,
"'F' you. Like, if you're going to do this, then you're going to
watch me turn in front of you.
Like, that's what's going to happen."
An important moment in the arc between Maggie and Negan is,
there's this moment where they feel like
they're just in real trouble,
and maybe they're all going to die,
and Maggie hands Negan a gun that she has on her.
Maggie really is just kind of, like, cold, hard leader
at that point. Right then, he's just an asset.
The mission has become more important
than any one individual or any one dynamic
that exists between them, and that is true even for her.
And so, when he gives it back, maybe there is at least
this tiny, tiny bit of trust that has passed back and forth
between them, and that's going to just be part of
the shifting sands that they're on as they're going through
this mission together.
The final scene with the Reapers shows, like,
"A", they've got the hanging bodies and all kinds of
things -- like, there is definitely sort of
this "Apocalypse Now" type of vibe to them.
This element of, "Don't mess with us.
Our territory is our territory.
Don't cross, but if you do, there's going to be a problem."
And just the way that they're marching forward,
you see this sort of boldness of, like,
"We're not afraid of coming to meet you."
They are very, very, very formidable and they know it.