‘The Walking Dead’ Season 11, Episode 18 Review: The Good, The Bad And The WWE Wrestlers

Games ‘The Walking Dead’ Season 11, Episode 18 Review: The Good, The Bad And The WWE Wrestlers Erik Kain Senior Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. I write about video games, entertainment and culture. Following New! Follow this author to stay notified about their latest stories.

Got it! Oct 9, 2022, 08:04pm EDT | New! Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin The Walking Dead © 2022 AMC Film Holdings LLC. All Rights Reserved. The Walking Dead is in its final stretch (if you don’t count the various spinoffs) and it appears we’re finally gaining momentum in the dull Commonwealth storyline.

Last week, we ended with Daryl holding a knife to Lance Hornsby’s throat and a bit of a standoff with our heroes and Hornsby’s men. Carol and Negan had gone to Commonwealth boss, Pamela Milton, with an idea: Use Lance as a fall guy to clear her son, Sebastian, for the crimes he committed with Hornsby. The plan, we learn, is that the survivors would testify that it was all Hornsby and Pamela would repay them with help rebuilding their homes.

This week, Hornsby is arrested and Sebastian’s name is cleared, but not all goes according to plan. Max is still determined to take down Sebastian and she and Eugene hatch their own plan that runs contrary to Carol’s. She records Sebastian calling the people of the Commonwealth stupid and bragging about how the rich and powerful get to do whatever they want and then plays that recording for all the Commonwealth to hear during Founder’s Day, a big celebration honoring the people who sacrificed their lives setting up the community back in ye olden days of yore.

Meanwhile, Hornsby hatches his own plot using his two ruthless spies, Bald Guy and Fake Eugene Romantic Interest Lady. They kill a bunch of workers using silenced pistols and leave them to turn into zombies. Just when the Commonwealth citizens are starting to react angrily to the recording of Sebastian, the zombies show up and all hell breaks loose.

In the fray, when Sebastian tries to throw Max into the arms of an incoming zombie, Eugene shows up and knocks the zombie into Sebastian instead. Bye bye Sebastian. MORE FOR YOU Hiring Refugees: How One Big Factory Did It See A Beautiful ‘Hunter’s Moon’ Cruise Past Mars: The Naked Eye Night Sky This Week Luxury Women’s Wardrobe Staples That Encourage Versatility For Fall As all this is happening we get various scenes between Daryl and Judith, Daryl and Carol, Carol and Ezekiel and so forth.

Some of the survivors are headed homeward with others soon to follow, though clearly that won’t be happening now. The Good Teo Rapp-Olsson as Sebastian © 2022 AMC Film Holdings LLC. All Rights Reserved.

This was definitely a step up from last week’s episode. I liked that we had two plots running concurrently with survivors working at odds with one another without necessarily realizing it. Carol wasn’t aware that Eugene and Max were working to take down Sebastian still after she made her play, so it takes everyone out of left field.

That’s probably the most interesting thing The Walking Dead has done with Eugene in a long time. Then again, I kind of wish Max had also been bitten because the whole Max/Eugene love story is just terrible beyond words. At least a Max death might give Eugene some steel resolve.

The actual death of Sebastian—which I certainly didn’t see coming this soon—was pretty gruesome also, with the zombie ripping into his neck and blood burbling out of his mouth as he begs for help and nobody intervenes—until Judith puts a bullet into the zombie’s skull. I also like Lance Hornsby, who has real potential to be a great villain, both as a scheming wild card and as a slightly unhinged megalomaniac. He’s a lot more interesting than Pamela or her son.

It was his idea to “burn the whole thing down” that influenced Max and Eugene to hatch their plan, and while the timing was awfully convenient—zombies strolling in just moments after the tape played—I still enjoyed the trickery. Pamela tells him he’s too foolish to play political games with the real players, and he quite effectively proves that isn’t the case. Sebastian’s death is just the cherry on top.

The Bad Teo Rapp-Olsson as Sebastian, Laila Robins as Pamela Milton © 2022 AMC Film Holdings LLC. All Rights Reserved. I still find the Commonwealth totally ludicrous and unbelievable.

Eugene brings Hornsby a candied apple, for instance. The infrastructure of the Commonwealth is beyond implausible. Ice cream, ice cream coens and candied apples and that sort of thing would be extremely difficult to produce.

It would be much more plausible and less immersion-breaking if they’d created a community that was efficient and thriving but that was still bound by the restrictions a post-apocalyptic world like this would invariably impose. Similarly, the stupid Stormtrooper armor is completely unrealistic for a society that doesn’t have any kind of manufacturing industry. I’d much prefer to see armor that was more realistic.

It would also be nice if the soldiers were super competent—the best of the best—rather than just zombie fodder. Speaking of zombies, it’s kind of ridiculous that ten zombies would cause such an uproar and total chaos in a community designed and built around surviving the zombie apocalypse. I suppose if they’ve grown complacent and no zombies are ever found inside the city, fine, but how is that even possible? People die and turn into zombies.

This could happen at any time. Surely they’d be hyper-vigilant. This gets back to the idea that I was talking about previously that the Commonwealth simply has an identity crisis on its hands.

It’s an authoritarian society that allows investigative journalists a free hand and has protestors on the streets minutes after Connie’s exposé hits newsstands (carrying signs that are clearly not hand-made). It’s mired in poorly thought out contradictions. Everyone is too clean and too basic.

It’s like we only get one or the other with communities in The Walking Dead. Either it’s a community of crazy people like the Whisperers or villains like the Saviors or it’s a populace totally unprepared for the trials and tribulations of this world, like Alexandria or the Commonwealth. It seems only our heroes can be both relatively sane and moral and prepared to face the harsh realities of the world.

Of course tiny little Judith is more adept at fighting zombies than anyone in the Commonwealth short of Mercer. The WWE Wrestling The Commonwealth has WWE wrestling. Credit: AMC Finally, we come to The Scene.

The WWE wrestling scene. Founder’s Day is in full swing and the centerpiece of the Commonwealth’s entertainment is a full-blown WWE wrestling match between three muscled dudes in ridiculous costumes, replete with fake wrestling moves and an announcer. All I could think of was the scene back in Season 3 when the Governor puts on that fight between Merle and Martinez with the toothless zombies chained around them.

That was a staged fight that actually felt like it belonged in a zombie apocalypse. This felt cheap, unimaginative and generic—and entirely implausible. Whatever The Walking Dead got right this episode, it tossed back out the window the moment this ludicrous scene took place.

Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome did a post-apocalyptic gladiator battle better decades ago. Why do The Walking Dead’s writers think this cheesy crap is a good idea? Maybe you can help me understand, dear readers. Let me know your thoughts on Twitter or Facebook .

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