The Walking Dead is marching towards its midseason finale in style. In “Trust,” Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton) leads Daryl (Norman Reedus) and the Commonwealth’s army to confront Maggie (Lauren Cohan) at Hilltop. Back inside the Commonwealth, Ezekiel (Khary Payton) seeks out Tomi (Ian Anthony Dale) to treat his friend.
The penultimate episode of 11B continues to pit former allies against each other. And with one episode left, a battle is certainly imminent.
Before we get into the plot, here’s your SPOILER warning!
The Hilltop
The episode begins with Lance, who has turned up at Riverbend following the battle in the previous episode. He’s curious about why all of his men have been killed, except for Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) and Aaron (Ross Marquand). It seems like too big of a coincidence that they would survive while everyone else lost their lives. He decides to scour the surrounding area in an attempt to find those responsible for the attack, beginning at Hilltop.
Soon enough, Lance and his little army (including Daryl) roll up at Hilltop and are greeted by Maggie, who refuses to let grant them access. Of course, Maggie and her group were involved in the attack, so they do have something to hide. You might remember this scene from the time jump in the ending of episode 1109, “No Other Way”:
Eventually, at Daryl’s request, they enter Hilltop. We mostly follow Lance investigating the community for any potential clues linking them to the attack at Riverbend. You get the feeling that Lance knows the Hilltop is to blame, but he can’t do anything because he doesn’t have any concrete evidence. The whole thing is suspenseful. Josh Hamilton as Lance is my favorite performance of the season so far; he’s like an obnoxious car salesman mixed with a slimy, power-hungry villain.
The tension is high as he makes his way around the community and narrowly misses subtle clues about their involvement in the attack. At one point he takes things a little too far: searching on his own, he comes across Hershel, who he attempts to trick into revealing to him that it was Maggie and her group who attacked Commonwealth soldiers in Riverbend. To Hershel’s credit, he tells Lance nothing. And when Elijah (Okea Eme-Akwari) spots them together, things begin to get unfriendly.
Elijah attacks Lance, pushing him against the wall and threatening to kill him. This is quickly followed by tons of Commonwealth soldiers pointing their guns at him. Nothing comes of it and the standoff kinda resolves itself, but I suspect this is merely the beginning of tensions between Lance and Maggie. I did notice that Daryl actually says “fuck,” a word that’s almost never used on this show. But here, it was serious enough to break it out.
No blood was spilled this time, although I can’t see things remaining civil for much longer. Of course, this puts Daryl in an interesting position. He works for the Commonwealth, but he sides with Maggie on more than one occasion in this episode. Similar to his role in the Reapers storyline, Daryl always finds himself behind enemy lines.
Ezekiel
Back inside the Commonwealth, Ezekiel (Khary Payton) is relishing being healthy once again after a successful operation. It’s nice to see his situation get resolved after so long. Now he’s decided to use the time given to him to do a little good in the world. His scenes with Carol (Melissa McBride) are pretty wholesome. Their dialogue seems to hint at them potentially getting back together by the end of the season.
Ezekiel wants to help someone who has fallen ill on the farm where he works. Although he can’t perform surgery himself, he gets Yumiko’s brother Tomi (Ian Anthony Dale) to help. Getting medical help within the Commonwealth is not easy since they have a huge list of patients. Bringing someone to the top of the waiting list is really tough. Therefore he convinces Tomi to help him outside of his office hours.
The writers on the show are really going to great lengths to show viewers how strange the Commonwealth society is, and they’re beginning to repeat themselves. I mean, we’ve already seen Carol go through a similar process to get Ezekiel treatment this season.
Romance and job offers
While the majority of this episode focuses on Hilltop and Ezekiel, we do catch up with some other characters. We get to see more of a human side to Mercer (Michael James Shaw), who appears to be less of a bad guy and more just someone who wants to do right by everyone. He’s very much stuck in the middle of everything; he can’t do one good thing without hurting someone else.
We also see Mercer’s relationship with Princess (Paola Lazaro) continue to blossom. Their romance is a storyline pulled right from the pages of the comic book. Perhaps with Princess by his side, Mercer will switch to our group when war eventually breaks out with the Commonwealth. The romance between Eugene and Mercer’s sister Max (Margot Bingham) is also continuing — they’re beginning to trust each other following the whole “Stephanie” debacle.
And finally, Leah (Lynn Collins) makes another appearance in the final moments. She’s out on a mission of her own, taking down everyone who crosses her. We see her camping out in the woods where she’s ambushed by Commonwealth soldiers on their way home from Hilltop. She manages to kill several of them but is ultimately outnumbered. However, Lance doesn’t order her death. Instead, he offers her a job. What job could that be? Well, we don’t know yet. We don’t even know if she accepts it, but what we do know is that she’s a person you’d want to have on your side.
Verdict
“Trust” reminded me of the season 7 episode “Service,” where Negan walked around Alexandria for the first time. However, in this case, it’s Lance peeking around Hilltop. The concept of the villain poking his nose around the community is nothing new to the show, but it’ll never get old.
At this point, we’re fully involved in the Commonwealth. We know how it works: the good, the bad, and the ugly. The pieces are falling into place. With only nine episodes left before The Walking Dead ends forever, they’ve only got a limited amount of time to get to a huge payoff, as well as tie up the myriad loose ends. That’s a lot to fit into nine episodes.
Grade: B+
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