(Spoilers ahead for the March 18 episode of “The Walking Dead.”)
This week on “The Walking Dead” there was certainly a lot going on that deviated from the way the “All Out War” story occurred in the comics. Two things in particular were really huge: First, Rick derailed Negan’s attempt to assault the Hilltop. Second, Maggie and Michonne met up with a mysterious new trio of survivors, who showed up just in the nick of time to keep the colony from starving, and help them out in other ways.
We’re gonna talk about the second one here, because a completely unknown quantity randomly entering the story out of nowhere is as big an event as anything else that has happened on “The Walking Dead” this season, even though it may not feel like it yet. This new big character, Georgie (played by “House of Cards” alum Jayne Atkinson), is almost certainly more than what she seems, and her appearance now could mark a major shift in the way the story on the show is following the story from the comics. In fact it could mean that the show is skipping the next big comics story and heading straight into the new arc that the comics are only just now getting into.
But first let’s recap real quick what happened tonight. So the Hilltoppers get a message from a mysterious person offering them food in exchange for music records. Maggie thinks it’s too good to be true, but Michonne believes the offer is worth looking into. So those two, along with Rosita and Enid, do just that.
The message, it turns out, is from a woman named Georgie. She offers “knowledge” — claiming essentially to be a roving altruist hoping to help out the good guys of this post-apocalyptic new world. Maggie finds it all too good to be true and takes Georgina and her two pals, Hilda and Midge, back to the Hilltop. After some discussion with Michonne and Enid, though, Maggie decides to just do the deal and let Georgie go.
And then Georgie sweetens the pot, giving Maggie not just food after noticing that the Hilltop is getting desperate, but also a book that details how to build basic medieval structures like mills and aqueducts– essentially providing the building blocks for a more advanced civilization. And Georgie promises that she’ll be back at some point in the future to check on the Hilltop’s progress.
What in the world is going on here? It’s really tough to know what to think about this, because this is a pretty unprecedented situation on “The Walking Dead,” and this specific scenario is not something that has happened in the comics. There has to be something more to this, and we have a guess about what it is.
The first big clue is that it’s a surprise that Jayne Atkinson is even on “The Walking Dead” — she’s too big a name, coming off a major stint on “House of Cards,” for it to not be significant that her casting on this show was not previously announced. That suggests Georgie has some importance to the future of the series that AMC didn’t want getting out.
The second clue is what Georgie has to offer. She’s all about uplifting the primitives of the Hilltop so they can take a big step toward rebuilding modern civilization in a real way.
Our guess, based on that, is that Georgie very well could be associated with the Commonwealth, a new faction based in Ohio that’s just now being explored in the comics. The Commonwealth is notable for actually having a real city, with 50,000 people living in it. They’re far more advanced than any of the factions we’ve seen before, and this very much feels like it could be the show’s version of first contact with that group.
That brings us to the third clue, which is that Georgie’s whole look in this episode bears a striking resemblance to that of Pamela Milton, who leads the Commonwealth in the comics. See for yourself here:
It doesn’t feel terribly likely that those similarities are a coincidence.
The question, then, is does this mean for where the show is headed after the war with the Saviors ends? The narrative on the show is a ways away from when the Commonwealth arrives on the scene in the comics — there’s a whole other war with a group called the Whisperers between now and then. Could this mean that the show will skip that conflict and jump straight to the Commonwealth arc?
It would make sense for several reasons. The big one is that Carl played a major role in the Whisperers story, but he’s obviously out of the picture on the show. Another is that the Commonwealth arc has been popular among readers because it’s just a massive change of pace, at least so far, from the standard bleakness we’ve come to know and hate — and considering how far the show’s ratings have plunged the last couple seasons, it would follow that AMC would want to try to shake things up to improve the situation.
On top of that, the Commonwealth would be a sort of natural place for “The Walking Dead” to meet up with “Fear the Walking Dead,” which have thus far taken place in disparate locales. We also know that the finale of “The Walking Dead” Season 8 and the premiere of “Fear the Walking Dead” make up a crossover event, which will see “The Walking Dead” character Morgan (Lennie James) transition into “Fear.” The two episodes are even being shown together in movie theaters to play up the connection.
It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out — and, of course, whether our speculation here is actually correct. Whatever is going on here, though, is certainly a big shift for the show, and one we’re cautiously excited about.
'The Walking Dead': The Most Shocking and Disturbing Deaths So Far
"The Walking Dead" has never been shy about gore and death, but some characters' demises hit harder than others. Now that the final season is upon us, let's take a look back at the carnage from past seasons.
Andrea's sister Amy (Emma Bell) was the first sympathetic named character to go, when a random walker bit her at camp.
AMC
The death of Jim (Andrew Rothenberg) in Season 1 showed the characters how to treat a bitten person for the first time.
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Sophia (Madison Lintz) was beloved by all, but Rick did not hesitate when it came time to pull the trigger when she became a walker.
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Dale (Jeffrey DeMunn) was the moral compass of the group, so it was upsetting on several levels when a zombie ripped his guts out.
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Shane (Jon Bernthal) was ready to kill Rick over his love triangle with Lori, but Rick acted first.
AMC
T-Dog (IronE Singleton) gave his life to save Carol from walkers when the group tried to take the prison.
AMC
Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) died during childbirth, prompting Carl to shoot her in the head to prevent her reanimation.
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Daryl's brother Merle (Michael Rooker) finally tried to be a good man by defying the Governor -- and it got him a bullet in the heart from the Governor himself and a new life as a zombie.
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Andrea (Laurie Holden) failed to see The Governor for what he was -- a bad guy -- and paid the ultimate price.
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Hershel (Scott Wilson) wanted peace, but The Governor took his head to prove a point to Rick.
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Tyreese (Chad Coleman) let his guard down for a just a moment, but long enough to get bitten by a walker.
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Lizzie (Brighton Sharbino) killed her sister Mika (Kyla Kenedy) before Carol shot Lizzie in the back of the head.
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Beth (Emily Kinney) finally had enough of Dawn, the tyrannical overlord of Grady Memorial Hospital, stabbing her with a pair of scissors as a parting gift. But Dawn immediately shot Beth in the head -- prompting Daryl to in turn shoot Dawn.
AMC
Noah (Tyler James Williams) endured one of the most gruesome deaths in "Walking Dead" history thanks to Nicholas.
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Jessie (Alexandra Breckenridge), Ron (Austin Abrams) and Sam (Major Dodson) all died within seconds of each other. Sam got eaten when the horde invaded Alexandria. Jessie died as she tried to save him. Ron then attempted to kill Rick, but got stabbed by Michonne and was subsequently eaten.
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Abraham (Michael Cuditz) was the one we had to wait six months to see murdered by Negan. He, of course, got his head beaten in with Negan's barbwire-wrapped baseball bat, Lucille.
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But Abraham wasn't Negan's only victim that night. After Daryl punched Negan, Negan decided he had to make another example out of someone in the group -- and he chose Glenn.
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Spencer (Austin Nichols) thought he could use Negan to kill Rick in order to assume control of Alexandria. But Negan had other plans, gutting Spencer in full view of everyone in the community.
Gene Page/AMC
Olivia (Ann Mahoney) suffered plenty of indignities at Negan's hands, and he eventually repaid her by having her shot.
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Ole Dr. Carson (Tim Parati) made a critical error by saying mean things about Sherry to Dwight over and over again. So Dwight framed the good doctor for helping Daryl escape from the Saviors -- and Negan threw him into the furnace for it.
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When King Ezekiel's crew was short one cantaloupe in its tribute for Negan's Saviors, Benjamin was shot in the leg as punishment. Unfortunately, the shot hit an artery, and young Ben bled out.
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It turned out that Richard had tossed one of the cantaloupes because he wanted to start a war between the Kingdom and Saviors -- and he thought they would kill him for being short. They shot Ben instead, but Morgan strangled Richard the next day after Richard confessed.
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Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) used Eugene's suicide pills to kill herself while she was theatrically locked in a casket because of some ridiculous thing Negan was doing. When Negan opened the casket she popped out as a walker and saved Rick and the residents of Alexandria in a clutch moment.
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Morales (Juan Gabriel Pareja) returned in Season 8 after having been gone since Season 1, but that return was short-lived. Now a member of the Saviors, Morales was around again for about 10 minutes before Daryl shot him.
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Eric (Jordan Woods-Robinson) got shot during the Alexandrians' battle against the Saviors, and then bled out and turned into a walker after a tearful goodbye scene with his boyfriend Aaron (Ross Marquand).
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Shiva the tiger bit the dust while saving Ezekiel, Carol and Jerry from a bunch of walkers in Season 8. There were just too many and they swarmed and ate her.
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Carl (Chandler Riggs) died in the Season 8 mid-season premiere after suffering a zombie bite in the first half of the season.
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Gregory (Xander Berkeley) got his long-overdue death when he was executed by hanging for trying to murder Maggie in the Season 9 premiere.
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Jesus (Tom Payne) was killed when he tried to decapitate a zombie only to discover that zombie was actually a living man disguised as one -- this was Alexandria and Hilltop's first real contact with the Whisperers.
AMC
Near the end of Season 9, the Whisperers made a big statement by killing 10 named characters at once and putting all their heads on spikes. The most notable among those killed were Tara (Alanna Masterson), Enid (Katelyn Nacon), Henry (Matt Lintz) and Tammy Rose (Brett Butler).
Siddiq (Avi Nash) was killed in Alexandria by Dante, who it turned out was a Whisperer infiltrator, because he discovered that Dante had poisoned the town's water supply.
Earl Sutton (John Finn) was killed during the battle with the Whisperers at Hilltop when he was bitten by one of their zombie horde. Over the course of this conflict, the Whisperers got his wife Tammy Rose and his son Kenneth as well.
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As the final season kicks off, we look back at some of the emotional devastation this show has wreaked over the past decade
"The Walking Dead" has never been shy about gore and death, but some characters' demises hit harder than others. Now that the final season is upon us, let's take a look back at the carnage from past seasons.