I said to someone, I was going to watch with the TWD cable episode schedule, release these review articles on Monday, but I lied to myself. After watching episode 17, I just had to go and watch episode 18 because it was tempting me and I have no self control. This is why you got two reviews this week instead of one. Anyways, episode 18 was my favorite out of the two episodes that were released on AMC + this week. I give “A New Deal” a five out of five stars. I know, I know, such a high rating out of me and we are only two episodes into season 11 part 3, but I loved almost every second of this episode. I’ll start off with the only bad thing in this episode. We already saw a fair at the Commonwealth, but that was a Halloween special in episode 2, and this was Founders Day. Although it was important to the plot of the episode, I thought Founders Day was a little corny, especially with the wrestling match. However, there were a lot of shining moments throughout this episode with Lance’s capture, Pamela’s deal, Eugene and Max exposing the Milton’s, and Sebastian’s death (which I will go into more detail below). I also liked another montage of old clips from previous Walking Dead scenes in the opening scene that was narrated by Judith. If AMC keeps this up with the remaining six episodes I will probably get sick of it, but I will take the nostalgia anyway I can get it.. Finally, I loved the scenes evolving Daryl’s “kids” problems. Even though Daryl doesn’t have any true blood kids, Daryl has taken Judith and RJ under his wing since Rick and Michonne are not around anymore. Having kids is more work than Daryl ever thought. He even asked Carol for kid advice, even though I am not sure if I would ask her because of her track record (Sophia, Lizzie, Mika, and Henry), but he even asked Carol what Rick would do if he was still here.
Carol and Negan Make a Deal with Pamela Milton
Lance was captured last episode and held at knife point by Daryl, but Mercer and Pamela went there to take Lance back. Daryl had one of the best scenes in this episode by stabbing Lance right through his hand, and telling everyone , “Don’t worry, it will heal.” Pamela and Mercer knew where Lance was because Carol and Negan worked out a plan to give Pamela her son back, to tell her about what Lance has done, and where he is. In return, the Commonwealth promises to not to hunt down any of the group anymore, help rebuild their fallen communities, and for anyone in the group to have the option to leave the community. Pamela ultimately agrees on the deal and takes Lance prisoner back inside the community. Aaron, Jerry, Lydia, and Elijah leave the community for Oceanside while Maggie, Daryl and a few others stay behind to fix Hilltop and Alexandra. However, everyone doesn’t want to leave the Commonwealth. Ezekiel wants to stay behind and keep his job as the petting zoo keeper. Eugene also wants to stay behind to be with Max and to help her expose the truth about the Milton’s, Judith and Daryl also disagree about leaving. Judith wants to stay behind and help others inside the community but Daryl wants to go back to Hilltop/Alexandra. They start to argue and leads Judith to run away for awhile, but Daryl finds her at Gabriel’s church and they make up. RJ, Judith, and Daryl are going to go to return to their real home.
The Downfall of the Milton’s
When Lance gets put in jail, word gets around, and Eugene pays him a visit. Eugene asks him what the Milton’s are really like and what he should do to get people back protesting against him. Lance gives him a plan of having Max secretly record Sebastian while he is practicing for his speech for Founders Day, and play that while he is speaking to the crowd. Max successfully records him saying things like “We don’t care about you”, “The rich are better than the poor”, and “My Mom even rigs the lottery.” However, while Lance is in jail, someone has to do his dirty work for him. Shira and Roman kill some low ranked members in the community to turn them into walkers. They do this successfully and the walkers start to kill some of the people inside the walls. Mercer, Daryl, Judith (with Rick’s Python), and other soldiers start to kill the walkers inside the walls. You can see Mercer slowly going against the Milton’s and wanting to lead the community by himself by not protecting Pamela during the attack, and even telling her “I protect the community, I don’t protect you.” Walkers end up getting and killing Sebastian. Comic book Rick Grimes should thank AMC by killing Sebastian because he is the one to kill Rick in the book and receiving a life sentence in jail. It does make me think if Rick was still around in the show, Sebastian’s storyline would be much different and most likely not die this early in part three. Sebastian’s death was a surprise to me because I thought AMC would kill him much later in the season, not right away. This proves my theory that all heads with roll this season and my stance that if any character does not fit into AMC’s plan of a current or future Walking Dead spinoff, they should just kill them off because there is no reason to keep them alive after the main show is over.