11x20 What's Been Lost

[6.0/10] None of the storylines in this one did much for me. Maybe there’s a common thread between them, about integrity or practicality or who knows what. But it’s just hard for me to get my motor running for The Walking Dead as it limps to the finish line.

Pamela Milton is no longer an interesting, nuanced character. She’s just a mustache-twirling, dastardly villain now. Charitably, the fact that her son’s deaths made her this way comes with some storytelling potential. But in practical terms, she’s less interesting as a straight, Machiavellian bad guy, rather than someone who genuinely thinks they’re doing good. This is, somewhat poetically, just another version of The Governor, and it’s no better now than it was then.

I also couldn't care less about Yumiko taking a big stand. She’s been a boring character for a while, and watching her have a scowl off with Governor Milton gets tiresome quickly. The only noteworthy thing is how Pamela increasingly uses people’s desire to protect their family members to get them to do her bidding. Yumiko trying to have it both ways -- to defend rather than prosecute Eugene, while also highlighting her brother’s importance to the Commonwealth -- is clever enough, but there’s not enough emotional juice to any of the relationships involved for it to matter.

I feel the same way about the Carol/Daryl/Hornsby portion of the episode, which is a disappointing thing to say, given how those are some of the show’s best characters. Hornsby’s death should be a bigger deal, but we were just starting to get to know him, and he’d been stripped of all his power, so it lands with a thud, not a boom. At no point did I seriously buy he would be able to talk Carol into swallowing his bullshit about preserving the Commonwealth or oblique references to unrequited love from Daryl or Pamela. And you just knew they were going to escape the military patrols by hook or by crook, so there was little in the way of genuine tension or stakes.

I do find it interesting that, in all his self-serving bluster, Hornsby does raise a good point. Bringing down the Commonwealth risks scattering 50,000 semi-helpless people to the winds. I presume they’ll put Mercer in charge eventually to solve that, but it’s a valid point to raise.

Otherwise, I’m nonplussed by the Commonwealth’s train invasion plan, and the Virginia Survivors being drugged and inveigled to some black site isn’t the thrilling tease the show wants either. Carol and Daryl as lone wolf avengers comes with some excitement, but for now, the Hornsby business is tiresome.

Overall, a weak outing from this batch of episodes, which moves a few pieces around the board, and even knocks one off the table, but can’t find a way to make it engrossing.