The Walking Dead: Season 11
Year: 2021-2022
Created by: Frank Darabont
Starring: Margot Bingham, Lauren Cohan, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Seth Gilliam, James Hamilton, Michael James Shaw, Paola Lazaro, Ross Marquand, Alana Masterson, Eleanor Matsuura, Melissa McBride, Cassady McClincy, Josh McDermitt, Samantha Morton, Khary Payton, Norman Reedus, Laila Robins & Christian Serratos
Episodes: 24
BBFC: 18
Published: 25/11/22
Created by: Frank Darabont
Starring: Margot Bingham, Lauren Cohan, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Seth Gilliam, James Hamilton, Michael James Shaw, Paola Lazaro, Ross Marquand, Alana Masterson, Eleanor Matsuura, Melissa McBride, Cassady McClincy, Josh McDermitt, Samantha Morton, Khary Payton, Norman Reedus, Laila Robins & Christian Serratos
Episodes: 24
BBFC: 18
Published: 25/11/22
After twelve years and eleven seasons, The Walking Dead has finally come to an end. For me it’s a bittersweet moment, as it’s the first show that really got me interested in serialised television, being the only show at the time that I felt catered to my interests as a fifteen-year-old. If you’ve read my three previous reviews, tracking the rise, fall, and redemption of The Walking Dead, you’ll know that the show has certainly had its ups and downs over the years, but does Season Eleven cap things off in a satisfying way for our characters, or does it shuffle into a long overdue grave?
When searching for the source of a radio signal that Eugene (Josh McDermitt) discovered back in Alexandria, he along with Ezekiel (Khary Payton), Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura), and new survivor Princess (Paola Larazo) are inducted into a new survivor settlement of over fifty-thousand people known as The Commonwealth.
The Commonwealth is seeking continual expansion, and seeing as the nearby settlements of Alexandria, Hilltop, and Oceanside are struggling to keep their citizens fed and safe from the infected, The Commonwealth offer aid in return for absorbing those communities. Whilst Alexandria, currently led by Aaron (Ross Marquand) and Gabriel (Seth Gilliam), accepts the offer, Hilltop, led by Maggie (Lauren Cohan) rejects it, and in a show of solidarity with Hilltop so do Oceanside.
Unhappy with this decision, Commonwealth Deputy Governor Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton) stages military takeovers of both communities. Meanwhile in the Commonwealth proper, Governor Pamela Milton (Laila Robins) fears that her power over the people is starting to slip due to a labour rebellion that is starting to brew.
When searching for the source of a radio signal that Eugene (Josh McDermitt) discovered back in Alexandria, he along with Ezekiel (Khary Payton), Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura), and new survivor Princess (Paola Larazo) are inducted into a new survivor settlement of over fifty-thousand people known as The Commonwealth.
The Commonwealth is seeking continual expansion, and seeing as the nearby settlements of Alexandria, Hilltop, and Oceanside are struggling to keep their citizens fed and safe from the infected, The Commonwealth offer aid in return for absorbing those communities. Whilst Alexandria, currently led by Aaron (Ross Marquand) and Gabriel (Seth Gilliam), accepts the offer, Hilltop, led by Maggie (Lauren Cohan) rejects it, and in a show of solidarity with Hilltop so do Oceanside.
Unhappy with this decision, Commonwealth Deputy Governor Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton) stages military takeovers of both communities. Meanwhile in the Commonwealth proper, Governor Pamela Milton (Laila Robins) fears that her power over the people is starting to slip due to a labour rebellion that is starting to brew.
Season Eleven was a long time in the making. The back end of Season Ten was impacted directly by COVID-19 causing production delays and eventually having an extended run to account for that. During this time Season Eleven was announced, and then soon confirmed to be the final season of the show, having an extended run of twenty-four episodes (opposed to the usual sixteen) that would air over the course of fifteen months in three eight-episode blocks. So, this season has been a long time in the making, first airing in August 2021 and now having ended in November 2022. Whilst it’s not quite as severe as Season Ten’s October 2019 to April 2021 sporadic airing schedule, this is a long time for one season of a TV show to be on air for and despite the final product being mostly positive, it does feel like it’s gone on forever.
But crucially is Season Eleven good? The answer is a resounding yes, although there are a couple of caveats. In fact, I would say Season Eleven is the best season the show has ever had, or at the very least comparable with Seasons One and Three which prior to this were my favourite seasons. It starts slow, the first eight episodes primarily concern themselves with Maggie, Daryl (Norman Reedus), and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) launching an assault on the last remaining Reaper settlement. At the same time Alexandria is dealing with failing defences and a lack of food, and The Commonwealth is interrogating Eugene, Ezekiel, Yumiko, and Princess. It’s a long setup but it pays dividends later on. The second set of eight episodes concerns itself primarily with Hornsby and The Commonwealth negotiating with Alexandria and Hilltop, as well as the majority of the survivors being integrated into The Commonwealth and adjusting to life as it was before the fall. The final eight episodes deal with the labour rebellion, Hornsby’s assault on the smaller communities, and Milton’s descent into dictatorship.
There’s rarely a dull episode, and in fact the weakest episode of the entire season I found to be the finale. This is the season’s Achilles Heel, and ultimately, I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I had hoped for more than we got. Personally, I found the ending to be unsatisfying, inconclusive, and more interested in setting up the future spin-off shows and films than actually ending anything. It left so much up to the eleventh hour that the finale felt as though it was rushing from one thing to another trying to end the conflict against The Commonwealth’s hierarchy (also introducing new types of infected just a couple of episodes from the finale was really jarring), and then all of the surviving main characters we actually care about all started talking about their plans for the future which we know are going to be explored in future spin-off’s. There were no stakes, nothing was surprising, and for a show that’s run for over a decade it lacked any kind of resolution. We know the stories of some characters aren’t over, but The Walking Dead in this current form is done, so it’s a shame that more wasn’t done to emphasise that.
But crucially is Season Eleven good? The answer is a resounding yes, although there are a couple of caveats. In fact, I would say Season Eleven is the best season the show has ever had, or at the very least comparable with Seasons One and Three which prior to this were my favourite seasons. It starts slow, the first eight episodes primarily concern themselves with Maggie, Daryl (Norman Reedus), and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) launching an assault on the last remaining Reaper settlement. At the same time Alexandria is dealing with failing defences and a lack of food, and The Commonwealth is interrogating Eugene, Ezekiel, Yumiko, and Princess. It’s a long setup but it pays dividends later on. The second set of eight episodes concerns itself primarily with Hornsby and The Commonwealth negotiating with Alexandria and Hilltop, as well as the majority of the survivors being integrated into The Commonwealth and adjusting to life as it was before the fall. The final eight episodes deal with the labour rebellion, Hornsby’s assault on the smaller communities, and Milton’s descent into dictatorship.
There’s rarely a dull episode, and in fact the weakest episode of the entire season I found to be the finale. This is the season’s Achilles Heel, and ultimately, I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I had hoped for more than we got. Personally, I found the ending to be unsatisfying, inconclusive, and more interested in setting up the future spin-off shows and films than actually ending anything. It left so much up to the eleventh hour that the finale felt as though it was rushing from one thing to another trying to end the conflict against The Commonwealth’s hierarchy (also introducing new types of infected just a couple of episodes from the finale was really jarring), and then all of the surviving main characters we actually care about all started talking about their plans for the future which we know are going to be explored in future spin-off’s. There were no stakes, nothing was surprising, and for a show that’s run for over a decade it lacked any kind of resolution. We know the stories of some characters aren’t over, but The Walking Dead in this current form is done, so it’s a shame that more wasn’t done to emphasise that.
I enjoyed a lot of the new characters that were introduced, and it’s a shame we won’t get to spend more time with them going forward. Characters like Michael and Maxxine Mercer (Michael James Shaw & Margot Bingham) were a breath of fresh air for the show, and I found them really compelling, going so far as Maxxine making Eugene a character, I could actually stand to watch on screen for the first time in the show’s history. Hornsby and Milton were really awesome villains, Hornsby in particular. Milton did gradually decline into a clone of David Morrissey’s ‘The Governor’ from Seasons Three and Four as the show entered its final episodes, but the for the most part she was a real enigma, and Robins put a lot of work in to make her character someone who you love to hate.
I also really loved the way that Negan was handled this season, and he has the best character arc out of anyone in the entire show for me. Starting out as the villain of Seasons Seven and Eight, Negan went on a total transformation over Seasons Nine, Ten, and Eleven to become a better person and his redemption story in this season is one of the shows best ever story threads. The way he and Maggie are constantly at loggerheads, him trying to earn her trust and forgiveness and her being a glance away from killing him at any second makes for some genuinely tense situations where you can’t always tell if either character will come out alive.
The Walking Dead has finally died, and yet long live The Walking Dead in its multiple other forms it seems. AMC have been clear for a long time that they want to keep milking this franchise for as long as they can, but with the declining interest in the mainline show I think calling it quits has been long overdue. Season Eleven shows that the writing staff had ideas, and good ones too, but just that nobody was using them for the best part of seven seasons just so they could keep the show going indefinitely. Its equally fantastic and frustrating that Season Eleven is as good as it is, because I want to see more of this kind of quality from The Walking Dead, but the show had been so underwhelming for so long that it annoys me that it’s only now that things are ending for the main show that the creative team decide to pull their fingers out and make the show good again.
With Fear The Walking Dead still going strong, and at least two spin-off shows revolving around Negan & Maggie, and Carol & Daryl planned, The Walking Dead will still be around for a long time to come. Not to mention the currently in-progress Rick Grimes film trilogy that will likely see Danai Gurira’s Michonne return. So, whilst we say goodbye to The Walking Dead in this form, it’s not really over, and I think that really cements how AMC felt about the finale. Why bother ending it if its not really over, and that’s a real kick in the teeth to fans of the show I feel.
Should you check out Season Eleven? I think the answer depends on how far you’ve made it in the show. Did you drop off at Season Seven like most people? Then it’s probably not worth it. But if you’ve been keeping up with seasons Nine and Ten, then I think Season Eleven is the return to form we had all been hoping for after the show made it through its darkest days.
But now it’s time to put the show to rest, in the grave it should have laid in many years ago. It’s strange to think that the mainline The Walking Dead is over, but this is long overdue. A fond farewell from me, but not a particularly sad one. You had a good run The Walking Dead, but now it is time to rest.
I also really loved the way that Negan was handled this season, and he has the best character arc out of anyone in the entire show for me. Starting out as the villain of Seasons Seven and Eight, Negan went on a total transformation over Seasons Nine, Ten, and Eleven to become a better person and his redemption story in this season is one of the shows best ever story threads. The way he and Maggie are constantly at loggerheads, him trying to earn her trust and forgiveness and her being a glance away from killing him at any second makes for some genuinely tense situations where you can’t always tell if either character will come out alive.
The Walking Dead has finally died, and yet long live The Walking Dead in its multiple other forms it seems. AMC have been clear for a long time that they want to keep milking this franchise for as long as they can, but with the declining interest in the mainline show I think calling it quits has been long overdue. Season Eleven shows that the writing staff had ideas, and good ones too, but just that nobody was using them for the best part of seven seasons just so they could keep the show going indefinitely. Its equally fantastic and frustrating that Season Eleven is as good as it is, because I want to see more of this kind of quality from The Walking Dead, but the show had been so underwhelming for so long that it annoys me that it’s only now that things are ending for the main show that the creative team decide to pull their fingers out and make the show good again.
With Fear The Walking Dead still going strong, and at least two spin-off shows revolving around Negan & Maggie, and Carol & Daryl planned, The Walking Dead will still be around for a long time to come. Not to mention the currently in-progress Rick Grimes film trilogy that will likely see Danai Gurira’s Michonne return. So, whilst we say goodbye to The Walking Dead in this form, it’s not really over, and I think that really cements how AMC felt about the finale. Why bother ending it if its not really over, and that’s a real kick in the teeth to fans of the show I feel.
Should you check out Season Eleven? I think the answer depends on how far you’ve made it in the show. Did you drop off at Season Seven like most people? Then it’s probably not worth it. But if you’ve been keeping up with seasons Nine and Ten, then I think Season Eleven is the return to form we had all been hoping for after the show made it through its darkest days.
But now it’s time to put the show to rest, in the grave it should have laid in many years ago. It’s strange to think that the mainline The Walking Dead is over, but this is long overdue. A fond farewell from me, but not a particularly sad one. You had a good run The Walking Dead, but now it is time to rest.