The Walking Dead season 11, episode 17 recap: Lockdown

The final episodes of The Walking Dead began airing last night with season 11 episode 17 “Lockdown”. The episode picks up where we left off, with Lance Hornsby searching for Daryl, Maggie, Aaron, and Gabriel while Governor Milton suffers firsthand at the revelation of her son’s horrible deeds.

The Walking Dead Season 11 Episode 17 recap – The Commonwealth Crisis

Without a doubt, Connie’s article in The Commonwealth newspaper caused quite a stir. The people are angry, especially those related to the missing and presumed dead.

Governor Pamela Milton does her best to keep calm and reassure The Commonwealth that her son, Sebastian was innocent. He remains missing for the moment but that doesn’t stop Pamela from wanting to know how such secret information got released to Connie in the first place.

She’s awfully suspicious of Yumiko who is trying to offer actual advice. Although Yumiko is concerned that things will escalate far beyond what Connie and the others predicted.

As a very large walker horde makes its way closer to The Commonwealth, Pamela orders a lockdown. Everyone is to remain in their homes for their safety.

This very large horde has somehow passed through other barriers and checkpoints. We aren’t specifically told how, but it may be because Lance took so many soldiers to deal with his personal vendetta that The Commonwealth may indeed collapse.

Mercer, Rosita and a few others attempt to slow the walkers down but, in the process, they lose a soldier or two, and the horde continues moving onward. We do see, as we have previously, walkers acting erratically again.

They are moving a little quicker and more violent than usual. Mercer is worried about riots and unrest at The Commonwealth and asks for Rosita’s help.

She however is putting her family first. Back at The Commonwealth the lockdown order isn’t followed for very long as that same evening several people are holding a memorial for those they lost.

As Commonwealth soldiers remain at attention, the true event that sets off everyone is when a member of town spots Sebastian with Carol and Negan. He begins calling out to everyone that he found Sebastian.

As Carol moves Sebastian away for his safety, Negan stays behind and is unfortunately captured. But wait, how did Negan get to The Commonwealth?

How did he and Carol find Sebastian?

The Walking Dead Season 11 Episode 17 recap – Negan and Carol

As Daryl, Maggie, Gabriel and Aaron continue to run and hide with Lance Hornsby not far behind, they begin to worry about their families back home at The Commonwealth. Negan and Annie arrive shortly after, reassuring Maggie that her son Hershel, is with Elijiah.

The group agrees they need to kill Lance before he can get word back home. Daryl has the idea to send Negan as they’ve never seen his face.

He agrees, leading Lance in a crazy car chase thanks to some clever use of his Whisperer mask and maneuvering. Daryl manages to aid in the fight, killing a few Commonwealth soldiers which enables Negan to reach The Commonwealth before word can be sent out.

Once at The Commonwealth, Negan meets Mercer, and the conversation quickly changes from friendly to serious. He reveals everything Lance has been doing.

Mercer allows Negan to stay without going through protocol and eventually he meets up with Jerry and Carol. Carol, in the meantime has been watching over the children; Judith, R.J and Gracie.

She has some close calls earlier in the episode as Shira and her unfriendly counterpart hunt her down. While Carol and the children successfully hide, the duo know about the children and will undoubtedly hunt them down as well.

Negan catches Carol up on everything that has happened, including his recent marriage and pregnant wife. The two rummage through files and maps of The Commonwealth finding a hidden door.

Sure enough, Sebastian is hiding within the small room. He is convinced to come out and face his mother, who he is terrified of.

As we come full circle with Negan’s story, Carol successfully brings Sebastian to Pamela. Pamela is understandably angered and unhappy with her son.

At that moment, Carol suggests that the only way out of the mess is to blame the whole situation on Lance. This will guarantee her family and friend’s safety.

The Walking Dead Season 11 Episode 17 recap – According to Plan

With Negan on his way to The Commonwealth, Daryl, Maggie, Annie, Aaron and Gabriel continue to move while killing Commonwealth soldiers. The process to kill Lance is difficult but they refuse to give up.

Lance remains hellbent on killing the group, becoming increasingly angrier the longer it takes. Maggie and Annie manage to prevent a message from being delivered to The Commonwealth to ensure Negan’s safe arrival.

In between the madness of this twisted cat and mouse game, Maggie thanks Daryl for saving her life. In the process, he had to kill Leah who he had a brief but strong relationship with.

Daryl will do everything possible to protect Maggie as he still seems to blame himself for her husband, Glenn’s death. As the group manages to reach the tunnels to move below their enemy, they decide to bring them down to them.

The episode ends on a cliffhanger as they manage to get the upper hand on Lance, forcing The Commonwealth soldiers to stand down.

The Walking Dead Season 11 Episode 17 review

This was a whirlwind of an episode from start to finish! It was well paced, spectacularly written, and still sets up the next episode with a satisfying cliffhanger.

Thankfully, the group is getting back to their roots of communicating with each other when possible. Previously, and I’m assume this was to create more drama, our heroes weren’t really sharing information they knew.

Which is uncommon, impractical and not believable in the slightest. The car chase was so much fun to watch and reminded me of Negan’s previous car chase with Rick in season 8’s “The Key”.

Frankly we needed more car chases in The Walking Dead as a whole. It was reassuring to watch the group come together, disregarding their continued hatred for Negan.

I’d honestly love to see more Mercer and Negan interactions. Carol’s decision to make the deal without Daryl, Maggie, Aaron, and Gabriel knowing might have been a little overzealous on her part.

Carol’s decisions have been hit or miss, more on the latter as of late. We’re hoping she didn’t leave Negan in the dust, again, as he has presumably been arrested.

However, the idea of having Lance take the fall for Sebastian puts Pamela at her mercy. But Lance is too dangerous to keep alive.

He has control over Alexandria and Oceanside, and we still don’t know if there is anyone still alive at Oceanside. We hope that this judgement doesn’t cost one of our favorite characters their life.

Unless this is another way to create drama, I’m surprised The Commonwealth doesn’t have more backup plans in case of a large horde breaking through the checkpoints. For such a large, successful and thriving community you’d think they’d have multiple plans for situations like this.

Because the truth is, while I am glad none of our heroes were killed this episode, I worry when some will when that horde breaches The Commonwealth.

What did you think of The Walking Dead season 11, episode 17? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

The Walking Dead season 11, episode 18 airs October 9 on AMC.