Walking Dead Recap: What Was Lost Season 11 Episode 20

Good news, Living Dead Fans — uh, people who’ve watched the show for so long that they feel compelled to watch it to the end, no matter how much enjoyment they get You can or not allowed get by it! Pamela Milton has finally declared war on all the people who have made her comfortable life difficult since she arrived, and things may finally be getting better. A little bit.

What’s Been Lost is a pretty straightforward sequel to TWD, but straightforward is one direction, meaning long-simmering hostilities are finally getting somewhere. Pamela has her Commontroopers and her private group of idiots kidnap all the Alexandrians, Hilltoppers and various friends causing trouble and trouble, although Daryl and Carol manage to escape their would-be kidnappers. The only one Pam doesn’t haveZed is Yumiko who plans to prosecute Eugene for murdering Sebastian (by shoving him into a zombie). Unsurprisingly, Yumiko isn’t inclined to do this, but Pam threatens not only her friends, but her brother Tomi as well.

Daryl and Carol visit Hornsby hoping he has information that will allow them to free the others. They find him in his cell, covered in blood, muttering to himself while chained zombie Sebastian wriggles in a pool of blood, trying to grab another meal. After mild torture, Hornsby agrees to show them where they have been taken and how to get out of town, but Daryl is forced to stay behind to cover Carol’s and Hornsby’s escape from prison.

Hornsby is actually the highlight of “What’s Been Lost” because he forces one of the main protagonists of the series to reckon with what they are doing in the Commonwealth and what the consequences could be. He correctly points out that it is the civilians who are always injured in revolutions. “You and your people will hold the lives of 50,000 people in your hands,” he says as Pamela is overthrown. “Are you going to let the Commonwealth burn?” When Carol says that’s not her problem, he reminds her of the many children in the Commonwealth: “Are you really going to deny them their only chance at a life you’ve taken for granted?” But Carol doesn’t have an answer for that.

Hornsby takes them to one of the Commonwealth’s abandoned “infrastructure repair projects,” where they fight in the dark with some zombies whose skins seem to tear off very easily. It’s just a bit of busy work until Carol and Hornsby get out and are confronted by a bunch of Commontroopers, which is busy work itself because Daryl shows up and shoots them from behind, which saves the day.

This is where Hornsby makes a near-fatal mistake – he mentions that the trio only has to follow the train tracks to find out where everyone’s been taken. With that, Daryl and Carol have all the information they need to save their friends without the provably untrustworthy Hornsby. They seem seconds away from murdering him – telling him they’re about to murder him, over and over again – but offer to him a chance to walk. And that’s where Hornsby makes his fatal mistake. He grabs a rifle from the fallen Commontroopers’ jeep and Carol immediately puts some arrows through him. Goodbye Hornby. You were weird and somewhat interesting while you lasted.

Back in the Commonwealth, Yumiko is forced to hold a press conference where she will announce that she will prosecute Eugene under the laws the Commonwealth still has on the books. Instead, Yumiko announces that she will defend Eugene, surprising everyone at the press conference and no one watching the TV series. The final show is of everyone being loaded onto a Commonwealth bus, tied up and with sacks over their heads, going to where the hell Pam Dissident is stuck.

There weren’t any of the new, smarter variants of zombies, as predicted, which unfortunately added a bit of excitement to last week’s episode. That said, although this episode exposed the conflict between Our People and the Commonwealth and Hornsby bit it, What We Lost is a little less exciting than Doorknob from last weekwhich is the cruellest thing I can say, even though I don’t really mean it.

It’s just that the Walking Dead still meandering to what will be its conclusion, which should be pretty epic considering the show was once the most popular drama series on TV. At the very least, you’d think the show makers would want to up the excitement, hopefully inspiring the remaining fans to check out the spin-offs dead city and Daryl Dixon. Instead of this, the Walking Dead just happening.

But if you want to be optimistic, there are still four hours left in the series, and there’s no reason the show can’t get more exciting in that timeframe. Is it too little too late? Probably. But I would still be a little happy some before the finale rolls around.

Various considerations:

• Hornsby admits that the incorporation of Alexandria and the other parishes into the fold of the Commonwealth was “mishandled”. It made me smile.
• The Commontroopers also took Dog with them. That’s ridiculous.
• After Pam threatens Tomi, Yumiko wisely thanks him at the press conference for all his contributions to the Commonwealth and makes sure people take notice when Pam spirits him away. Clever! However, she’s still technically doomed to the rest of her friends, at least as far as she knows.
• When Daryl and Carol pulled Horsnby out of his cell, the body of Sebastian‘s head was fine minus a knife hole in it. But when Pam goes into the cell to check later, Sebastian’s head is crushed and Hornsby’s Two Face coin was stuck in the blood. Did my screener miss a scene? Or was that the same for you?

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