{"id":308,"date":"2021-08-22T04:02:57","date_gmt":"2021-08-22T04:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/?p=308"},"modified":"2026-08-14T02:57:57","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T02:57:57","slug":"the-walking-dead-s11e1-acheron-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/?p=308","title":{"rendered":"The Walking Dead S11E1: \u201cAcheron Part 1\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Walking Dead<\/em> kicked off its eleventh and final season with \u201cAcheron Part 1,\u201d an episode that is equally parts dark and disturbing as well as tense. If you\u2019re like me and have thoroughly enjoyed the evolution of the series since Angela Kang took over as showrunner, then you probably enjoyed this episode as much as I did. It\u2019s astounding when you think about how much we\u2019ve seen narratively over the years that the eleventh season premiere can feel fresh and fill you with tension, but that\u2019s exactly what \u201cAcheron Part 1\u201d did. If you haven\u2019t seen The Walking Dead S11E1<\/em>, stop reading now because we\u2019re about to get into some details and dive deep here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Walking Dead S11E1<\/em> starts off really suddenly, dropping us straight into a dangerous food run led by Maggie. It appears to be a former military center of sorts, and our characters are coming in through the roof to enter, grab food, and hopefully return to safety. Well, we all knew it wasn\u2019t going to be that easy. The opening sequence is eerily quiet, subtly setting a tone that this group is in a bad way. They\u2019re hungry, they\u2019re desperate, and they\u2019re void of all of the progress we\u2019ve seen them make in previous seasons in terms of building a new society. Wars with The Saviors, The Whisperers, and others have taken their toll on our characters, and Rick\u2019s dreams of a new society seem all too distant. We\u2019re back to square one in a sense, fighting for food, scavenging and living moment to moment instead of building for generations to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those feelings carry us through the episode, which is split up by two main story arcs. We have Maggie, Negan, Daryl, Carol and others agreeing to go on what was dubbed a \u201csuicide mission\u201d to a place Maggie used to live to get supplies, in a last ditch effort to keep the people of Alexandria afloat until they could start rebuilding. All of the scenes with these characters, once they get on the road, are dark, mostly greyish, cold, and filled with tension. There was a palpable feeling of despair and desperation with these characters every time we saw them. The other major story arc featured Ezekiel, Eugene, Princess and Yumiko, trapped at the Commonwealth, undergoing what was called \u201cprocessing,\u201d all while learning that this place may not be some place they want to stay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To stay with the action at the Commonwealth, our characters were interrogated for over seven hours, being asked the same questions over and over in an endless loop. First impressions here are that the Commonwealth wants to break new arrivals down and have them forget what they know to become fully immersed in whatever this way of life looks like. That thought is challenged later in The Walking Dead S11E1<\/em> though with a collage of pictures, appearing to be from people\u2019s pasts. The wall said that the photos were of people who were to have expedited processes getting into the Commonwealth. This wall of photos is where we learn that Yumiko\u2019s brother is here, which stops our characters from making their attempted escape now that Yumiko has a reason to stay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Introducing a place like the Commonwealth in the final season signals to one of two things: this is either going to be the source of conflict for our end run, or this place can be a final destination of sorts for our characters. The Commonwealth is heavily guarded, with the guards dressed like Storm Troopers and giving off military vibes. One has to wonder what this place\u2019s relationship with the CRM might be. Are they feuding factions competing for dominance, or are they under the same umbrella? The mythology of The Walking Dead universe is one of many things that has become much more interesting over the last few years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right now, it\u2019s too soon to say if the Commonwealth is on the friend or foe column, although they certainly started off very foe-ish. One thing \u201cAcheron Part 1\u201d doubled down on was Ezekiel\u2019s cancer. The man is ill, and one has to wonder if they did decide to escape at some point, would the former King be physically up for it? Between showing how sick he is and Yumiko now having a reason to want to stay, plus Eugene\u2019s longing to finally meet this mysterious Stephanie he\u2019s been communicating with, there are reasons for our gang to want to stay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shifting focus back to Maggie\u2019s group, the mission they go on leads them through a subway where they encounter bodies wrapped in plastic, obviously now walkers. At one point, Maggie mentions that whatever was done to them happened before \u201cthe fall,\u201d which was a truly chilling thing to think about. There were hundreds of bodies, each wrapped in plastic. Could the villains known as the Reapers, who are being built up as the new \u201cbig bad\u201d of the show, have done this before the fall of civilization? Or was this more manipulation from Maggie, which we have seen more and more? Perhaps the Reapers wrapped these corpses more recently for some kind of diabolical means. Either way, the imagery was beyond creepy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tension between Negan and Maggie was on full display for the duration of the episode. Negan calls out Maggie at one point, saying her plan was to use him on this mission and then to kill him far away from home, a possibility that only Negan and Maggie had thought about, apparently. Negan questions Maggie\u2019s leadership and, at the time, brings up good points. Maggie is cold, tense, and angry, and the show\u2019s vibe is a reflection of her in many ways. She wants Negan dead and is perhaps blinded by that desire for vengeance. Negan, despite all of his flaws, is a natural leader of sorts, and while he\u2019ll never be trusted, he does have a lot to offer the group. Of course, that is all ruined by the show\u2019s final moments, as Maggie is attempting to climb to safety from walkers and calls out for Negan\u2019s hand. He thinks it over and leaves her in peril as the credits roll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Walking Dead S11E1<\/em> set the tone for a final season that will of course be adventurous but also looks to deal with the pain and wreckage from previous seasons. These characters and the world they live in have paid a toll for the battles fought and lives lost. Their scars are on full display. Rick Grimes dreamed of our characters building a new world, and they\u2019ve come so close so many times. Can they rebuild Alexandria? Is the Commonwealth a better ultimate destination? Is a new society even possible? \u201cAcheron Part 1\u201d gives us more questions than answers as a good season premiere should, and we\u2019ve got a lot to look forward to here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Walking Dead kicked off its eleventh and final season with \u201cAcheron Part 1,\u201d an episode that is equally parts dark and disturbing as well as tense. If you\u2019re like me and have thoroughly enjoyed the evolution of the series since Angela Kang took over as showrunner, then you probably enjoyed this episode as much […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":310,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"saved_in_kubio":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[283],"tags":[34,35,288],"class_list":["post-308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tv-recaps","tag-amc","tag-horror","tag-the-walking-dead"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=308"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":309,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions\/309"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}