Summary
It isn’t entirely coherent, but “Faith” has a couple of decent moments that work to raise the stakes ahead of the final few episodes.
This recap of The Walking Dead season 11, episode 22 for the episode titled “Faith” contains spoilers.
“Faith” is a well-intentioned episode of The Walking Dead that can’t seem to get out of its own way, countering every good moment with a head-scratching one and undermining all its good ideas with bad ones. As a contained slice of storytelling, it isn’t great; it’s riddled with contrivance, it struggles to remain coherent in its construction, and it requires us to handwave a lot of stuff away. But taken as a component in a much larger strategy of raising the stakes for the show’s final few episodes, this hour at least has the decency to include some big, potentially exciting developments.
Oh, and it has a pretty killer ending.
The Walking Dead season 11, episode 22 recap
But anyway, there are two main storylines here, and a third that is picking up some steam of its own. How they’ll all eventually coalesce is anyone’s guess, but the building blocks are definitely there for a big blowout finale.
Let’s start with Negan since in many ways he’s the focus of the episode. He has obviously come a long way since he was the leader of the Saviours, so much so that he’s essentially a completely different person now, but the show doesn’t want us to completely forget, and it uses Ezekiel – and sometimes Negan himself – to remind us of the man he once was. It’s important here since he’s facing off against a labor camp warden who is very much the kind of sadistic rule-by-fear frontman that Negan himself used to be, and the only way for everyone to escape that predicament is to forget – or at least come to terms with the fact – that Negan was ever that guy in the first place.
Initially, “Faith” implies that Negan has some subtler, more complex strategy at work, but he doesn’t, really. His mouthing off gets him in trouble and earns him some face time with the warden so he can get a better sense of what he’s dealing with. He’s poking and prodding, trying to gauge reactions. He makes no effort to hide his smirk when he realizes that one of the guards is a potential ally. But whatever he’s planning needs Ezekiel to play along, and Ezekiel doesn’t have a short memory. He hasn’t forgiven Negan for his past.
Again, the show implies that, because of this, Negan is going to rat Ezekiel out as the conspirator. But he doesn’t. Instead, he offers his own life to be made an example of to snuff out any potential dissent. He’s martyring himself. After all the scheming, for this to be Negan’s plan doesn’t exactly sit right with me, but you can explain it away as him having faith in Ezekiel’s essential character. He knows – or at least he hopes – that Ezekiel will step up and rally the others rather than watch him be executed. Or, at least, that Ezekiel will do so after watching him be executed.
But the warden is savvy to that. So, he brings Annie up instead, so that she and Negan can be executed together. Ezekiel isn’t having that, so he and the rest of the gang stand in front of them. The warden is quite happy to shoot them all, but since he has taken to ruling with an iron fist even among his own men, the guard Negan had sussed out as a potential ally earlier turns on him. In the kerfuffle, Daryl, Carol, and Connie arrive, turning the tables.
Now, this is interspersed with various other scenes, some of them involving Carol and Maggie looking for Hershel, and Rosita looking for Coco. While they’re able to rescue Hershel, nobody seems to have any idea where Coco is. The way all this is edited makes it seem as if Rosita teleports to Outpost 22, but they’re clearly occurring on slightly different timelines, which the episode doesn’t make as clear as it could. Either way, the warden ends up having his face messily eaten by a walker, and Coco’s whereabouts remain a mystery.
Elsewhere, Lydia, Aaron, Jerry, and Elijah run into Luke and Jules, mostly so they can find out that the Commonwealth has already claimed Oceanside, so heading back there doesn’t make much sense. To hide from passing patrols, Lydia proposes that they all move Whisperer-style among a nearby walker horde. It seems to work a treat until some Commonwealth jeeps show up with spotlights and guns, but that isn’t even the big problem.
The big problem is that when Lydia drops her knife, one of the walkers bends down and picks it up. This is paying off that whole business with the variants a little earlier in the season. It seems we’re going to have more of that new breed to contend with in the near future.
But anyway, the other big plot of “Faith” is Eugene’s sham trial. Everyone knows that the verdict is already pre-determined, but Yumiko’s idea is to get the people on side. There won’t be a jury vote, but if they can stir up enough dissent, then at the very least Pamela’s leadership will be threatened. But, again, there’s a problem with that. Pamela still controls Mercer, and therefore the Commonwealth’s army, so any civil unrest will be snuffed out before it has a chance to get off the ground. Unless, that is, they can recruit Mercer to their cause.
Mercer’s face turn has been obvious since he shot the guards working with Sebastian, but I was surprised by how cool a form it ends up taking here. Yumiko appealing to Mercer’s better nature doesn’t seem to work. Loaded, imploring glances from Max don’t seem to either. But a passionate speech by Eugene, of all people, which thankfully abandons a lot of his ridiculous verbal habits, seems to resonate with Mercer.
Eugene is found guilty and sentenced to execution. But when Mercer comes to escort him to his death, he orders him to be uncuffed, and closes out the episode with the simple words, “Time to f*ck sh*t up.”
Yes, let’s.
