‘The Walking Dead’ Recap: ‘Promises Broken’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This article contains spoilers for Episode 1107 of ‘The Walking Dead’.
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It wasn’t that long ago, that we talked at length about how the AMC series The Walking Dead, put on a masterclass regarding stacked storytelling. Which is where a particular episode is filled to the brim with multiple and engaging storylines and that topic arose, simply because ‘Out of the Ashes’ featured no less than four storylines and actually managed to progress each of them in a compelling manner and add depth to them with minimal effort. And at the time, fans everywhere, including this writer… pondered upon the possibility that this was nothing more than an opportunity to test the writers’ room and really see if they could pull off this particular feat, when in fact… it turned out to be an outright test run for the future.
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For as this final season continues along and our heroes continue to find themselves scattered to the world and struggling to survive, more episodes in this vein are going to appear. Because it is the only way to properly touch on all the storylines happening around the region and for proof… well then look no further than last night’s tale. For ‘Promises Broken’ is a story that featured no less than three concurrent storylines, the kind that once again featured depth and meaning and progression and well… it is best we start today’s recap off with a look back at the one that offered up the most positivity. Specifically, the one involving Leah and Daryl, since that one provided us with a strong sense of hope for a change.

At least, by the end of this particular arc. For early on it was nothing more than a dark and dreary plot. One that involved Pope continuing to fly off the handle back at Meridian. All because the pressure of not finding his nemesis in Maggie was beginning to get to him. In fact, it was downright boiling over, especially when his soldiers found nothing at the locations, they were scouting in the hopes of finding Maggie and her merry band of warriors. But thankfully, Leah was able to calm him down before his fury once again resulted in violent death and for her efforts… she was rewarded with a scouting mission of her own, one that included Daryl, and once they got out into the world and had a little time to talk and reflect, that hope came into play. 

Because Daryl was able to quietly break down some of Leah’s emotional walls and get her to open up about her frustrations with Pope and well, that made it clear that she might not be totally sold on the madman and thankfully, a chance encounter with strangers, revealed the fact that there is some good still within her soul. For when the chance arose to murder a suffering family with impunity because Pope felt the need to satiate his frustrations by punishing them, she instead opted to let the uninjured members of that family go and she even made it clear that she’d tell Pope that Daryl handled Pope’s initial request, to curry favor with the mad man. Helping us to understand at last that she might be an individual worth saving and she might be a key ally in the fight to come against the Reapers. 

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But while that story was filled to the brim with hints of a better tomorrow, the others in this tale were not quite as joyful. Negan and Maggie’s story for instance, saw these frenemies dig deep and make a tough decision about how to defeat their enemy. In that, it was time to resurrect the ways of the Whisperers and build an army of the dead to bring the Reapers to their knees. An act that few were good with, but they understood the need. For they were in fact, outnumbered and outgunned and there was no better weapon left in the world than the living dead. But what made this storyline so poignant and engaging, wasn’t the fact that a twisted idea came into play, it was that Negan used this moment and some raw and painful honesty to make it clear to Maggie and the rest… that going forward, the rules had to change. There could be no more discussions about peace with bad people, only swift and brutal action, lest they find themselves on the losing side as Negan once did and that was quite the powerful admission. One that once again harkens back to season eleven’s overall theme about whether or not man is worthy of salvation.
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As for the third and final storyline in this particular tale, well that one took us back into the heart of the Commonwealth to get an idea of how Eugene’s group was doing and uh… they weren’t exactly enjoying their punishment for calling Alexandria. For they were relegated to walker clearing duty, as the Commonwealth continued its expansion plans for the future and while they handled that, Yumiko was working hard to figure out how to get them free and how to get Alexandria the help it so desperately needed. A move that revealed that the Commonwealth is in fact, the old world come to life through and through, since Yumiko encountered a lot of the political gamesmanship we see in our world today, and much of it was handled by the mysterious Lance Hornsby and this is a segment that also revealed how little some people have changed in this new world. 

Because while Eugene and Stephanie were clearing out a new segment of this settlement, they had the opportunity to save the lives of an uppity and well-to-do couple from the living dead and that uh… went poorly. Not because the couple died, far from that. No, instead, what is of concern here… is the response those saved, provided Eugene and Stephanie with. For they received disdain and fury from the young man in question to the point where Eugene had to sock him in the nose to get him to quit with the verbal abuse and sadly, it turns out that Eugene cold-cocked Sebastian Morton, the son of the Commonwealth’s Governor, Pamela and that put him in some hot water. The kind that Hornsby used as leverage to finally get our favorite technician to apparently admit the outright location of Alexandria in order to save his friends.

Which was stunning to say the least, since it speaks to how broken Eugene is right now, but what matters more here. Is that there are clearly still people who do not fear the dead in the slightest and are as spoiled and stagnant as the world was when the dead returned to life, also harkening back to the theme in question. But while we wait to see what will come out of this fistfight and how Maggie’s new army will handle the Reapers and if Leah can help win the day… we can offer up a round of applause for another solid tale. One that once again offered depth and meaning and progression of multiple plotlines in a seamless manner and well, this one also deserves some credit for setting the stage for one epic battle. For clearly, war is on the horizon and how the conflict at Meridian plays out will undoubtedly take our breath our way and leave us starving for more of this series, since the next episode will also serve as a ‘chapter break’ of sorts. One that will transition us to the second act of the end of The Walking Dead. Until next time.  

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