WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Walking Dead Season 11, Episode 15, “Trust,” which aired Sunday, April 3 on AMC.
Back in “No Other Way,” The Walking Dead teased that Maggie and Daryl would butt heads on the opposite sides of the Commonwealth conflict in six months. Now those six months have passed, and their friendship seems to be as strong as ever. Was this a case of fans having high expectations, or just an underwhelming promise?
The Walking Dead has never been a stranger to misleading its audience. Riding the high of of Season 4’s cliffhanger finale, the show released a Season 5 trailer that was strategically edited to make it appear as if Rick and the gang were teaming up with Terminus’s Gareth to find the cure in Washington D.C. What actually happened was a much more blindsiding revelation: Terminus was full of cannibals. It was undoubtedly brilliant and The Walking Dead was deservedly applauded for its gutsy risk to deceive millions of viewers. They approached Maggie and Daryl’s conflict in a similar fashion, but did it work again in Season 11?
Short answer: kind of. Maggie and Daryl have been at odds for the majority of Season 11 when it comes to their ideologies on dealing with enemies and trusting the Commonwealth. Maggie wanted revenge against the Reapers for the collapse of her community, but Daryl still maintained the belief that Leah was a good person. Maggie thinks the Commonwealth is one big stuck-up circus and Daryl wants a better life for the people he loves. Both parties are right in some capacity, but their disagreement leads to some big issues when there’s a third party involved. The two make up pretty quickly when Lance Hornsby is their common enemy, but it still doesn’t disregard Daryl’s hypocrisy that commentates on the “villainy” of women in television and film.
In “No Other Way,” Daryl scolds Maggie for killing the rest of the Reapers — but he ought to be reminded that back in Season 8, he senselessly killed Saviors, whether innocent or not. Up until “Trust,” Daryl has been skeptical of the Commonwealth, but subtly implies that Maggie is being stubborn and ridiculous for not letting them help the Hilltop. Daryl has every right to choose how he wants to live his life, but his judgment of how Maggie wants to live hers seems out of place considering he’s never officially led a community before. Maybe Maggie needs to take up the Scarlet Witch’s mentality and tell Daryl, “You break the rules and become the hero. I do it and I become the enemy.” That’s basically been the main conflict between Maggie and Daryl, which isn’t exactly on the level that The Walking Dead made it out to be in the six-month time jump.
Since then, fans have been wondering what exactly will be the climax of their “feud,” but it seems like nothing can tear one of The Walking Dead‘s longest friendships apart. After discovering the Riverbend massacre, Lance suspects Maggie and her small crew had a hand in the matter. The Walking Dead reaches the six-month mark with Daryl “storming” the Hilltop, but it seems that he’s a double agent on the matter. He’s keeping a close eye on the reckless and unpredictable Lance, who tears Hilltop apart to find evidence of Riverbend’s massacre but finds nothing. Yet when Lance interrogates Hershel Jr. for answers, chaos is set loose and Daryl proves his true loyality will always remain with his friends.
But there’s still someone who could get in the middle. Leah is back, and Lance recruits her for a “job” at the end of the episode. The promo for Season 11, Episode 16 shows that he wants her to assassinate Maggie, and that a battle will commence to protect her and the Hilltop. Given the state of affairs, it doesn’t seem like Daryl can defend Leah like he did before. He’s losing his hope in the Commonwealth, and it took Lance threatening Maggie and her son for him to finally see that he’s been duped by the promise of a new world to become an obedient soldier. The conflict may not have been as life-threatening and bond-breaking as fans expected, but it soldifies the “found family” concept that The Walking Dead is built on.
To see how Maggie and Daryl resolve their conflict, watch The Walking Dead Season 11, Episode 15 on AMC+. The Walking Dead’s Season 11B finale airs next Sunday at 9 pm ET, and is available to stream a week early on AMC+.
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