THE WALKING DEAD Season 7 Episode 11
Episode Title: “Hostiles and Calamities”
Writer: David Leslie Johnson
Director: Kari Skogland
Previously on The Walking Dead:
Episode 7.10: “New Best Friends“
There are spoilers ahead for last night’s episode of The Walking Dead, but don’t pretend that you didn’t know that!
If we ever get to live in a post-apocalyptic world where Yars’ Revenge is the only video game left in existence, then we should all be put out of our misery. It wasn’t even a great game in the ‘80s, and it surely isn’t now. But compared to everything else, getting to play Yars’ Revenge is a perk of Negan’s new world order.
“Hostiles and Calamities” is the kind of episode that we’ve come to hate on this series: the standalone story that doesn’t really advance the arc of the season. Surprisingly, this installment worked pretty well despite two protagonists who aren’t very interesting on their own: Eugene and Dwight. Eugene’s stuttering schtick always gets old fast, but this was actually a brilliant use of the character. Eugene has always been among the weakest of the Alexandria survivors, which means that he’s one of the few who could say “I am Negan” and leave fans convinced that he meant it.
There is some ambiguity as to whether Eugene has gone full Negan, but he gave up a lot of information to keep himself alive and he seemed to embrace the brief taste of power he had when he cut in line and asserted himself. This could be an interesting character arc for Eugene if he’s truly embraced that dark side. But there is still a big chance that Eugene is just playing along out of fear of Negan and for his own survival. Both outcomes are equally plausible.
Through Eugene’s eyes, this episode demonstrated that falling in line with Negan definitely has its advantages. And while Eugene doesn’t appear to desire Negan’s multiple wives, he still seemed to enjoy their appreciation of what he could do. But everyone manipulates everyone in this world, and their delight was just a ruse to get Eugene’s help in creating a poison pill. Eugene figured out their intent to kill Negan; which once again proves that he’s not completely useless at reading people. However, he didn’t hand it over to Negan, either. Much like Breaking Bad, there’s now a poisoned object floating around in this world, and it’s inevitable that someone is going to die because of it.
Also: ‘Fear The Walking Dead’ Season 2 Deleted Scene
As for Dwight, the episode also managed to elicit some sympathy for him by following his reaction to Daryl’s escape and his subsequent realization that his ex-wife freed his prisoner and fled herself. That led to a pretty brutal beating from the other Saviors early in the episode, and a near suicide mission for Dwight to retrieve his ex for Negan.
Bizarrely, the story introduced the idea that Dwight has memory problems; which seems like something out of left field that doesn’t really make sense. Is the show arguing that Dwight doesn’t always remember what he’s done in the service of Negan? Or that he doesn’t even recall all of his time with his wife? It’s maddeningly unclear, and it muddled an otherwise interesting story about Dwight finally losing his ex for good…and covering for her absence.
Dwight’s playing a dangerous game by lying to Negan and framing the doctor for his ex-wife’s escape. Negan even seemed to realize the possibility that Dwight was lying, when he mentioned what would happen if he ever found out that Dwight had lied. But that didn’t stop Negan from throwing one of his own doctors into the fire as a warning for anyone else who would betray him. That left us with the intriguing closing shot of Dwight and Eugene, who may have flipped loyalties over the course of this episode.
Unlike many of the stand-alone episodes (particularly the Tara-centric episode), “Hostiles and Calamities” actually felt like it had a point to make about how far Dwight and Eugene will sell themselves out to remain in Negan’s graces. The question now is whether either of those two men still have it within them to stand up to Negan and openly oppose him. If so, our money isn’t on Eugene.
