This story contains full spoilers for The Walking Dead Season 10 (along with a few comics spoilers).
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Even though The Walking Dead’s Chief Content Officer Scott M. Gimple has made humorously bold claims about the show never ending — and the fact that there’s still more Fear the Walking Dead out there, along with the Rick Grimes movies and the two-season spinoff The Walking Dead: World Beyond on the horizon — AMC’s long-running zombie series has finally entered the endgame of the comic books: the “Commonwealth” arc.
Does that mean this will also be where the show ends? Not necessarily, but keep in mind that any series in its tenth season needs to be looking for a way to wind down, regardless of its executive producer’s claims. The Commonwealth story is as good as any if AMC’s looking to start exploring final acts. Of course, things won’t, and can’t, play out exactly as they did in the comics. Most notably, the show’s roster of survivors is different, so if things do mirror the pages of Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard’s series, it might be done by swapping some people around and subbing in some different faces.
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This arc is also how the show will bring back Lauren Cohan’s Maggie, who’s set to re-emerge on the series after a long time away (and Cohan brief time with 2019’s Whiskey Cavalier on ABC).
So what is The Commonwealth? What does it mean for our heroes in the wake of the Whisperer War? And how does it line up with the other major militarized group that stole Rick and is also a huge part of Walking Dead: World Beyond?
What is The Commonwealth?
Firstly, The Commonwealth isn’t a hostile, enemy force like the Saviors or Whisperers. Sure, there are some bad eggs within it, but it’s not an overtly awful place. It’s basically a network of communities, centered in Ohio (in the comics), that holds about fifty thousand folks in total.
The Commonwealth has better technology, better systems of farming and manufacturing in place, and a wickedly arcane class hierarchy that makes everything feel like a feudal system. A person’s societal value, and rank in the Commonwealth, is based on their skills and profession. Basically, there are nobles and peasants.
Georgie, Stephanie, Princess and the Seeds of The Commonwealth
Though she’s not a character in the comics, Jayne Atkinson’s Georgie, who popped onto the show back in Season 8, was one of the series’ first hints at a Commonwealth-style angle. Georgie, along with her helpers Hilda and Midge, would travel the wasteland and find communities in need of a bit of systemic help. In exchange for goods, Georgie would give these starter towns “A Key to a Future,” which contained medieval schematics for windmills/watermills as well as lessons on how to refine grain and create aqueducts.
When the big time jump happened in Season 9 and Maggie left Hilltop, we found out that she’d left to go help Georgie – either boosting a different community or fully moving to whatever community Georgie had founded. Presumably, this place is (or is part of) The Commonwealth.
This season, Eugene began secret communications (and flirting) with Stephanie, who in the comics was one of The Commonwealth’s radio operators. After Stephanie gave him a place and time to meet, Eugene took off with Ezekiel and Yumiko (the comics’ expedition gang was a little different, though Eugene and Yumiko were in it) to meet up with his new love and hopefully sync up with her community.
Then there’s Princess. Though she debuted at the end of last week’s episode, “Look at the Flowers,” fans were more fully introduced this week to Paola Lázaro’s Juanita Sanchez, aka Princess, in “The Tower.” She’s not a part of The Commonwealth, but in the comics, she is a character our heroes meet, and pick up, on their way to their meeting with Stephanie. So when she arrived in full-tilt, wild-eyed glory in episode 15, many fans knew The Commonwealth couldn’t be far away – although, since post-production on The Walking Dead Season 10, episode 16 has been delayed by the coronavirus and will air later this year, it remains to be seen if we’ll get a glimpse of the massive community in episode 16 or whether we’ll have to wait until Season 11.
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It makes sense for Maggie to return, as she had a big Commonwealth role in the books, but… what about Georgie? She’s a show creation. Could she be a new version of Commonwealth Governor (and eventual adversary) Pamela Milton? Could the writers be subbing Georgie in as Pamela or will Georgie continue to be a separate character? Or was “Georgie” just a code name Pamela used on the road? As far as the Commonwealth roster goes, we’ll have to see how the show lines up.
Is The Commonwealth the Same as the “Three Rings” or “Three Circles?”
Now here’s something to consider: In the Kirkman comics, The Commonwealth was not only the biggest community our protagonists had ever seen in the zompocalypse, it was the biggest one around, period. The show has changed things up a bit with the introduction of a mystery group, with the “Three Circle” logo, that’s made appearances on both Walking Dead shows, and plays a major part in the second spinoff, World Beyond. These are the people who took a near-death Rick away in a helicopter back in Season 9 and popped in on Fear the Walking Dead in that show’s fifth season.
Since it would be strange to have this big, armed and dangerous group out there in America at the same time as The Commonwealth, it’s entirely possible that they’re one and the same – perhaps The Commonwealth isn’t referred to as “Commonwealth” on TV, but instead as by whatever this gang, led by a character played by Julia Ormond, calls itself. Of course, they could also just be separate communities.
But, keep in mind, the “Three Circle” squad is meant to represent three massive communities. That sure sounds like the network of The Commonwealth. Also though, The Commonwealth could just be one of the three circles, right? Maybe this helicopter group is the much larger collective and The Commonwealth is one of its smaller hydra heads.
Georgie’s book-slash-guide was called “A Key to a Future.” In the Fear the Walking Dead episode “The End of Everything,” Three Circles soldier Isabelle tells Maggie Grace’s Althea that her group sees themselves as “the future” and that everything they were doing was to rebuild society. That sounds very Georgie-esque.
Consider also Fear’s latest antagonists: Virginia (Ginny) and her Pioneers. These horseback hotshots are running a type of indentured servitude game down in Texas. It’s a long way from where The Commonwealth is supposed to be but take into account that A: this is six or seven years ago compared to where The Walking Dead is at now, and B: they judge and value people (harshly) based on their skills and usefulness. It’s like a very primitive version of The Commonwealth’s feudal system.
Next thing to mull over: The nomadic group (above) that Michonne saw at the end of her final Walking Dead episode, “What We Become,” felt very much like Commonwealth citizens and their army on the move. Horses, wagons, a protected perimeter – this was our first glimpse of (presumedly) the “Three Circles” group now, in the Walking Dead’s present day. Everything else about that Circle group was from years ago, remember: the deal with Anne/Jadis; the helicopter that took Rick; Isabelle and the soldiers on Fear the Walking Dead. Even Ginny and the Pioneers (if they’re a part of the story somehow). It was all before the big Walking Dead time-jump in Season 9. All we knew, post-jump, is that Maggie and Georgie were collaborating elsewhere.
Still, Gimple recently insisted that the Commonwealth would not be tied to World Beyond’s three-ring group: “The Commonwealth is its own thing. There are a lot of changes to the comic story and the show, but it is important to me, and to Angela, to tell the story from the comic. There might be some weird minor ways that it touches, if at all, but it’s a version of the story from the comic.”
So are y’all excited for The Commonwealth? Do you think things should play out like they did in the comics, civil war and all? Should this be our heroes’ last stop, location-wise, in the saga? Let us know below.
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Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/MattBFowler.
Source: IGN.com The Walking Dead's Next Big Storyline: What is the Commonwealth?