Does Leah's return to The Walking Dead make season 11's Commonwealth storyline more complicated than it needs to be? Mirroring the original comic book series by Robert Kirkman, The Walking Dead's final TV arc revolves around the Commonwealth - a massive community hellbent on bringing back pre-virus civilization warts-and-all. As The Walking Dead is wont to do, the TV adaptation throws many more ingredients into the pot compared to its streamlined source material, and the latest splash in AMC's Commonwealth soup is Leah.
Played by Lynn Collins, Leah debuted in The Walking Dead season 10 as Daryl Dixon's mysterious forest romance, then disappeared into the night, never to be seen again until season 11, where she reappears as a villainous Reaper. Following a tense showdown, Leah is defeated and sent on the run in The Walking Dead's "No Other Way" (season 11, episode 9), but while some suspected her journey wouldn't resume until AMC's Daryl & Carol spinoff series, Lynn Collins makes an unexpected return as early as "The Rotten Core" (season 11, episode 14).
Leah could be the straw that breaks The Walking Dead's Commonwealth arc. An influx of TV-original plot points have posed numerous Commonwealth questions, but very few have actually been developed, leaving The Walking Dead's mystery inbox piling up. Leah is the latest addition to that ever-growing number, and with only a scant handful of episodes remaining (10 as of "The Rotten Core"), The Walking Dead faces a challenge to provide resolution on all fronts.
The Walking Dead's Commonwealth Arc Is Already Busy
After more than a decade of live-action zombie shenanigans, audiences are completely familiar with The Walking Dead's formula of using comic material as a jumping-off point, then adding its own storylines and characters around Kirkman's core narrative. It's no surprise, then, to see new elements woven into season 11's Commonwealth arc. The comics' version of events is a relatively straightforward tale of inequality and striving to do better than the old world. Rick Grimes and his people arrive at Pamela Milton's community, but quickly discover a systemic oppression of the working class happening before their eyes. Rick is caught in the middle as Michonne sides with Pamela, while Dwight wants revolution.
The Walking Dead season 11 is broadly following that same path, with Pamela Milton leading an unequal society, and a resistance brewing in the shadows... but there's more. A flashforward reveals a confrontation between Maggie's Hilltop and Daryl Dixon's Commonwealth soldiers, the reason for which remains unknown. Lance Hornsby - little more than a minor annoyance in comic form - is both infinitely more villainous and far more present on TV. He's plotting something big against Pamela, and his "friendship" with Alexandria is entrenched in that grand scheme. Lance controls a secret service of contacts working covertly in the Commonwealth, and recently mentioned sending a shipment of guns for "that OTHER thing" - yet another question for the growing pile. Meanwhile, Connie was passed a list of names after Tyler Davis' unexplained disappearance, and Negan has introduced the folks of Riverbend - a whole new community to The Walking Dead's landscape.
Since shifting its focus to the Commonwealth full-time, The Walking Dead season 11 has stacked one mystery atop another - but found little time to develop them. The underground resistance was dramatically exposed in episode 10 ("New Haunts"), but rather than continue building this bubbling threat, we've not heard a peep from the rebels since. And whereas audiences might've expected to see Connie and Kelly embark on a thrilling investigation into their curious list of names, that storyline has remained parked ever since the paper was slid under her door. Likewise, Yumiko looked set to take Michonne's place defending Pamela, but Eleanor Matsuura has barely appeared in The Walking Dead season 11's second block.
Leah's Return Makes The Walking Dead's Commonwealth Problem Worse
Right now, The Walking Dead's Commonwealth arc feels scattered and unfocused, bouncing from one angle to the next, but leaving the pieces already in play untouched four, five episodes at a time. And rather than home in upon Kirkman's core theme of inequality, the Lance Hornsby-sanctioned assault on Riverbend (heavily implied to not be the first incident of its kind) raises a whole new facet to the Commonwealth's darkness. The timeline zipping back-and-forth doesn't help either, with "Warlords" essentially a flashback within a flashback. As "The Rotten Core" reaches its conclusion, another plot thread is the last thing The Walking Dead season 11 needs...
Enter Leah, who is revealed as the party responsible for hijacking Lance's firearm shipment. Though Lance felt certain Riverbend was to blame, a flashback (another one) shows Leah taking down his convoy single-handed, meaning she's the one stockpiling stolen Commonwealth weapons. Audiences were already pondering where Lance intended these guns to go; now there's also a question mark over why Leah is stealing them. Is she planning revenge on Maggie's Hilltop? Will Lance realize where the weapons really went and get to Leah first? Lynn Collins' reappearance raises a whole bunch of queries at a time when queries are in plentiful supply.
Leah's presence in The Walking Dead's Commonwealth arc feels especially odd considering she has no preexisting connection to the Commonwealth. After the Reapers were defeated, Leah's journey eased to a natural stop, albeit leaving the door open for a return further down the line. Reintroducing Leah a mere 5 episodes later in the midst of an already-packed Commonwealth arc is something of a head-scratcher. Wouldn't her screen minutes be better utilized for Connie, or Yumiko, or Eugene and Max (given that we wasted half a season with a fake), or answering some of these Lance questions?
Can The Walking Dead Season 11 Resolve Every Remaining Storyline?
10 episodes to resolve every Commonwealth storyline doesn't actually sound unfeasible for The Walking Dead, but remember season 11 bears responsibility for concluding the series as a whole, not just the current arc. Irrespective of spinoffs that may be in the pipeline, The Walking Dead must still resolve its long-term narratives, beginning with the fates of Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln is rumored to return), and Danai Gurira's Michonne, who left to pursue him. In conjunction, The Walking Dead season 11 still has a CRM problem to address, since the lingering presence of these overarching villains can't go ignored forever. We might also see some reference to the shocking post-credits of The Walking Dead: World Beyond, which not only revealed the zombie outbreak's origin, but debuted a new, faster breed of zombie. Even just on a personal level, there's business outstanding - what becomes of Ezekiel and Carol, Daryl and Connie, Yumiko and Magna, Eugene and Max? Add that onto the Commonwealth storylines, and The Walking Dead's 10-episode limit begins to look like a stretch.
In fairness, many of these competing threads will likely cross over at some stage. Maybe Connie's list is connected to the Commonwealth resistance, perhaps Lance Hornsby's "other thing" relates to the CRM and Rick, and the introduction of Riverbend may explain our Maggie vs. Daryl flashforward. Even if we assume everything shakes out neatly in the end, however, The Walking Dead's Commonwealth arc is buckling under the weight of its cumulative unresolved plots at this midway point. To resolve all those threads and mysteries before the end arrives, season 11 might be better served progressing existing storylines rather than bringing Leah to a party that's already over-capacity.
The Walking Dead continues Sundays on AMC.