The plot is thickening faster than Carol's soup in The Walking Dead season 11's Commonwealth arc - who slid that list of names underneath Connie's door, and what does it mean? Almost half a season has passed since The Walking Dead first ventured into the Commonwealth, and it's now perfectly clear that the U.S. president's daughter and her smartly-dressed mouthpiece are not to be trusted. Who'd have thought it? Drawing inspiration from Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead comic books, equality is the Commonwealth's overarching issue. Some can barely afford a melon; others are enjoying the finest pre-apocalypse red wines at exclusive shindigs for the rich and influential.
As a journalist, Connie (Lauren Ridloff) believes her role is to expose any corruption and wrongdoing the Commonwealth might be party to. That's certainly the stance she took before the outbreak when writing an exposé to oust Pamela Milton's uncle from office. But as Connie pushes to publish insights into Commonwealth poverty, she quickly learns that the community newspaper prints no more and no less than precisely what Governor Milton tells it to. Connie rages against the machine regardless, and her efforts bear fruit when an unknown informant slides a mysterious list of names under her apartment door. Who are these people? And who could Connie's mysterious ally be?
The list Connie receives contains something like 70 names, the last of which is Tyler Davis - the waiter who made a scene at Pamela's Halloween masquerade ball. Shortly beforehand, The Walking Dead revealed Tyler was being treated for mental health problems at a Commonwealth hospital, but was ominously transferred to an unknown location thanks to orders from the very top. The page of names Connie just received is most likely a list of everyone made to "vanish" under similarly mysterious circumstances. Like Tyler, these folks probably threatened the Commonwealth's social hierarchy, either by calling out Pamela Milton's hypocrisy, or by organizing against the current leadership - producing banners and logos in secret, for example. Mercer's reaction confirms it's not his military carrying out these disappearances, which means Pamela and/or Lance must be the culprit. At the very least, The Walking Dead has now proven the vanishing of Tyler Davis is not an isolated case.
As for who slid into Connie's DMs of distrust, Mercer surely has to be our prime suspect. The Walking Dead season 11 has already teased the big bad man in orange having ties to the Resistance. His hesitation to apprehend Tyler, his suspicious sloppiness around Sebastian, and the rebels abandoning their hideouts before troops arrived all point toward Mercer's double-agent status. That suspicion builds in The Walking Dead season 11's "Rogue Element," when Connie finds Mercer conversing with Tyler in a tightly-guarded hospital room. An interrogation? Perhaps. Or maybe briefing a fellow Resistance member on what to do next, which would explain why Mercer apparently recommended Tyler for early promotion not long before his firing. Mercer's angry outburst when Tyler's room is vacant confirms he's painfully aware of what disappearing really means inside the Commonwealth.
More importantly, Mercer is aware of Connie's hellbent mission to crack open the Commonwealth conspiracy. She questions him at the hospital, then repeats the same aggressive line when accompanying troops on a zombie culling excursion. It's during this conversation that Mercer accuses Connie of "digging for answers we both know will never see the light of day" - a line that almost feels like Mercer tacitly agreeing with Connie's Commonwealth mistrust. Witnessing Connie's journalistic integrity up close, and then discovering Tyler had become the Commonwealth's latest victim, it makes total sense that Mercer would secretly provide his new writer pal with investigative fuel. Now, Connie can dig into the dozens of people whose stories are eerily similar to Tyler Davis'.
The Walking Dead continues Sundays on AMC.