WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Walking Dead Season 10 finale, "A Certain Doom," which aired Sunday on AMC.
As fans suspected, the Season 10 finale of The Walking Dead brought the society known as the Commonwealth into play, with the final shot of the season having its armored soldiers ambushing and holding Eugene, Ezekiel, Princess and Yumiko at gunpoint when they traveled to Charleston.
Diehards saw this move coming for some time now, especially after it was announced the next season would be the last. And given what the Commonwealth embodies, as much as folks would love the show to carry on, their arrival makes the highly-anticipated Season 11 the perfect place to end the series.
It's difficult to take the story past the Commonwealth as this society is the franchise's utopia, as seen in the comics, but with a sinister twist. There, when Rick and Co. formed a larger alliance, readers saw the Commonwealth having order and structure. There was a military, people had jobs and resources were flowing, creating the first real civilization that resembled anything before the zombie apocalypse.
Pamela Milton was the mayor, and like any politician, she governed to ensure their villainous and judgemental system kept ticking, which meant there was classism. But at the end of the day, people lived without having to worry about walkers attack them. To put it simply, the franchise boiled back down to its basic instinct. This means the show can focus on mankind again because let's face it, there's nothing more to be done with zombies. The undead have run their course, and rather than mixing their threat with villains like Negan, the Governor or Alpha's Whisperers, the show can get back to the real monster plaguing these dire times: people.
Some may argue the show gets stale when focusing on the human aspect, but in reality, it's the core of it. That's what led to Pamela's son, Sebastian, killing Rick in the comics, as he sensed uprising and upheaval to a way of life, and what inspired Mercer and other soldiers being egged on by Dwight to gauge a coup. In fact, Rick would kill Dwight, adding tension to his crew, which also seemed to lose faith in Michonne as she became a lawyer again. What created all this conflict was that people saw their chance to be whole again and get back to their dreams, while others feared intruders would encroach on their survival. In other words, in this bubble, it becomes clear if people have changed for the better, such as leaders like the experienced Maggie, the war-worn Daryl, the reborn Carol, and the optimistic Gabriel.
So, once the joint communities link up with the Commonwealth in the show, it will be a filtering process to see who's truly ready to shape the future, and which of the protagonists might actually be wrong for this mission. When Rick died, both societies moved forward in the books and carved out their respective visions of peace, so there's an opportunity to do that in the show once these personalities can all work together with the Commonwealth.
Now, it doesn't have to be a happy ending, especially since the original comic planned to have Rick's coup at Alexandria being overrun and killed off, proving the undead always wins and mankind will always be its worst enemy. It's possible this idea finds its way into the show, with all these groups coming together to decide if they want to be stronger together and succeed, or let egos and narcissism get in the way. After all, the virus will rage on forever, but there is now an ideal shot at paradise, or at least something close to it.
The Walking Dead Season 10 finale stars Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride, Josh McDermitt, Christian Serratos, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Seth Gilliam, Ross Marquand, Khary Payton and Cooper Andrews.