“[Despite the upcoming spin-offs] it ends with a really definitive conclusion for both the series and then each individual character.”
--(Scott Gimple on the series finale, interview with Entertainment Weekly, 25 October 2022)

The first stories most Western children hear end with happily ever after, and that phrase settles into their subconscious as the model for what an ending should look like—an ending in life as much as in fiction. With maturity comes the understanding that happily ever after is as fantastic an element of those stories as are the dragons and fairies. Nonetheless, fiction, for adults as well as children, exists not only to reflect reality, but also to redress it. Stories hold up a mirror, and are, too, a window into somewhere else: a place not subject to the whims of fate, but controlled by storytellers.

“There's a lot of shock in it. There's a lot of tension in it. I think [the audience] might feel angry on behalf of our characters. It's a frigging intense finale. It just goes, goes, goes.”
--Scott Gimple on the finale of The Walking Dead, interview with Entertainment Weekly, 9 November 2022The Walking Dead, interview with Entertainment Weekly, 9 November 2022

The Walking Dead has been about family since the pilot episode, in which Rick Grimes wakes up alone in hospital and begins to search for his wife and son. It is a show about the families we lose, we find, and we choose; it is a show about what it means to be a family. “We don’t leave them,” Lydia sobs at one point this week. “They need us.” That has always been the philosophy of this group of survivors, and it is starkly contrasted, in 11x23, with that of Pamela Milton, who is willing to sacrifice thousands of her people to a horde of walkers in order to save a privileged few.

While we see our heroes put this belief into practice during the episode, the same cannot be said of the writers for season 11. In “Family”, Connie tries to save a fellow citizen at her own risk while trapped in a shoot-out at Union Station. Lydia gets bitten and ultimately loses an arm trying to help Elijah to safety. And Judith, of course, saves Maggie and takes Pamela’s bullet herself. Being a family, this episode reminds us, means sticking together, making sacrifices, and never abandoning one another. But in its service to the plot, the universe, and the multitude of characters in the show at this point, The Walking Dead itself has left too much out, and too many people behind.

“[The Walking Dead] ends with a really definitive conclusion for both the series and then each individual character.”
--Scott Gimple, interview with Entertainment Weekly, 25 October 2022

With only two episodes to go before the end of the series, it feels like The Walking Dead is somersaulting so unevenly through the convoluted Commonwealth plot that the show has little chance of sticking the landing. The season as a whole has been, at times, bewildering in its narrative choices, with dead ends (Leah’s arc) and sudden drop-offs (Oceanside) that frustrate any viewer who has been tuned in for more than one season.

“Faith” has as its focus Negan’s redemption arc. Ostensibly, the episode deals with questions around our faith in each other, our faith in the world, and our faith in ourselves. Maggie doubts her decision to bring Hershel Jnr into the world; Pamela fights to retain the support of the disillusioned Commonwealth citizens; and Mercer reveals a realignment of his loyalties. But, undoubtedly, the primary purpose of 11x22 is to move Negan’s story forward, towards his upcoming spinoff with Maggie.