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Why is The Walking Dead Season 11 Episode 14 called The Rotten Core? Well, simply put, because it exposes the fact that The Commonwealth, supposedly the pinnacle of civilization in the post-apocalyptic zombie-ridden landscape, is infected from within.
Be it Toby Carlson (Jason Butler Harner) who extends a hand in friendship to a new community with an underhanded plan, or Sebastian Milton (Teo Rapp-Olsson) who sends Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Rosita (Christian Serratos) to retrieve money through a swarm of walkers, or even Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton) pulling all the strings, there's always an agenda.
Only Mercer (Michael James Shaw) seems to have some degree of conscience and knows that The Commonwealth isn’t necessarily the paradise that it’s portrayed to be. When Dixon and Espinosa get stuck in a jam with April, someone who got stranded on an expedition to retrieve the money, Carol and Mercer come to the aid of our cast of survivors. Mercer realizes that Sebastian Milton and his cohorts are even more corrupt than he believed them to be.
But the most gripping part of The Walking Dead Season 11 Episode 14 has to be the showdown between Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and the stowaway Herschel Rhee (Kiel Michael Spiller).
Rhee realizes that the bad man who hurt his father was none other than Negan. He pulls a gun, and the tension can be cut with a knife. Morgan’s performance in the scene has to be seen to be believed. Even though Negan is a changed man at this point, his past keeps coming back to haunt him.
But it’s not all doom and gloom for Negan. He's married to Annie (Medina Senghore)! In The Walking Dead Season 11 Episode 14 we also learn that she's pregnant and yes, it's his baby. An unexpected development but not really an unpleasant one. We know that Negan, despite all his faults, is great with kids.
The Walking Dead Season 11 Episode 14 - The verdict
This episode is just as good as its predecessor, if not even better. It's a turning point in a sense, because several bridges have been burned. One has to wonder if things will be remedied with The Commonwealth or if there will soon be an all-out war between the parties.
Is Mercer a loyal soldier or will he side with what's right? What is Lance Hornsby's endgame? The episodes that follow should be very interesting indeed. It seems difficult to believe that the series will conclude soon, with only ten episodes left after The Walking Dead Season 11 Episode 14.
