The Walking Dead season 11 has been a mixed bag, but a reference Maggie made to her father Hershel recently is the kind of thing the final season needs to do. While The Walking Dead season 11 has been by no means dreadful, one of its main problems is that it doesn't really feel like the final season of a long-running hit show. Many such final seasons serve to both celebrate what's come before, and finally conclude the character arcs of many major players, sometimes ending in death.
Instead, the majority of Walking Dead season 11 has so far felt just like any other Walking Dead season of the post-Rick Grimes era. It also at times feels like it's simply going through the motions without really advancing the central plot, which was sometimes a complaint people had during past seasons, but ballooning season 11 from 16 to 22 episodes has only exacerbated that issue. A final season should, at least for a drama series, ideally possess some sense of urgency, with some horrific outcome if the villains win. Season 11 isn't providing that.
As far as the lack of the big character deaths that most major dramas would write into their final seasons, The Walking Dead writers' hands are a bit tied there. To the dismay of many viewers, AMC has already confirmed multiple forthcoming Walking Dead spinoffs, effectively precluding that characters like Daryl, Carol, Maggie, and Negan can die during season 11. Still, a great scene involving Maggie Rhee discussing her father Hershel during Walking Dead season 11, episode 13, "Warlords" did finally do one thing a final season should do: reference past history in an interesting way that provides both a contemporary character perspective and further insight into a beloved alumnus.
During the first act of The Walking Dead's "Warlords," Lydia asks Maggie why she doesn't trust The Commonwealth, and doesn't want to accept their help. She reveals a previously unknown anecdote from before the fall of society, in which a land developer kept attempting to acquire Hershel's family farm when times were at their toughest, only for him to refuse and prevail in the end, keeping his land. The story both serves to explain why Maggie is so reluctant to believe the bill of goods that The Commonwealth is selling, and remind long-time viewers just the kind of smart, upstanding man that Hershel Greene really was.
Hershel was of course introduced on The Walking Dead in a somewhat antagonistic role, clashing with Rick and others who arrived on the farm over how to handle Walkers. In time though, Hershel became very popular with audiences, serving as a wise fountain of experience and knowledge to his fellow travelers. That was until The Governor murdered him. With Hershel actor Scott Wilson now also sadly deceased, Maggie's reference to her dad also serves as a late tribute to what he meant to The Walking Dead's story. This kind of reference, which draws on and celebrates The Walking Dead's rich legacy of past characters, is what season 11 should be doing more of, and for once, made it feel like the final season.
