The Walking Dead: Angela Kang confirms Commonwealth is coming

During The Walking Dead panel at Comic-ConAt Home Angela Kang referred to Eugene’s group as the “Commonwealth group” confirming that Commonwealth is coming.

Fans of the comics have suspected for some time that the next big narrative arc after the Whisperers would the be the Commonwealth arc. But, the show doesn’t always follow the same narrative line as the comic and often remixes characters and places so while some fans assumed that Commonwealth would be the next arc it wasn’t a given.

During The Walking Dead panel at Comic-Con at Home showrunner Angela Kang referred to Eugene, Yumiko, Ezekiel, and Princess as the Commonwealth group, confirming that the next arc will be Commonwealth. The group is heading towards a meeting with Eugene’s radio friend Stephanie. In the comic Stephanie is a member of the Commonwealth and her meeting with Eugene ushers the survivors into a much larger world once again.

There has been a lot of speculation about how Commonwealth would enter the show and whether or not it would follow the comic or branch off to a unique story. There have been various fan theories about Commonwealth such as that Georgie, who Maggie is currently with, is part of the Commonwealth and that’s how the narrative would begin. It’s also been speculated that CRM is a remix of the Commonwealth, especially since CRM seems to be tied to some kind of larger and more organized society.

But, it’s been established by the presence of CRM in all three of The Walking Dead shows that CRM is a separate entity and not related to Commonwealth. Based on the arrival of Princess and the official confirmation that Margot Bingham, who voiced Stephanie on the radio in season 10, would be joining TWD season 11 and Kang’s comment today about Eugene’s group being the Commonwealth group it seems that the show will stick close to the storyline laid out in comics when it comes to the introduction of Commonwealth. Where they go after the introduction is anyone’s guess.

What Is The Commonwealth?

The Commonwealth in The Walking Dead comic is a network of groups, more like small cities, that have banded together to share resources and protection. In the Commonwealth, as in other communities, people work based on the skills they had from the world before, but there is a structured class system. The Commonwealth functions very much like society did before the fall of civilization.

Elements of the Commonwealth’s way of doing things have been seen in practically every group that the primary group of survivors has encountered in The Walking Dead. Commonwealth conducts interviews with new people like Deanna did at Alexandria, and like Alexandria the Commonwealth has a leader that is a member of the upper class.

The community alliance that existed between Alexandria, Oceanside, Hilltop, and the Kingdom was similar in nature to the type of relationship that exists between the towns in the Commonwealth except that there are 50,000 survivors instead of just a handful of them.

It will be interesting to see how closely The Walking Dead sticks to the Commonwealth storyline from the comics and how the survivors adapt to such a large civilization.