The Walking Dead Theory: What’s Hornsby Up To?

The Walking Dead season 11 episode 13

We already know Lance Hornsby has plans for Hilltop but what’s this “other thing” he’s up to? In this week’s The Walking Dead Theory, I try to find out.

As we all saw in this week’s episode of The Walking Dead (And, frankly, throughout most of this season), Lance Hornsby is up to shady business. Not only is he up to shady business, but he calls on people who are professional shady guys to do it for him!

However, up to this point, we’ve had some idea of what he’s been doing. We saw Lance maneuvering with Eugene to force him to give up Alexandria’s location coming and saw his efforts to get the Virginia communities into the fold. At the very least, we could see where he was going with his schemes.

As he was discussing a problem with Toby Carlson, Lance alluded to something that we haven’t seen. First, he told Toby about the resources he’d been granted for rebuilding Alexandria which included guns but he chose to use this shipment for “that other thing.”

What“other thing”?

What would he need to give people a shipment of guns for? Well, there’s only one thing I can think of.

The Walking Dead Theory

The guns were meant for someone to ATTACK Hilltop with, to force them to come to the Commonwealth for help.

Considering the lengths Hornsby has already gone to get information about Alexandria and some of its residents, and how bothered he was by Maggie nixing the alliance between Hilltop (And, by extension, Oceanside) and the Commonwealth, I feel like this idea shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. If Hornsby can, effectively, arrange for Eugene to have a run-in with Sebastian to get him into enough trouble to force him to give up Alexandria, then is arranging for a “common enemy” all that crazy to believe?

We’ve already seen that Hornsby will work with sketchy people like Moto if it serves his end, so, why not others?

I think that, before the diplomatic mission he and Pamela Milton went on to Alexandria, Hornsby’s scouts found some hostiles lurking around Virginia, and, after Maggie torpedoed his plans for an alliance, Lance saw an opportunity.

You see, a while back, I made a theory about the Commonwealth wanting to create something of an empire, eventually incorporating Alexandria, Hilltop, and Oceanside, well, I think I need to amend that. I think, perhaps more so than the Commonwealth itself, I think Hornsby wants an empire.

But, I think that, through the Virginia communities, Hornsby sees his chance to get the power and recognition he feels he so richly deserves, and I think he’ll do whatever he thinks he needs to to get it.

With Maggie messing up his plan to do it quickly, I think he’s opted to use his skills in espionage and misdirection to create a situation where Hilltop needs the Commonwealth to help, and at that point, will have no choice but to join the alliance, which Hornsby assumes Pamela will assign him to administrate.

I don’t know yet whom Hornsby was going to rely on to do this, but I do think that this was what he was trying to do.

But, what do you think? Do you think Lance Hornsby was using the shipment of guns to attack Hilltop? Do you think he might try to use a third party to try to coerce Maggie into the alliance by attacking Hilltop? Do you think Lance had some other plans for those guns? Let me know! I’m curious! And, if you enjoyed this and want to learn how to stay alive in a zombie apocalypse, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse!  You can also get it at Amazon here, on iTunes here!