The Walking Dead season 11, episode 23, Family: Things to Note

The Walking Dead – penultimate episode

1) This week’s “Previously, on The Walking Dead” — Focusing on Ezekiel talking down the firing squad about executing Negan, Carol and Maggie rescuing Hershel, the warden refusing to tell Rosita where Coco was, Aaron, Jerry, Lydia, Elijah, Luke, and Jules is forced to march with a herd of walkers, and Eugene being freed by Mercer, who informs him that “It’s time to fuck shit up.” — is voiced by Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

2) Judith’s narration this week is laid over a montage of members of the group retrieving their weapons from storage inside Alexandria mixed in with flashbacks of them using these weapons, including Rosita using an axe to clear walkers from Aaron’s house to rescue Judith and Gracie in “No Other Way”, Father Gabriel using his machete to fight the herd invading Alexandria in the season six midseason premiere, “No Way Out”, Magna using an axe(? halberd?) against the walkers inside the beached boat in the season ten premiere, “Lines We Cross”, Princess blasting walkers with her machine gun in “The Tower”, Ezekiel killing walkers with his sword in (I think) season ten’s “Bounty”, Negan clobbering a walker with his crowbar in “Hunted”, and Eugene stabbing a walker in the head from season nine’s “Who Are You Now?”. There are other flashbacks, but they’re not entirely clear from which episode.

3) As Judith grabs her sword and Rick’s magnum, she mentions how she never met her mother, Lori. This is the first time we’ve heard Judith mention her birth mother in the show.

4) While this episode gets its name largely from the theme of the group seeing one another as family, it also gets its name from Judith describing the group as “This family, my family” at the beginning of her narration.

5) When were Judith and R.J. found? At the end of the previous episode, it seemed as if finding the rest of the kids was going to serve as a plot point for this episode, yet, as it begins, obviously, all the children except Coco were kept in Alexandria.

6) Judith giving R.J. Rick’s hat makes him the third Grimes child to inherit it, following Carl giving it to their sister in his final episode, the season eight midseason premiere, “Honor”.