The Walking Dead Season 11 Teaser Goes Inside the Commonwealth

Season 11 of The Walking Dead is on the road to civilization. As Alexandria struggles to survive in the wake of the Whisperer War, Eugene (Josh McDermitt) and his expedition are held captive by the armored soldiers belonging to a larger and unforthcoming group: the Commonwealth. In the Season 10 episode "A Certain Doom," our group is apprehended by the soldiers before a planned railyard rendezvous with Eugene's elusive radio contact Stephanie (Margot Bingham) in Charleston, West Virginia. This mysterious community reveals itself in the two-part Season 11 premiere, where Eugene, Ezekiel (Khary Payton), Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura), and Princess (Paola Lazaro) are the prisoners of Officer Mercer (Michael James Shaw) at a heavily-guarded Commonwealth outpost.

In the extended Season 10 episode "Splinter," a trooper (Cameron Roberts) recites the community's creed: "For the benefit of all, and for all who seek solace at our gates." Inside those gates are "things that are valuable in times like these" — the zombie apocalypse — and solace seekers must first pass a thorough interrogation process.

"The place we live is a good place. It's our job to keep the many, many good people who live there safe," the trooper says. "We're careful because we have a lot to lose."

The latest Season 11 teaser reveals a peek inside the Commonwealth, the largest civilization yet to be discovered on The Walking Dead. In the comic books, nearly 50,000 survivors live in the Ohio network of communities governed by Pamela Milton.

"Here's this group, they show up, they're wearing this white armor which is not super practical, but also they had to create these uniforms. It's really cool in a comic when you've got this look, but it's like, 'What does it mean about this group that they're part of?'" showrunner Angela Kang previously said of the Commonwealth Army on Talking Dead. "They had to have some ability to create these things and keep them clean and make them all look the same, but they're also ingenious because they've got these sort of like automatic weapons that they've also transformed with a bayonet, so it's the old and the new all mixed together."

"It tells you that this group is really formidable, they are organized, they have some access to the materials that you need to create in a uniform fashion, so that's really unlike some of the groups that we've seen," added Kang. "Because our groups have only been able to do things like that on a very limited basis, like [how] Eugene was only able to make a handful of perfect bullets. But these guys have a lot more going on."