Like the cliffhanger that left Maggie (Lauren Cohan) hanging on for life to start Season 11 of The Walking Dead, the first part of the final season ends with a cliffhanger — and a few fates left up in the air. Spoiler warning for Season 11 Episode 8, “For Blood.” With enemies Pope (Ritchie Coster) and Maggie both out for blood in their season-long war over Meridian, Rosita (Christian Serratos) and Judith Grimes (Cailey Fleming) fight their own war back home: a violent storm that brings walkers flooding into an already vulnerable Alexandria.
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Maggie’s masked group of Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam), and Elijah (Okea Eme-Akwari) herd a walker horde to Meridian, where Pope and the Reapers ready the hwacha: a multiple rocket launcher locked and loaded to fire off hundreds of rocket-powered arrows.
Back home, the Alexandrians split into three teams: Aaron’s (Ross Marquand) to fight a fire at the windmill that’s drawing walkers inside their walls; Carol’s (Melissa McBride) to repair a collapsed portion of the wall; and Rosita’s to protect the kids and everyone else huddled inside.
Lydia (Cassady McClincy) and Dianne (Kerry Cahill) try to keep the dead at bay behind a weakened door. When Dianne escorts the children and others to safety upstairs, Lydia is left alone to hold the door. Judith saves Aaron’s daughter Gracie (Anabelle Holloway) from a flooding basement as Rosita races upstairs to get baby Coco.
READ: The Walking Dead Final Season Part 1 Finale Recap With Spoilers: “For Blood”
Judith and Gracie return to find the door open and walkers flooding inside the house. With Lydia nowhere to be found and the dead storming the halls, the girls lock themselves in the basement as it rises with water.
Leah stabs and kills Pope to prevent him from firing the hwacha and sacrificing her brothers on the ground. Daryl cuts down Ancheta (Dave Davenport) and severs the weapon’s lit fuse, only to be surprised when she radios her brothers-in-arms and blames Daryl for Pope’s murder. Leah lets Daryl escape, but it’s only a headstart: she orders her men to retreat from their fight on the ground.
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Maggie and Negan look up at the roof, where a vengeful Leah and her brothers light the hwacha. The weapon sparks and sizzles as an onslaught of rocket-powered arrows rain down on the battlefield — ending Season 11A in a cliffhanger to be resolved when The Walking Dead returns on February 20.
Here’s what viewers have to say about the latest cliffhanger to hit The Walking Dead:
