S11.E01: Acheron: Part 1

[raven]

NOTE:  AMC+ will stream each episode a week before airing on AMC.  Enter this topic at your own risk if you haven't watched yet.

AMC+ airdate: 2021.08.15  AMC airdate: 2021.08.22

Quote

Daryl leads a mission team to scavenge the military base he discovered. Maggie tells her story, prompting a new mission for survival that only Negan can lead. Eugene and his group go through assessment by the Commonwealth's paramilitary police.

 

[heisenberg]

17:15

I have the same flashlights but I can't use them 'cause I don't have AA rechargeables batteries🙂....  Back to the show,  see you later.

[OoohMaggie]

After scavenging far and wide for Alexandria, then scavenging far and wide to fulfill Negan’s tribute, they finally hit the well stocked military base.  
Situated conveniently within walking distance and obviously home to the 122nd camouflage and subterfuge training  battalion, you’d have thought the group would have left with enough firepower to deal with the Reapers, a shiny handgun to point at Negan seems to be the extent of their haul.

The mini cliffhanger was a bit much so soon after her return, although I’m sure there must be someone out there who believes Maggie might be dead.

Despite the gorgeous one returning, the premier certainly wasn’t worth the long wait, let’s hope Princess and the Stormtroopers can conjure up something interesting 🥱

Edited August 17, 2021 by OoohMaggie

[Mr. Sparkle]

The trek through the DC subway is what I might call "more of the same." Maggie's clearly dead, until she shows up in 2 episodes to glower at Negan. 

The Commonwealth stuff was much more interesting, and there's potential for that to turn into a compelling plot. It won't, but the potential is there.  

[OoohMaggie]

5 hours ago, Superclam said:

The trek through the DC subway is what I might call "more of the same.

Even after all this time they’re still struggling to safely dispatch big groups of Walkers, they made a meal out of those soldiers. Even Jaba The Hut managed to silently unwrap himself from the plastic sheet, c’mon let’s have some genuinely scary moments  🙏.

How perfect would it have been to wait until now to introduce the ‘Terminus’ idea, the Reapers being cannibals would not only be more realistic this far into the ZA, but they could have made it genuinely terrifying, especially if a few top characters met a BBQ flavoured sticky end 🦴🍖

[raven]

Maggie vs Negan is both boring and exhausting.  Just shoot him already!   I did like the claustrophobic feel of the tunnels.

I am very glad that Negan didn't try to save Maggie - I prefer Maggie over Negan, but that would just have been more woobification of his character.

[heisenberg]

11 hours ago, Superclam said:

The trek through the DC subway is what I might call "more of the same." Maggie's clearly dead, until she shows up in 2 episodes to glower at Negan. 

The Commonwealth stuff was much more interesting, and there's potential for that to turn into a compelling plot. It won't, but the potential is there.  

Same for me.

[Mr. Sparkle]

1 minute ago, heisenberg said:

Same for me.

1 hour ago, raven said:

Maggie vs Negan is both boring and exhausting.  Just shoot him already!   I did like the claustrophobic feel of the tunnels.

I am very glad that Negan didn't try to save Maggie - I prefer Maggie over Negan, but that would just have been more woobification of his character.

I feel the next 23 episodes are going to be "who's going to kill who?" and the series ends with neither of them dead, and maybe a valuable lesson is learned. Hope I'm wrong. 

[raven]

42 minutes ago, Superclam said:

neither of them dead, and maybe a valuable lesson is learned. Hope I'm wrong. 

Yep - an after school special with zombies!

[heisenberg]

On 8/17/2021 at 7:25 PM, Superclam said:

I feel the next 23 episodes are going to be "who's going to kill who?" and the series ends with neither of them dead, and maybe a valuable lesson is learned. Hope I'm wrong. 

I have a few questions...

Are we the only 8 people that saw this episode? 

Is it on a normal schedule? 

Are they over?

Is this forum working properly?🤔🙂 

[Smad]

6 hours ago, heisenberg said:

I have a few questions...

Are we the only 8 people that saw this episode? 

Is it on a normal schedule? 

Are they over?

Is this forum working properly?🤔🙂 

AMC+ airs episodes a week earlier. Most people will see the episode tomorrow when it airs on regular AMC (see the OP).

Edited August 21, 2021 by Smad

[Mr. Sparkle]

Yeah, what Smad said. It's not really on until Sunday night. I've taken to watching it early so I can snark on the live posting thread. 

[BasilSeal]

On 8/17/2021 at 6:08 PM, OoohMaggie said:

Even after all this time they’re still struggling to safely dispatch big groups of Walkers, they made a meal out of those soldiers. Even Jaba The Hut managed to silently unwrap himself from the plastic sheet, c’mon let’s have some genuinely scary moments  

This has always been one of the flaws of the show, veterans of the zombie apocalypse really ought to know what they're doing by now, and it's implied that our heroes are a bunch a battle hardened kick ass zombie fighters, and yet here they are again getting up close and personal with the zombies without even the most rudimentary body armour for no good reason when with a bit of ingenuity they could have avoided doing so, i mean,  unnecessary extra curricular zombie wrestling is what did for poor old Carl, did he die in vain?

The set piece cold open is very well done and visually effective, but as is often the case with TWD there's an air of contrivance about it, you can't help thinking that the characters have eschewed an easier, simpler but less dramatic way of achieving the same ends purely because what they do instead makes better TV.

why not shoot the zombies in the hangar from above *before* sending your people down there? or failing that, once they're down there lure them all into one of the other rooms and shut them in, i mean, it's an army base full or useful shit and weapons, but we'll just steal a few freeze dried ready meals and be on our way.

When it suits the show runners, we do see characters use cool and innovative strategies for dealing with the walkers, as you'd expect from people smart enough to have survived 10 years in this world, (and as if to taunt us, the episode is intercut with Yumico and the others doing smart stuff in their interactions with their Commonwealth captors), but then other times they regress to just rolling about in the dirt with the zombies for no better reason that this has always been what the show was about. It can be a bit frustrating to see characters we know can be smart, go back to 'doing dumb things for some reason', but then again, this has always been what the show is about.

Which brings us back to the problem above, normally, zombie movies are about the start of a zombie outbreak, where the protagonists are learning what's happening and the implication of the dead reanimating, which gives rise to lots of hand to hand desperate zombie fighting action. the unique take TWD has on the zombie theme is that it's looking at long term survival in the ZA, which is an interesting concept. The problem is the show runners do seem to like the aesthetic of having the characters getting into scrapes and fighting desperate hand to hand battels for survival with the undead, because after all, that's what we've come to expect from zombie shows, but you'd think that after ten years of this our heroes might have learn't from their mistakes and stopped getting themselves into these scrapes.

We're shown the characters using cool innovative tactics to deal with the walkers sometimes, but then they forget all about them and never use these tactics again, the characters can't learn because the show needs them to be suck in this endless cycle of zombie themed torture porn and bad choices.

Overall it's a solid episode, though it does suffer from the above gripe that the main events are reliant on the usual random attack of the stupid virus to create most of the peril. We know our heroes have never seen a zombie movie, but at one point it appears they've never seen any horror movie of any kind either, as they decide to enter the dark foreboding subway tunnel rather than simply wait for it to stop raining so they can continue above ground.

 

Edited August 22, 2021 by BasilSeal

[Colorado David]

why go to the subway at all when upstairs yes it is raining, but infinite places to run to? jeezus walking in the rain or storm is not that horrible compared to a zombie massacre in a contained space.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

On 8/21/2021 at 3:49 PM, Colorado David said:

why go to the subway at all when upstairs yes it is raining, but infinite places to run to? jeezus walking in the rain or storm is not that horrible compared to a zombie massacre in a contained space.

 

Since I've been there, I know that Washington DC has lots of buildings, and since I'm an adult human I am aware that rain storms don't last forever. So maybe they could have gone into one of those buildings until the rain stopped, instead of going into a dark, underground series of tunnels with no place to run if, for example, they happened upon a group of undead humans who eat people? 

I know, now I'm just being silly. 

[Colorado David]

nope agreed, open space far beats subterranean attack zones, unless you are certain they are secured.

i'm thinking drama for drama's sake. who one could've chosen a building to get trapped in as well as a subway. i'm in line with negan's thinking on this strategy.

[GustavMahler]

Maggie will implement the Glen tactic and crawl under the dumpster, uh, train...at least the redundancy is kept in the family...

[heisenberg]

18 hours ago, Smad said:

AMC+ airs episodes a week earlier. Most people will see the episode tomorrow when it airs on regular AMC (see the OP).

Thanks!

[theredhead77]

Coming over from the live viewing. 

Dog better be fine and I'm glad Neegan didn't help Maggie. He's a villin and should be villining.

[raven]

Except for Maggie/Negan - I'm so over it - I kinda liked this one. I try not to worry about implausibilities 😅

[Bad Example]

On 8/21/2021 at 3:25 PM, BasilSeal said:

 but you'd think that after ten years of this our heroes might have learn't from their mistakes and stopped getting themselves into these scrapes.

(....and everything else you said)

I spent this entire episode just shaking my head.  "Are you people NEW?"

Not only the military base.  When has entering a dark space where they can't see the exit EVER worked out?

Come to think of it, am *I* new?  I actually had hope that this season might return us to the glory days.  Oh, sometimes I am that sweet summer child....

 

[madmax]

On 8/17/2021 at 7:46 AM, Superclam said:

The trek through the DC subway is what I might call "more of the same." Maggie's clearly dead, until she shows up in 2 episodes to glower at Negan. 

 

On 8/21/2021 at 10:28 PM, GustavMahler said:

Maggie will implement the Glen tactic and crawl under the dumpster, uh, train...at least the redundancy is kept in the family...

Close to my first thought: "Don't worry, there's a dumpster(train) nearby..."

I don't know, I'm still happy it's back.  It's still stupid in places, but I'm still enjoying it.  Even though I knew it was coming, I felt for Yumiko when she saw that note.  

I totally agreed with everything Negan said to Maggie up until the Glenn comment.  That was a bit brutal...

Edited August 23, 2021 by madmax

[Straycat80]

I doubt Maggie is dead. They didn’t bring her back to kill her off so early. There was probably a dumpster nearby that she’s hiding under. 
How did the Fab Four steal two storm trooper costumes and almost escape? 
The bodies in the subway were tied up and sort of no threat. Why did they waste their time stabbing them in the head, it looked like there were hundreds of them, how exhausting. 
that’s all I got. Glad I taped it and missed the two hundred commercials. 

[econ07]

That military base looked like it had a warehouse full of food.  Why not clear the place of walkers and then set up a more efficient system to get ALL the food.

[BasilSeal]

7 hours ago, econ07 said:

That military base looked like it had a warehouse full of food.  Why not clear the place of walkers and then set up a more efficient system to get ALL the food.

That's what i thought, if it's been untouched since The Fall then surely it's brim full of useful stuff like weapons and tools,  not to mention potentially being a secure compound to hole up in safely while Alexandria is being rebuilt.

 

On 8/21/2021 at 9:16 PM, Superclam said:

Since I've been there, I know that Washington DC has lots of buildings, and since I'm an adult human I am aware that rain storms don't last forever. So maybe they could have gone into one of those buildings until the rain stopped, instead of going into a dark, underground series of tunnels with no place to run if, for example, they happened upon a group of undead humans who eat people? 

I think the idea is that they can continue to travel across the city through the tunnels while being out of the rain, but like you say, it makes no sense as i'd take torrential rain over dark tunnels full of flesh eating undead any day, going into the tunnel is a monumentally dumb idea and it doesn't take a genius to work this out. Negan does say what we're all thinking, so in fairness they do address this point but why are supposedly smart people even considering this course of action in the first place?

This is symptomatic of the main flaw in TWD, they perpetuate the constant state of danger and conflict not through ingenious writing and plotting but by having the characters enter into contrived situations precipitated by their own stupidity and apparent inability to learn from their past mistakes and successes. 

[KeithJ]

On 8/17/2021 at 5:19 PM, raven said:

Maggie vs Negan is both boring and exhausting.  Just shoot him already!   I did like the claustrophobic feel of the tunnels.

I am very glad that Negan didn't try to save Maggie - I prefer Maggie over Negan, but that would just have been more woobification of his character.

I have a feeling that was a red herring and he will save her.

At this point, they just need to kill off Rosita.  She has done absolutely nothing in what, three seasons now?

[Lamima]

Fully expected to ride this shitshow out to the bitter end. However, had the new epi on last night and just had no interest in it. So I turned it off and went to bed. So close to the end but just can't. The show sucks that badly. I even rode out the Lost to it's crappy finale.

[Persnickety1]

1 hour ago, Lamima said:

Fully expected to ride this shitshow out to the bitter end. However, had the new epi on last night and just had no interest in it. So I turned it off and went to bed. So close to the end but just can't. The show sucks that badly. I even rode out the Lost to it's crappy finale.

And it's the endless season on top of that, what with 24 episodes.  

We've now dubbed it "The Stinking Dead" at Casa Persnickety but I will hate watch to the bitter end.  

Random question, and I admittedly tuned out a few times during the episode, but why were they using hand signals and miming shit after they had already awoken the walkers?  Were there other stacks of still sleeping walkers in the area they were trying not to awaken?  

I'm not even being snarky.  I didn't understand that.  I don't even know why it bothered me.  So many things are illogical about this show I should probably just hand wave it 😂

[Lamima]

25 minutes ago, Persnickety1 said:

And it's the endless season on top of that, what with 24 episodes.  

We've now dubbed it "The Stinking Dead" at Casa Persnickety but I will hate watch to the bitter end.  

Random question, and I admittedly tuned out a few times during the episode, but why were they using hand signals and miming shit after they had already awoken the walkers?  Were there other stacks of still sleeping walkers in the area they were trying not to awaken?  

I'm not even being snarky.  I didn't understand that.  I don't even know why it bothered me.  So many things are illogical about this show I should probably just hand wave it 😂

Maybe for what's her name who is deaf.

[Smad]

Does Negan have some kind of mission in life to orphan kids?

[Nashville]

1 hour ago, Smad said:

Does Negan have some kind of mission in life to orphan kids?

If Negan had HAD kids, sure as hell wish he’d get the urge to orphan THEM.

[hacman00]

RE: Maggie & Nagano

Kinda worried that this is gonna turn out like Moonlighting and they end up fucking...

[nodorothyparker]

I quite enjoyed the opening set piece of the conveniently appearing Army base, I guess?, and then the subway as long as I didn't think too hard about the plausibility of either. The opening extraction mission felt very old school TWD if reasonably competent women had been handling things then instead of squabbling about laundry. The underground metro adequately nailed the claustrophobic feeling of the setting, but it's unsettling once again thinking Negan is the one character making the most sense out of any of these knuckleheads who don't see a tunnelful of bagged and tagged walkers as maybe a sign that they shouldn't be there. Did they even consider just waiting out the rain a bit?

The schoolyard shittiness toward Negan was both amusing and tiresome. You guys passively went along with Rick keeping him around. You've chosen to keep him around for a decade since then. That's on you. Maggie also had her shot back in the day and whiffed on it. She had to know coming back to Alexandria that he was likely to be part of the equation. "He's a dick, but he makes sense." And the thing is that he was making sense and Maggie didn't bother to deny that she may have been planning on killing him. So his decision to not put himself out there trying to save her at the end also makes a certain amount of self-interested sense. I'm sure she's probably hiding under a dumpster, er, the train car and will be back next episode though and will probably be even madder about it.

The Commonwealth stuff was reasonably well done even if I still can't get past the full Stormtrooper getup. Did they raid a Party City's Halloween costume section and say yeah, that seems like a reasonable guard uniform? Princess seemed much coherent as a character and easier to take this outing.

Kind of amused that they've all collectively decided to refer to the onset of the ZA as The Fall. 

So Ponyboy was either taken or noped on out of there at some point. Stay old, Ponyboy. Stay old.

 

[sugarbaker design]

54 minutes ago, nodorothyparker said:

So Ponyboy was either taken or noped on out of there at some point. Stay old, Ponyboy. Stay old.

I saw his name in the credits, was keeping an eye out for him.  I saw him for a brief moment in the subway, he stood out because of his gray hair, but then nothing.  Stay gold.

[Crashcourse]

I can't stand the way Princess rolls her eyes around in her head.  She looks batshit crazy.

[Nashville]

3 minutes ago, Crashcourse said:

I can't stand the way Princess rolls her eyes around in her head.  She looks batshit crazy.

Soooo… she looks like… Princess…?

[Crashcourse]

9 minutes ago, Nashville said:

Soooo… she looks like… Princess…?

No, she just looks Batshit Crazy. 

[Colorado David]

17 hours ago, Straycat80 said:

I doubt Maggie is dead. They didn’t bring her back to kill her off so early. There was probably a dumpster nearby that she’s hiding under. 
How did the Fab Four steal two storm trooper costumes and almost escape? 
The bodies in the subway were tied up and sort of no threat. Why did they waste their time stabbing them in the head, it looked like there were hundreds of them, how exhausting. 
that’s all I got. Glad I taped it and missed the two hundred commercials. 

Or better yet, build a dead body wall that new walkers cant figure out to climb over - a la 300.

daryl's train scene was very 'oldboy'. but then again, it's the trope of attackers cooperating by attacking one at a time so the target has time to deal with each one. 

[rmontro]

On 8/17/2021 at 7:25 PM, Superclam said:

I feel the next 23 episodes are going to be "who's going to kill who?" and the series ends with neither of them dead, and maybe a valuable lesson is learned. Hope I'm wrong. 

Ugh, this season has 24 episodes?  I was hoping for 16.  It's going to be a long season.

I thought the Commonwealth storyline was much more interesting, surprising since the "A" characters are in the other plot.  But the Commonwealth is from the comics, so that almost makes it better by default.  Honestly, I don't even think they're doing a good job with it so far.  They need to get these guys out of processing and move things along.  But I guess they have to stretch it out, because 24 episodes.

I didn't quite get Maggie saying the old her was saving Negan, because the old Maggie was married to Glenn and I'm sure would like to see him dead.  It was mainly Rick's idea to keep him alive IIRC.  Also didn't think Negan putting Glenn's name in his mouth was very credible, unless maybe he was really trying to push Maggie into killing him.  Fun to see Daryl punch him out for it though.

[nodorothyparker]

Interestingly, there's a whole interview in Entertainment Weekly with JDM saying he fought against the line and was disappointed that one of the takes that included it made it into the final cut. He thought it was a bad move that undid any good will Negan might have otherwise racked up to this point but finally had to settle on a motivation that it was a matter of forcing the issue on his belief that Maggie was going to kill him.  And sometimes Negan's just going to Negan. Plus, any day Daryl gets to punch him in the mouth is a good day.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan fought against saying that Glenn line on The Walking Dead

The more I think about the whole thing, the more it works for me. Negan's already been pretty woobified and going by a lot of the media a good portion of the audience apparently sees him as the hero of what's left of the story rather than supposed leading man Daryl. Throwing Glenn's name out there as a reminder and leaving Maggie to live or die without any help from him is a big gut check that this is the same guy who baseball batted two of our identified good guys crew to death and that he's still in there somewhere.

[OoohMaggie]

12 hours ago, rmontro said:

Fun to see Daryl punch him out for it though.

Mmmmmmm, Daryl punching Negan, that’s ringing a bell somewhere 🤔 

[ctlady]

On 8/22/2021 at 11:09 PM, Straycat80 said:

How did the Fab Four steal two storm trooper costumes and almost escape? 

They must've studied Star Wars: A New Hope where Luke and Han do the same thing to rescue Leah

On 8/17/2021 at 7:24 AM, OoohMaggie said:

you’d have thought the group would have left with enough firepower to deal with the Reapers, a shiny handgun to point at Negan seems to be the extent of their haul

That had Mr. Ctlady screaming at the tv - TAKE.THE.GUNS!  I know food is much more important, and the MREs are lighter to carry, but they're going to need to replenish protection

On 8/17/2021 at 6:19 PM, raven said:

Maggie vs Negan is both boring and exhausting.  Just shoot him already!

I know it won't happen, at least this soon, but yeah - seriously.  Enough glowering, Maggie.  Look - I know what Negan did to Glen was beyond heinous and did it in front of Maggie, but he's right - he's in her head and it's messing up her judgement.  Either kill him or ignore and speak to him only when necessary.  Just get past what happened for the sake of your safety, those around and especially little Herschel.

19 hours ago, Nashville said:

I can't stand the way Princess rolls her eyes around in her head.  She looks batshit crazy.

I didn't think I was going to like her OTT character, but she is growing on me.  She's like that the wild, 'let's skip school, go down to the beach and smoke weed' friend in HS

[Mr. Sparkle]

6 minutes ago, icemiser69 said:

What happened to Oceanside? 

That is an excellent question. When was the last time they even mentioned it? 

[iMonrey]

OK, since when do walkers "sleep?" The entire ground floor of the army base was covered with "sleeping" walkers until Daryl's blood drop woke them all up. Huh? What, are they tired from their long day in the coal mines? Also, the bagged walkers in the subway also seemed to be "sleeping" until Daryl woke one up. 

Now, I can understand that by now maybe walkers have deteriorated to the point where they just collapse and lie there until they rot completely away, but these walkers actually got up and started coming after them, so they apparently were "asleep." That's a new one.

The smash cut to Eugene and Yumiko dressed as Storm Troopers was practically comical. I wonder if that's what they were going for, or if they cut some scenes, because I don't get how they got out of their cages and managed to find the two Storm Troopers who had doffed their uniforms. Maybe the writers couldn't figure that out either and just hand-waved the whole thing. 

That's sort of the modus operandi of the show lately: "it doesn't make any sense, so just go with it."

[Nashville]

1 hour ago, icemiser69 said:

I still don't understand why there is a food shortage.  What happened to Oceanside?  That body of water in that area should have a ton of fish in it. 

Fish aren’t a static resource - they swim around ’n shit. 😉  Like any other creature, fish follow their food sources; if the food moves, the fish will move as well. A bountiful fishing area one day can be barren the next.  That’s why commercial fisherman don’t fish off the bank; their first job every day is to find where the fish are.  There’s an old saying among fisherman: “Fishing is one of those activities where you can do everything perfectly, and still have a negative result. “  

If Oceanside started suffering an extended dry spell resource-wise, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that they simply abandoned the community – either in pursuit of more productive fishing, or to join the other existing bands of people.

[Smad]

3 hours ago, nodorothyparker said:

Throwing Glenn's name out there as a reminder and leaving Maggie to live or die without any help from him is a big gut check that this is the same guy who baseball batted two of our identified good guys crew to death and that he's still in there somewhere.

Except it's not working. The guy is everyone's fave character despite what he has done. His more moderate fans admit they know what he's done but he's still their fave. The fans who are like Negan (aka a-holes) are the ones who have run Lauren Cohan off social media.

[iMonrey]

Quote

The guy is everyone's fave character despite what he has done. 

Well, he's not everyone's favorite. There are still a few of us left that aren't willing to hand-wave all his crimes just because we love watching JFD chew the scenery. This happens way too often on TV. Characters ultimately don't have to pay long-term for their crimes because the actors are popular with the audience. 

It's one of the main things that has ruined the show for me.

[Colorado David]

3 hours ago, ctlady said:

 

I know it won't happen, at least this soon, but yeah - seriously.  Enough glowering, Maggie.  Look - I know what Negan did to Glen was beyond heinous and did it in front of Maggie, but he's right - he's in her head and it's messing up her judgement.  Either kill him or ignore and speak to him only when necessary.  Just get past what happened for the sake of your safety, those around and especially little Herschel.

I didn't think I was going to like her OTT character, but she is growing on me.  She's like that the wild, 'let's skip school, go down to the beach and smoke weed' friend in HS

Agree on Maggie, she has so gone over to the dark side, she's no longer thinking things through, just being angry and impulsive. I'm surprised she's not out venturing on her own, like Daryl and Carol.

Princess yeah i felt the same at first, i was 'she is too much and ott'. BUT she has grown on me, and she does have some nice funny moments. I think the actress is doing a great job on the character, and look forward to other roles she may do.

[ctlady]

1 hour ago, Smad said:

The guy is everyone's fave character despite what he has done

It's called 'Walter White Syndrome'

[rmontro]

4 hours ago, iMonrey said:

OK, since when do walkers "sleep?" The entire ground floor of the army base was covered with "sleeping" walkers until Daryl's blood drop woke them all up. Huh? What, are they tired from their long day in the coal mines? Also, the bagged walkers in the subway also seemed to be "sleeping" until Daryl woke one up. 

They explained this on Talking Dead.  Angela King, the showrunner, said that in the comics there were two types of walkers - roamers and lurkers.  Roamers were active, up and walking around.  Lurkers were in a dormant state, kind of like being in hibernation, and could be woken up.  She said this situation was an attempt to show the lurker kind, whereas they usually focus more on roamers.  She actually talked as if this was the first time they have shown lurkers, but I'm not sure that is true. 

Whoever these walkers were, it appears to me that since they were all bagged, they must have been laying there since the fall.  Apparently they died, were bagged (by whatever authority was working at the time), and stored in the tunnel.  I guess if there were any roamers in the group, they must have got up and roamed away, leaving just the lurkers.