What happened to Eugene and the gang when they met the Commonwealth soldiers?

“Well, what’s so bad about spending even more time with some of your favorite characters?”

Counterpoint, does that extra time serve the story, or is the story stronger without it?

The Commonwealth soldiers accost the group and split them up into individual holding cells around the abandoned train carts.

She’s put into a dark and cramped train cart that brings back memories of her childhood.

Princess counts to herself and names off state capitals to help calm her PTSD.

She explains she had a splinter in her hand that developed into an infection.

Yumiko soon passes out and is carted away by the guards, which only accelerates Princess’s panic.

Eugene is in the cart just outside.

He urges Princess to remain where she is.

He believes they still need the soldiers to help defeat the Whisperers back home.

So, Princess crawls back into her cart, and just in time.

A soldier has arrived to bring her in for interrogation.

She’s stripped and searched, and presented before an officer, whose face is hidden by shadow.

He asks her questions about who she and her friends are, most she refuses to answer.

She sneaks back out to check on Eugene and he’s not there.

But she finds Ezekiel.

He found an opening in the ceiling and jumped down into Princess’s cart.

He says they should sneak out and getaway, but Princess is fighting that urge to flee.

But wait, how did the soldier not see him in the first place?

And why did it look like Ezekiel just appeared out of nowhere from outside?

That’s because he’s not really there, nor were Eugene and Yumiko.

It’s all in Princess’s head.

She was the one who attacked the soldier, cuffed him, and grabbed his gun.

She goes to leave but has another hallucinatory conversation with Ezekiel and two walkers.

She doesn’t want to be alone anymore.

The same is done to her and the screen cuts to black.

Did we need that episode?

No, absolutely not.

Did we need all that time inside the mind of Princess?

Are we any closer to learning about the Commonwealth?

Is the rest of season 10 gonna be just like this?