We hear her voice, but the rest of the time we’re looking at a stunt double. We don’t actually see much of Eleanor Matsuura (Yumiko) in the episode. Once Princess finishes her traumatic story, Yumiko is taken away by Commonwealth guards. He was abusive towards her, and her mother wasn’t interested in helping.
She remembers a time when she got a splinter that got infected, and her stepfather bullied her about it. I liked hearing her anecdotes about her past. It’s nice to see how much compassion Princess has towards Yumiko.
She finds comfort in talking to Yumiko through a crack in the wall…a splinter, if you will. She was all alone in Pittsburgh for years, and now she’s with a new group and they’ve been captured by a mysterious community. Princess immediately starts searching for a way out of the boxcar. She talks to herself, verbally describing everything that goes through her head. Paola Lazaro plays the part well, hitting a huge array of emotions in 40 minutes. Sometimes she can be serious, other times childish. As well as being a cool, eccentric badass, she’s also a very interesting character with a complicated personality. This episode is really a deep dive into the mind of Princess. However, when we look at the comics, this particular storyline is almost exactly the same, and actors from the show have referred to it as such, so I think we’re safe using the name, unless the writers come up with a better one. It’s worth noting that the word “Commonwealth” is not actually used in the episode. That said, throwing our heroes in boxcars doesn’t endear us to this new group, and the rest of the episode doesn’t make them look any better. The members of their military wear Stormtrooper-esque armor and they’re in constant contact with each other via walkie-talkies. As in the comics, they’re very sophisticated compared to what we’re used to seeing after the zombie apocalypse. This episode marks our first real look at the Commonwealth.