Overall I liked the issue. At first glance, the entire Princess detour seemed slightly pointless, but I think in combination with her abusive backstory from last issue, the realization this issue that she really does need people, and she is ready to finally fully open up and be a member of a group and have a relationship, will serve to make the reader understand why she is so invested in helping fight when she goes back to the Commonwealth and discovers Mercer is in jail.

I'm a little worried for Eugene, because anything is possible, but I don't feel like this is his death arc. More likely, I can see this as Stephanie's demise, which would serve as the final straw catalyst for the civil war. The people discover that Pamela ordered to soldiers to "abandon" one of their citizens at the train yard, causing her death, and thus the uprising finally begins. Everything comes into place at once: The people find out Mercer is imprisoned, Laura riles up the sympathetic guards, Princess discovers Mercer is imprisoned, and then the people find out Stephanie was killed due to her abandonment by guards at Milton's order....

The perfect storm.

 

The letter hacks also confirmed that more time is passing than we are shown. Kirkman stated that Michonne has been at the Commonwealth for many months now, and that time passes "here and there", and that he feels it would be tedious to go out of his way to show us this chronology. So this helps explain why everyone is worried back home. It doesn't explain why they didn't think of the radio, but.....

He also confirmed what we had already kind of pieced together; that it takes a week or so to travel between the Commonwealth and the home communities.