So naked Rick and Michonne don’t turn Jesus into swiss cheese.
Matter of fact, once the cavalry arrives to restrain Jesus again, they somehow end up listening to what he has to say. They’re totally onboard with sending the town’s ruling council and the majority of their top-tier fighters with this stranger, as well, even after hearing he’d taken full stock of their supplies and people before essentially turning himself in to Rick. They were more suspicious of Morgan, the man who may be the sole reason Rick saw more than a week outside the hospital after his coma. Yes, Morgan snapped his Slim Jim after his son passed, but he is fully not crazy now and Carol still watches the man like he’s about the club them all to death and make sachets from their skin.
With no real concern whatsoever, Rick, Michonne, Glenn, Maggie, Daryl, Abe, and Jesus climb into an RV—there’s always one which just happens to be nearby—and take off toward an undisclosed location with only their vague threats to keep Jesus from driving them into a trap.
Which exactly what it looks like not long after we rejoin the gang on the road. A car, one Jesus swears belongs to his people, crashed on the roadside moments before they drove past. Now, not only are the fighters separated from the group, they’re being put directly in harm’s way for people who may still turn around and put bullets in their brain pans. There’s an urgent rescue. One of the guys, Dr. Carson, thanks Maggie and Glenn by being probably the only OB left alive in the state and offering to care for their baby. How’s that for luck?
During the entire episode, Jesus is essentially Google—feeding Rick and Maggie exactly what they need to manipulate Gregory, Hilltop’s chicken-livered and misogynistic leader. It’s all too easy, this plot. Somehow we end up at the right place at the right time for these unfortunate people to demonstrate the kind of antics keeping Negan top dog in the county. But with all the bad Negan has done—namely, his men murdering a sixteen year old boy upon The Saviors’ first meeting with Hilltop—Jesus seems not concerned at all about being in the room with two men confessing to blowing up quite a few of the boogeyman’s goons. If that were me, I’d wash my hands of Alexandria, not matter how badly we needed another trading post.
Hilltop itself is designed to resemble a walled medieval estate during wartime, with all the folk from the farms and homes under care of the lord encamped within the walls. It’s so blatant, Gregory turning out to be a world class jerk doesn’t surprise me in the least. It’s even less surprising that one of his own men would then stab him, hoping Gregory’s death would secure the release of a man Negan took captive. Why did he take this guy and kill another Hilltop citizen? Gregory sent his people to deliver their usual payoff knowing it wouldn’t be enough. It’s never enough. Negan will demand more and more. Though Gregory survives, this hasn’t done a thing to teach him to grow a pair and take on the man running their lives from afar.
In comes Rick and his band of killers.
Seriously? This is where the story goes? They veer from attempting to set up a functioning ecosystem in Alexandria to hired mercenaries who’ll just kill and take what they want. These are the people Rick wants to kill, usually. But when it suits them, murder is on the table. They wouldn’t need to kill Negan so soon if they’d stopped to do the boring things like clear fields. But they need food now. Hilltop has a functioning system in place which produces enough food to send half to Negan without forcing strict rationing in Hilltop. If Negan doesn’t need that food being dead and all, Alexandria will take it. Now. Half of whatever is on-hand is cheaper than the cumulative price to keep Negan at bay via bribes.
But again, this is all too easy to follow to the conclusions the writers want. They’re trying to make fans guess who’s going to die. Is it Glenn? Negan and Glenn’s comic book story is well known, spread by every reviewer trying to make the show into something it’ll never be—an accurate reflection of the comics. They drive more nails into Glenn’s coffin during this episode, finally giving us a glimpse at his and Maggie’s child in an ultrasound. Every happy character dies on this show. It’s no surprise. Abraham seems a tad happy himself after some soul searching and a near-death experience, but he’s mostly in the story now to fire large weapons and make us question Glenn’s fate going into the season’s end. Some say golden boy Dixon will bite the big one. It makes sense, seeing as he did blow up Negan’s people.
It’s all so boring, this weird dead pool going on in the fandom. I never watched the show to see who would die. I kept watching because the characters made rational decisions in an interesting setting and the story pace never lagged so much, I wanted to wander off for a snack ten minutes into an episode. They’ve killed the Negan story line before it begins.
This episode is not for the weak-hearted. Matter of fact, I highly regretted filling my coffee mug just one more time before settling in to watch. Twenty minutes into the episode, I paused and took a five-minute break to watch puppy videos. Otherwise my heart would’ve exploded.
Warning! Walking Dead Spoilers ahead, as well as graphic descriptions of violence.
Now, I’m not doing a complete 180* flip on my stance on the show using easy outs. There were simply too many deaths in this episode which in the end tied up a loose thread in the plot. Sure, they were somewhat spectacular deaths, but that then comes down to a simple A-B reasoning for offing the character. A, the character over complicates the plot—yet Father Gabriel, who has done nothing but get people killed, remains safe; heck, he’s mentally recovering from his sins far better than anyone left alive on the show. The B reason for these producer-targeted deaths then shifts to making them so astounding visually, fans will confuse a visceral reaction to the death with a genuine connection to the woefully two-dimensional character.
There’s no ride with these people. No thrills, lulls, love, empathy to make them matter. They’re cannon fodder tossed on the field to make the generals look like they have the numbers to win the battle. Sad thing is, they’re right. The producers gave us cannon fodder and we, the coveted item in the television ratings war, bought into their bluff. “We can change,” they promise. “It’ll be just like the comic books.”
Apparently that translates to adult language, mass slaughter of plot-hampering B-list characters, and the icky kind of tension. The tension a woman gets walking in the dark by herself and heavy boot steps follow half a breath behind her. It’s the wrong tone for where I think they want to take the show heading into the season finale. You can’t run head-first into the terror about to come. This was their toe-dip to warn us. Hopefully this unwanted tension tone shifts. I mean, the primary perpetrator was blown to about six-billion pieces. By Daryl, no less. With an assist from the time-wasting and convenient rocket launcher.
The walker footage for this episode is beautiful. If there’s one thing Nicotero does well in his episodes, you see the FX love up front and center. Good thing, too. Most of the Rick-centric scenes happened mid-herd. The few times there aren’t walkers in-frame, we’re lead to believe they somehow found a corner within the tiny community to hide where one of five thousand walkers couldn’t find them. These moments are when Rick passes Judith, his last tie to his deceased wife aside from his son, to Gabriel. The Father will shelter her in the church until Rick and the others draw the walkers away with the cars they left at the quarry. Jessie tells Sam to go with them. He refuses, stating he can make it.
You know where this is going, right? They’ve intentionally mishandled Sam’s PTSD, hauling us by the nose to the moment when his mental disorder takes the forefront, driving back rational thought and costing the boy his life. Jessie, frozen by grief, is swarmed and eaten, as well. Sorry, Rick. But, wait, why aren’t you moving, Rick? He hesitates just long enough for the walkers to almost get Carl, who can’t move because Jessie has him gripped tight in her death throes. There’s a weird fascination with cutting off hands in genre pieces. Jessie loses hers to save Carl. Father and son recover just in time for Ron to be a moron. Grief-numbed Ron rightly blames Rick for his family’s death. In the following struggle, Michonne impales Ron and Ron accidentally shoots Carl in the eye.
Well, heck. By this point we’ll assume literally everyone is on the chopping block this season. Which is exactly how we’re supposed to feel. They want us so concerned for everyone, it means they don’t have to rely on character growth to keep us on their emotional journey. The only two who knocked it out of the park growth wise this episode are Denise—kidnapped by the lone Wolf until he saves her as they attempt to escape Alexandria, taking a bite in the process—and Eugene, who finally joins the fight without reservations. Characters like Aaron and Heath are only on screen as proof of life and extra bodies in the epic fight montage at the episode’s climax
After Carl is shot, things move quickly. Denise jumps to action, having slipped the Wolf when Carol killed him, but not before Denise had promised to save his life. Michonne helps Denis stabilize Carl. Rick, without saying a word to anyone, grabs a machete and heads outside to, well, collect some heads. He becomes a zombie mowing machine. After some debate, others join him, even Michonne after ensuring Denise had things in hand.
While they fight, Glenn and Enid hatch a plan to save Maggie from the rickety guard platform. The plan is beyond dumb. Glenn will stand at ground level and shoot walkers. Enid climbs the platform. Maggie freaks out, refuses to climb down the wall with the improvised rope, and uses her last bullet. Right at the last second, Abraham and Sasha magically mount the wall and mow down the walkers, all without injuring Glenn. Daryl waits in the truck and Glenn joins him. What will they do? Daryl has a plan. This may be a first, to be honest.
Flaming zombie pond! That’s Daryl’s big plan. Honestly, it’s effective. The nearby walkers shamble into the flaming pond without reservation. When the herd shifts direction, Rick and company mow them down. Though I don’t one-hundred percent believe all the walkers would simply ignore yelling, grunting, sweating live bodies in favor of one big fireball. They win the battle, though. There’s no more casualties. Even Father Gabriel got in on the action before it ended. Okay, so three characters had some emotional growth.
The episode ends with what’s supposed to be a touching monologue with Rick at Carl’s bedside. The kid is alive, but unconscious and honestly doesn’t look too good with a third of his face bandaged. Where this scene went wrong is language choice. Rick doesn’t go into his feelings for his possibly dying son, oh no. Instead he crows over being able to unite the townsfolk for this oh-so important cause. He then goes on to talk about making the town bigger, badder. There’s the hint of emotion, but Rick never gives it a proper label, just that he hasn’t felt it since before he awoke from the coma. The scene has no punch until Rick begs Carl to let him show him the new world. Our hope for Carl is in a single moment, his fingers closing around Rick’s hand.
Obviously, we’re not done with Negan despite blowing up a chuck of his goon squad. How soon he’ll arrive at the gate is a variable no one in Alexandria can account for with any surety. They’re knocking on war’s door while licking their wounds again. Will this too-similar setup have similar endings to Woodbury and the prison? *shakes Magic 8 Ball* Most likely
We do get to see the crew walking—yes, they killed every last El Camino they stole—through sunny and thoroughly destroyed southern California. Anaheim, more precisely. Yes, they do indeed tromp through Disneyland’s ruins. No, there are no Mickey Mouse zombies. Yes, I’m slightly disappointed. Lest viewers think this episode accomplishes nothing for the plot, the crew does indeed finally arrive at the coordinates Citizen Z gave to them. It’s not quite what they were expecting, though—a ramshackle dive bar with an older tea-slinging woman behind the bar. While the team scout the bar, Citizen Z discovers a hacker’s fingerprints on his system. After some tracking, he discovers whoever broke into his laptop accessed files for Operation Bitemark. Is the op compromised?
And now, a peek at the crew as they were before the apocalypse changed them for better or worse.
First up, Citizen Z, a.k.a. Simon Cruller. Our favorite computer wizard wasn’t always on the NSA payroll, it seems. Nor does he look good in an orange jumpsuit. Simon’s hacking skills landed him in federal lockup with impending espionage charges. He won’t plead guilty. Which is good because NSA needs him to join them on their next greatest mission, one so secret, Simon can’t even tell his lawyer what it is—zombies. Obviously the intrigue offered by the NSA worked. Simon signed on with them, went to their north-most outpost, and has been a one-man tech team keeping Operation Bitemark alive.
We flashback to Roberta while she’s struggling to keep tabs on deployment orders for her unit and the other units at the same National Guard base. Her stress levels bounce off the ceiling several times, but her compatriots aren’t bothered by any of it as they catch a game on TV before moving out. Everything is pretty SOP, until there’s a crash outside. An ambulance rammed into the building. The driver is MIA. The patient strapped in the back is still very much present, and very much undead. Roberta tries to help the patient, under the impression he’s panicked and injured. Yeah, no. She heads inside to call for another ambulance. The phones are dead. Ditto for her unit, unfortunately. They attack her and she’s forced to put a bullet in their heads. Quick on the uptake, Roberta figures out they’re zombies without anyone spelling it out for her. Her fast-thinking may be why she’s the one leading the team. Or, you know, not being a martyr.
Turns out Doc wasn’t always high as a kite. His five-year sober streak ends with the apocalypse, though. It’s just another day in the office for the kindly therapist. His patient is likewise dealing with addiction and they have a pretty relaxed dialog—anything else in Doc’s presence is unheard of, to be honest. There’s another therapist in the office, who can’t quite handle her manic patient. Doc has to save the day, strong-arming the guy and talking sense to him. While the therapists work, the outside world devolves into chaos. That chaos finds its way indoors. Zombies eat the other therapist, her client, and Doc’s patient. Doc eats an OxyContin tablet to brace himself for what’s outside before escaping into the fray. Right after we came back from his flashback, Doc finds a Z-weed joint and lights up. Not much has changed since Doc saw his first zombie.
You guys ready for the surprise guest? Mack returns for Addy’s turn in the way-back machine. He’s on the ice, being ferocious during a hockey game. Addy is just as fierce in the stands cheering on Mack’s opponents. Just when the game gets good—Mack and the star player from the other team drop their gloves to duke it out—a zombie runs through the stands and smacks into the Plexiglas. From there it’s pure chaos. Mack and his sparring partner leave the ice together. The other guy doesn’t make it far. Addy manages to dodge the crowds, ducking around the worst of it until she runs into Mack, who can’t quite kill the zombie snapping at his throat. Addy lends a hand and the two team up. Mack has a chance to return the favor, braining a zombie pinning Addy against the wall. They make a pact to stick together. Which means Mack is tagging along when Addy realizes she has to get to her mother and brother at the house. Tagging along, in the end, is what lead to Mack’s demise. Was it Addy’s pretty eyes or an overly large sense of duty to help others? I’d say a dash of both, honestly. He stayed with her in the beginning because they both needed help. They remained together later because he just could not let her go and the mission became much more important after Murphy nuked half the USA.
We saw the most emotional part to 10k’s apocalypse beginning a while back. What we didn’t see was bright-eyed 10k, then simply Tommy, encountering his first zombie. He’s out on a camping trip with his dad, enjoying an afternoon fishing alone. A forest ranger, undead of course, shambles his way with three arrows in her chest. Quickly more zombies join them—hunters and rangers who were likely attempting to kill the zombies in the forest, only to die in the process. Tommy drops his fish and runs. He’s nearly z-lunch when his dad catches up, clearing the zombies with precision shooting. Now we know where 10k learned his skills from. Skills he puts to use daily. His dad must be proud.
Grab your tissues, Vasquez’s flashback hits a few emotional triggers. Guilt-ridden over the deaths of his family because of his job, Vasquez tortures himself mentally. He’s keeping watch over his wife and daughter’s caskets in an unlit funeral home. The funeral director doesn’t even know he’s in there until he accidentally walks in, then gives the mourning man time alone. Vasquez kneels to pray. Scratch, scratch. He calls to the funeral director to ask if they have rodents in the building. No answer. The scratching continues. Finally the director comes back . . . or at least his reanimated body does. There’s a fight. Vasquez empties his gun into the zombie’s chest. No good. He ends up bludgeoning the thing to death. Good timing, too. He’s just in time to watch his undead wife and child crawl from their caskets. His gun is empty. He has no backup. Vasquez realizes he will have to beat his family like the funeral director. We don’t see the kill. We just hear Vasquez’s anguished scream as he realizes what he has to do. Killing his family for the second time hardened the man beyond what was necessary to do his job. Wandering the apocalypse alone turned that into a ruthlessness and stubborn moral code no one can break. Not even Roberta.
Last stop on the flashback train—Murphy. As expected, he’s in jail.
Unexpectedly, Murphy doesn’t look a thing like himself because I am so used to seeing him blue and covered in scars. But when he opens his mouth, it’s pretty much the same smart aleck the crew has dragged from New York to California. He’s hosting a poker game in the prison yard—where he’s doing time for postal fraud. As sometimes happens, a prisoner is stabbed in the yard. Yeah, you guessed it, the guy turns zombie. Everyone panics when the guards start turning as well. Murphy saves his own hide, running through an open gate and closing it before his poker pals can join him. It’s always been Murphy First in his book. Then the vaccine made him actually care about the well-being of the zombies. Feelings are uncomfortable. I get it. Being The Guy to end the apocalypse? It’s too much to bear. Murphy tells himself, “I don’t want to be the savior of the human race. I don’t want to be the zombie messiah.” He doesn’t want to be accountable for his actions anymore. If he screws up, like he did to land in prison, that’s it for humanity. That’s an awful weight on his shoulders. When he breaks down, Roberta gives it to him straight, “There isn’t a happy ending for any of us, but you, you are the one person who can change that.” How long can she keep him together? At this point, it’s like fixing a shatter vase with bubble gum. It’s holding, but ain’t pretty.
There’s one episode left in season two, with a season three already ordered for later this year. How much chaos can they cram into this finale? It’s hard to top nuking the country.
I’ll save you some time. Here’s the big whopping plot in one sentence: They prepare to leave town.
Duh? There’s no way to reclaim Alexandria until the herd calms down. The choices are limited; either they settle in for a long wait or they leave Alexandria and come back to clear the walkers with replenished resources. Why the writers needed forty minutes to make this happen boggles the mind. Viewers already knew what needed to happen for the characters to live to see the second half of the season. Why waste thirty-five minutes of screen time drawing out the inevitable?
Not only is this episode a gigantic waste of time, they also kill off someone vital to the show’s continuing plot. Deanna is yet another victim of the convenient death scheme. Something we all saw coming each time she got closer and closer to realizing Rick isn’t the man she should leave in charge of her people. Her people. Not his. Rick cannot and will not see the Alexandria natives as part of his crew. Something he’s called out on in the episode during a deathbed conversation with Deanna—who is only dying because she saved his life. Six seasons of them killing off Rick’s naysayers and I’m to the point where I’d rather see the man himself written off the show than someone who simply questioned why he’s such a poor leader. It’s boring. Predictable. A surefire way to turn fans completely against the character when we should still root for him, questionable morals and all. I wouldn’t loathe Rick as he’s written for the show nearly as much if the writers would just stop killing anyone who stands up to him for the sake of their own moral code.
Women get dealt poor hands on this show all the time. Carol is still plagued by this unreasonable story line pitting her against Morgan. Not only that, she also suffers a random concussion which makes her physically inferior to Morgan. If the writers hadn’t made her trip and fall for no other reason than to give her the concussion, the fight would’ve gone in Carol’s favor. They realized too late that pitting the two against each other was a mistake. Both are essential characters. If they didn’t cripple Carol, Morgan—who is now the conscious for the show since they’ve laden Glenn with Baby Daddy Syndrome—would be dead alongside Dale and Hershel, the other poor unfortunate souls to carry the title of Captain Moral Integrity. So instead of a fair fight, we get a one-sided, poorly motivated fight which ends with Carol cold-cocked by Morgan, Morgan knocked out by the prisoner, and poor Denise used as a meatshield so the prisoner can escape past Tara, Rosita, and Eugene.
Then there’s Michonne. Most of Deanna’s deathbed moments were spent highlighting the fact that the writer’s haven’t given Michonne a reason to fight for Alexandria, its people, or even Rick’s people. Aside from being present to wield a sword, Michonne has no motivation. No purpose outside killing. It shouldn’t take this long for them to realize they’ve forgotten to write essential human needs into a main character.
Everyone in Alexandria is hiding. Or so we assume. At no point are Deanna’s people accounted for. The only townsfolk we see outside of Rick’s main group are the one’s shoehorned into the plot. Denise is present to give the prisoner a way to freedom. Jessie is present because Rick wants to do bedroom things with her and she has his daughter in her house. She’s also the mother to two boys capable of screwing everything up with very little effort—because it’s easier for the show to place blame on the impulsive actions of children instead of writing feasibly flawed adults. Ron’s big moment comes when he locks Carl in the garage and tries to kill him, drawing attention from nearby walkers who then overrun the house. Sam’s part in everything is, well, not very well thought out.
One surefire way to grind my gears is to mishandle mental diseases in a show. Sam has PTSD. The entire Morgan episode was to essentially demonstrate how the show would depict PTSD in characters from here on out. Cool. We’re talking about an actual issue which plagues thousands of people. And then they mess up. Jessie says the words no PTSD influcted person should hear, “Just pretend . . . .” No. Don’t. Stop. All they did is hand a child’s character the exact opposite coping mechanism from what he should be using. Escapism isn’t the cure to PTSD. It’s a death sentence. If the writers really wanted to explore the nuances of PTSD and how it affects the survivors, they should have put more time into Sam’s scenes. Instead, like so much in this episode, they cram it in and use it as a catalyst for more things which don’t make sense. Why would a frightened child, even with PTSD, speak when surrounded by things he knows want to kill them? Sam is mentally ill, not a moron.
The big whopping plan to escape is a callback to season one’s “Guts,” where Glenn and Rick covered themselves in walker goo and went to fetch a truck in order to escape Atlanta. Yawn. We’ve seen this before. It’s not even amusing to watch Father Gabriel’s reaction. Gabriel is another character wedged into the plot, but I’m not even sure why at this point. Everything out of his mouth is something which should be shown on screen, not told via dialog.
We get a couple short scenes with Glenn and Enid. Neither of which are vital to the plot. Maggie is likewise a throwaway bit in the episode—she crawls up a ladder to escape the herd and that’s where she stays through the episode’s end.
Then there’s the big post-credit scene. Yet more wasted time and money. Fans know Negan is coming. Matter of fact, if the episode with Daryl’s abduction had been written better, they wouldn’t have needed the post-credit scene to properly introduce Negan’s good squad. Instead they create a reason to put Daryl on screen in the guise of bringing Negan’s crew onto the stage for the second half of the season.
I’m fed up with the current showrunner. He’s run what was once decent television into the ground by leading fans by the nose to the story conclusions he thinks are entertaining. It’s dull. Trite. Nothing exciting happens for eight episodes. Why is AMC wasting money to make this guy’s vision come to life? Their numbers are down, despite self-created hype. Sure, the mid-season finale did a little better, but the viewer numbers aren’t enough to make up for what they lost from episodes 602 through 607. When TWD comes back on February 14th, will we suffer through more of the same? I hope not.
There’s too much talent in this cast to continue with poor storytelling. Something’s gotta give, AMC. Give your fans and your actors the showrunner they deserve, not the one who tells you pretty lies but cannot deliver the quality episodes you want.
Glenn lives! No, I couldn’t wait to say it. Plus, it’s how the episode opens. Yet again, we backtrack in time to follow what happens after Nicholas’ body dragged Glenn off the dumpster. As I thought, the walkers tear into the warm corpse, leaving Glenn untouched, but traumatized. While they’re distracted, he shimmies under the dumpster. Several walkers give chase. This feels a lot like Glenn’s introduction on the show. You know, when he saved Rick — a mistake, if you ask me — after the former sheriff’s deputy crawled under a tank. Only there’s no one to bail Glenn out of this situation. He’s on his lonesome. Killing the walkers posing the most threat creates a rather effective barrier to seal off his cubbyhole. Now all he has to do is wait for the walkers to lose interest . . . before his water supply runs out. The coast clears after what probably feels like an eternity when crammed under a reeking dumpster. Glenn slithers through the dead walkers. His first concern—water. Nicholas had a bottle on him, but it’s empty.
That’s okay, Enid just happens to be in a nearby building. Her first attempt to give him water results in a puddle. Glenn breaks into the antique store, following his only hope to find water in a timely manner. Desperate for news about Maggie and Alexandria, he attempts a civil conversation. Enid, written to be one of the most incoherent characters to date, bolts for no reason. There’s a lot of back and forth. At one point Glenn nearly leaves the girl, but Maggie wouldn’t like it so he goes back to drag the girl to Alexandria. Along the way, they grab some balloons—possibly useful against walkers, mostly to fill a plot hole explaining how Glenn will signal the crew at the episode’s end. This would be far more entertaining if Enid weren’t Carl with breasts. She has no personality beyond sullen teenager who’d seen too much. Which is literally everyone on this show, no matter their actual age.
Back in Alexandria, it’s more of the same ol’ same ol’. Maggie is ever-vigilant for Glenn’s signal. Rick, insensitive to the core, dismisses concern for her husband and redirects the conversation to how to move retrieve the cars from the quarry and move the walkers. Father Gabriel sets up a prayer circle, like that’s going to make a difference when the morale inside the walls is already shot to crap. Speaking of shooting, there’s more sullen teen angst action between Carl and Ron when Rick takes Ron out for his first official gun lesson. Like a d-bag, Carl interjects some smart comment every time Rick shuts his mouth. Even I want Ron to at least wing him with a shot by the time the real feces hits the fan later on.
Can Morgan live with Rick if he won’t kill? It’s not even a matter of staying in Alexandria at this point. Deanna would have no problem keeping the pacifist around. Morgan pulls his weight and has deep insight to what would motivate future human attackers. He’s an asset. Rick sees only a threat looking at the man who is the only reason he even made it to Atlanta for Glenn to save, thus introducing him to the people forming his little kingdom—and by some ridiculous default Carol is in agreement, simply to keep her relevant in the episode. There’s no logical reason for Carol to be this distrusting. She’s written so oddly this season. The writers backtracked hardcore on where her trajectory lead—sociopath land. Sociopaths don’t care what happens in a society, even one this small, unless it impacts the way they live. Morgan isn’t a threat to Carol; she shouldn’t be so invested in undermining his position in their community. This whole witch-hunt is added to drum tension in an otherwise lackluster episode. The only important bits happen in the first and final two minutes. I just saved you forty minutes of your life. Use it wisely.
Carol winds up stalking Morgan. Because, how else will they make something epically stupid happen with the prisoner no one else knows about unless poorly-written and paranoid Carol acts as catalyst? First, she has to ditch Judith. Here comes Jessie, a walking womb they dump the kids on without much concern for her as a person. While Carol waits for Jessie to put something away; which takes five minutes too long just so the following conversation can happen between Sam—still upstairs—and Carol.
Sam, “If you kill people, do you turn into one of the monsters?” Carol doesn’t even think about her response. “The only thing that prevents you from becoming a monster is killing.”
Spencer may be the densest character on television. He is nearly eaten playing Batman by crawling across a rope tethered between the wall and the slowly-crumbling church. The grappling hook fails, dumping Spencer amongst the walkers. Rick and others haul him up. Tara risks her life to provide cover fire. In a stunningly stupid move, Rick yells, “Tara! You almost died once for these people. What the hell are you doing?” Facepalm. Headdesk. They can hear you, Rick. Tara’s eloquent response speaks for all.
But why would Spencer play piñata in the first place? To go get a car, of course. The same plan Rick hatched, more or less, only executed with the grace of a newborn foal. And why didn’t Spencer tell Rick his plan? Rick listens to himself, no one else. Which is why Rick is literally the last person I would want leading my survival group. His selfishness knows no bounds. Deanna isn’t ignorant to this problem. When she comes to thank Rick and his people for saving her son, she asks Rick why he saved Spencer. “…he’s your son,” Rick responds automatically, then waits for a Scooby Snack. “Wrong answer.” Deanna isn’t impressed. She expected Rick to finally grow to see her people as his after passing the torch.
There’s no time to fix Spencer’s boneheaded mistake. Shortly after Glenn’s balloon signal is spotted, the church belfry topples. The wall is breached. The midseason finale will be a mad dash to either outrun the walkers or stand their ground against, oh, at least five-hundred sets of snapping jaws.
The episode’s opener is downright beautiful, some of the best cinematography on TV this fall. But once the episode’s plot rolls on, it’s pretty clear there’s nothing grounding the action in the overall story line for the season. Forty minutes for what’s essentially a pit stop to grab supplies.
The gang is caught in a forest fire, along with enough zombies to make traveling by foot dangerous. They fight their way through the smoke to a seemingly abandoned hotel. Knowing the show’s history, it’s seriously unlikely the place is empty, but any port in a firestorm. Inside, a group of frightened business people bicker over whether or not to let the strangers inside. One man, Iggy, takes initiative to be a decent human being and unlocks the door.
That’s about the time I realized one of the businessmen is none other than Anthony Michael Hall. A shame they couldn’t do more within the episode while working with such a strong actor as guest star. Hall plays Gideon Gould, a professional hot air blower. Not really, but that may as well be his job. Instead the guy tells business people how to best B.S. each other by talking in circles. He carries a “talking stick” and an ego almost as big as Murphy’s.
Gideon and his gal pal Dana somewhat take over, forcing Roberta and her group to participate in ridiculous trust-building exercises. He goes through the group giving his first impressions. Yes, they’re on the nose, but he ends up planting the seeds for everyone to distrust 10k later in the episode. Dana, Gideon, Addy, and Roberta sit to talk terms to sharing resources. A couple of the guys go with Iggy to check out the kitchen. Vasquez mother hens Murphy while he attempts to nap. Using his psychic zombie weirdness, Murphy distracts Vasquez to wander around the hotel. Addy leaves the meeting with Dana to salvage parts from the satellites on the roof and flirt. A gunshot brings everyone together again.
Murphy has a hole in his chest. Did he have that before? Didn’t think so. Another unlucky sap, Greg, is likewise leaking blood. Vasquez, using his Sherlock-worthy skills determines they were injured by the same bullet. It passed through Murphy and into Greg’s heart. Murphy’s blood is the only reason the guy isn’t a zombie yet. Working on that theory, Doc doses Greg with a hearty helping of Murphy’s blood. Waste not, want not. Murphy won’t miss what’s already outside of his body, right?
Gideon calls yet another group meeting to determine who shot the men. Automatically, they blame 10k. Addy steps up to defend him, but she’s nowhere near as convincing as the man himself. Vasquez, so not on board with Gideon’s methods, returns to the party with a duffle bag overflowing with food which the hotel survivors thought long gone, not squirreled away in a personal stash. Murphy and Greg were nearly killed for candy bars. The hotel survivors turn on Iggy, who by far the sanest, kindest person in residence. They’d assumed he took the food since he has one of two keys and Gideon is beyond reproach. Iggy is unceremoniously flung out into the smoke and encroaching zombies with only a small sledgehammer. Washington is given the pantry key and ordered to lock it down. Shortly after, Gideon finally gets around to offering Roberta food for her people. They hit the kitchen. Zombie Washington hits them. He also kills Sheila before they’re both given Mercy. The remaining food is gone.
Someone shoots at Doc. Everyone arms up and gives chase. Dana gives the shooter a free pass while Addy isn’t looking. The women wind up trapped in a closet—quit snickering—where Dana begs Addy to take her with them when they leave. Nearby zombies hear them. Roberta and Vasquez save their bacon before resuming the search for the shooter. The follow them, but come up empty-handed. While everyone scurries around for mysterious shooters and missing food, Murphy dreams about the zombies outside, subconsciously calling them to the hotel. They break out of the quarantined sections in the hotel. The fire zombies the gang fought through join the fray, eventually breaking the glass on the hotel doors. Everyone holes up in the makeshift sickbay.
Right on time, half-zombie Greg wakes. Doc asks him to identify the shooter. He points to . . . no, not Gideon, as much as we want him to suffer for being obnoxious. Travis is the shooter; Dana his lover. All they want is to get out of the hotel and away from Gideon. There’s a shootout. Greg dies again. So does Travis.
Victorious against the zombies outside, Iggy returns to the hotel. Truly apologetic, Gideon welcomes him back to the fold and offers the sacred talking stick. As thanks, Iggy whacks Gideon with the dang stick. Murphy wakes, confused and suffering the mother of all headaches.
The hotel group thanks Roberta’s crew for their part in overthrowing Gideon’s ridiculous stranglehold on their future by giving them a van and supplies. Will it be sufficient to see them through to the California lab? Do I need to ask? Of course it won’t. Murphy’s Law rules everything which happens to the crew—if it can go wrong, it will. My bet is the van will spontaneously combust when they all go on a pee break or something equally ridiculous.
Here’s your spoiler warning. Proceed at your own risk.
…They make a run on the food pantry, ignoring Olivia when she reminds them they have to ration until the walkers clear and they can make a supply run. Spencer, Deanna’s son, steps in to lend a voice of reason. Then he turns around after everyone is gone to pillage what he wants. My opinion of the guy was already pretty low, but after he left the gate open for the Wolves and stole much needed food? I hope his drunk self falls off the wall while he’s on guard duty. Spencer isn’t the worst off emotionally, either. Betsy, wife to David who died in the last episode, and a few others paint the names of the dead lost in the attack and partially failed mission on the wall—including Nicholas and Glenn.
After creating the tribute, Betsy returns home and slashes her wrists. Jessie finds her after, zombified and banging on her front door. This leads to Jessie making one of several drawn out speeches during this episode. Not every speech comes from her, though she has to say something after Betsy dies in order to keep the others from seeing suicide as a viable option. It just feels like anytime there’s a sliver of tension, Rick or someone yanks out the soapbox and lets it rip. For heaven’s sake, Rick makes a loud speech about being quiet to avoid riling the walkers while standing next to the compromised wall section with about a thousand zombies leaning against it trying to get to the booming voice on the other side. There’s a point where the writers need to give up this trope and move on to other ways to motivate a crowd. Start a conga line or something. I don’t care so long as I don’t have to listen to another sermon from the Ricktatorship pulpit.
Healthy ways to cope with the stress do not involve attacking each other about a girl. A lesson Carl and Ron desperately need to learn. Enid is still presumably on the outside. Carl asks Ron to help and is rejected, with a threat to tattle to Rick if Carl hops the fence. He ends up going to Rick anyway in order to cash in the rain check on those shooting lessons Rick promised back at the quarry. Another unhealthy coping mechanism is attempting to tenderize a walker with a broken bottle. Deanna, I’m looking at you. Your cool flew out the window the minute the Wolves attacked. Get your act together. Tara seems to be the best adjusted to the stress. She manages successfully to talk Denise off the metaphorical ledge when the new doctor cannot find a way to clear the infection in Scott’s bullet wound. And, hey, she gets kissed for her efforts. It’s a win-win.
Desperate for answers, Maggie prepares to drop over the wall and search for Glenn. Aaron, heavy with guilt because the backpack he lost when the Wolves tricked him and Daryl with the tucks led the attackers to their door, insists she let him help. He even knows a way out which won’t break her leg if she falls wrong. They take to the tunnels running under Alexandria. Down there, they face walkers so soggy and muddy, Maggie’s hand goes right through one’s chest. She’s nearly bitten, yet still tells Aaron to go back and tend to his wounds. Yeah, not happening. Then again, neither is the mission. The tunnel exit is too close to the herd.
Despite everything in her demanding she find Glenn, Maggie won’t risk losing the baby. It’s the last piece of her husband left; she doesn’t even have a picture. That night when Maggie and Aaron search the area for a signal from Glenn, they take a moment to erase his and Nicholas’ names from the memorial wall.
There’s a change in the guard coming to Alexandria. After Deanna snaps and attacks a stray walker—Carol lost track of only one Wolf she killed and he turned in the walls—Rick swoops in and makes the actual kill. Crouched on the pavement, covered in walker blood, Deanna tells Rick, “I wanna live. I want this place to stay standing.” She realizes her mental capacity cannot handle the stress from all the losses, but Rick seems to be doing just fine. Obviously he’s the better choice for leader, right? NO. WRONG. But the decision is made. Rick celebrates his new position by kissing Jessie. Okay, that wasn’t the real purpose to their conversation, but it might as well have been for all the sense it made. Somewhere along the line, the writers forgot how to have Rick talk in coherent thoughts.
The future is not so bright for Alexandria. The fence, though reinforced, is failing where the truck hit. Four of their best fighters are still in the field. Morale is in the tank. There’s a crazier leader taking the throne. Oh and let’s not forget the crazy guy waiting in a jail cell. Yes, they survived to see another day, but how long will their luck hold out?
Honestly, if Morgan hadn’t been loonier than a cartoon wabbit, the Crazy Nest would have been an ideal place to set up camp for a while and rest. But his lunacy drove everyone away. Then it destroyed his secured safe haven. One night, probably agitated by the surprise visit from his past—Rick— Morgan flies into a rage, yelling and pacing. He knocks over an oil lamp, setting the apartment ablaze.
Heads up! There are spoilers in the following review.
Losing his home doesn’t slow Morgan’s murderous roll one bit. He’s equally dangerous camping in a meadow. Methodically, Morgan clears the walkers from the surrounding forest and burns them in a pyre. The fire attracts more walkers, which he knocks out and adds to the fire. Walkers aren’t his only focus. To Morgan, everyone is a threat. He kills human and walker with the same passion. When the area around his camp is clear, he ventures further out. There’s a gorgeous meadow with purple wildflowers . . . the shot somewhat ruined by a weird visual effect they used to make it clear, Morgan is cray-cray. Yeah, we didn’t need you guys to do wobbly camera tricks. The acting alone shows the truth just fine.
You ready for this? Morgan hears a goat. For once, he’s not hallucinating. There’s actually a goat leashed in front of a cozy stone house. The goat isn’t alone.
Morgan is given ample opportunity to put down his gun and walk into the house like a civil human being. He’s too far gone to realize this strange man is offering food and shelter, at least temporarily. Sensing the threat, the stranger knocks Morgan unconscious. But he apologizes first. Morgan wakes inside a prison cell. Well, a makeshift one, at least. Eastman, his accommodating host, left food for him. It’s not what Morgan wants. He screams at Eastman to kill him. In response, Eastman drops a worn copy of The Art of Peace in the cell, then resumes building an indoor pen for Tabitha, the goat, to keep her safe from walkers. Before Eastman says goodnight, he asks Morgan not to hurt the goat.
Days pass. Morgan observes Eastman; watching him easily kill walkers approaching the house and practicing with his staff. When Morgan seems calmer, Eastman opens up about his background pre-apocalypse. Eastman worked for the state as a forensic psychiatrist. He lived in Atlanta. The men talk. Eastman digs into Morgan’s relentless need to “clear,” as he calls it. “Because that’s why I’m still here,” Morgan explains. He’s called on his BS.
There’s a lot of conversation in this episode delving into PTSD, how humans react not only to losing loved ones, but also being forced to kill—humans aren’t built to handle murder mentally. Eastman wants to help Morgan. In his career, he only met one man beyond saving. Then comes the shocker; Morgan isn’t locked in the cage. Matter of fact, there’s no key to lock the cell; Eastman threw it in the river a while ago. It says so much about Morgan’s state of mind. He never once tries the door, yet uses a zipper pull to pry away the board holding the window bars in place. It’s almost like he made the minor escape attempt to keep himself occupied, but he doesn’t really want to be alone anymore. The subconscious is a tricky beast.
What does Morgan do with this news? He certainly doesn’t leave peacefully or take the offer to crash on the couch. Nope. He attacks Eastman, who knocks Morgan on his ass. In the struggle, a piece of drywall with a child’s drawing on it is broken. For one instant, Eastman forgets himself and his deep respect for life. He stops short of driving his staff into Morgan’s forehead. Yet again he makes the offer: Door or couch. Morgan, petulant to his core, chooses the cell and closes the door. Eastman opens it, only for Morgan to close it again.
They’re at an emotional standoff. Eastman goes about his daily life, preparing to go on a trip to anywhere. While he’s on a supply run. Morgan is charged with Tabitha’s safety. Yeah, you guessed it. Walkers try to eat the goat. For a heat-stopping moment, I thought he’d let them get Tabitha. There was yelling. Saving the goat is the turning point. The respect Eastman shows the deceased walkers is the cincher. Morgan becomes Eastman’s aikido student. Cue many, many training scenes. Too many, really. The episode is pretty solid, but drags with just two men and a goat. Hey, I smell a new sitcom.
But it’s not all training and cheese-making. One night during dinner Morgan finally asks why the heck there’s a prison cell in the living room. It tracks back to the one truly evil man Eastman interviewed for his job. Crighton Dallas Wilton fooled everyone except Eastman with his sociopath mind games. After Eastman was nearly killed by Wilton, he recommended the man never see freedom again. Of course Wilton was livid. He broke out of prison, tracked down Eastman, and killed his family. Moments after, Wilton turned himself in, saying he just wanted to destroy Eastman’s life. Driven mad by the loss, Eastman built the cell intending to abduct Wilton and starve him to death. When he tells the original story, he hedges around confirming or denying if he went through with the plan.
At the episode’s end, we learn he did murder Wilton. It took forty-seven days to starve him to death. There was no magical peace in Eastman’s life after. “I found my peace when I decided to never kill again,” Eastman tells Morgan.
If they’re going to actually make this trip to anywhere, they need a few more things. Just so happens, Morgan left those very things at his camp. While there, Eastman finally asks about Morgan’s family and makes him say their names. It’s a huge healing moment . . . ruined when the man Morgan strangled shambles toward the camp. He freezes, unable to put the walker down. Eastman steps in, but not soon enough. Eastman is bitten.
It’s the last straw. Morgan snaps again. All the guilt he felt from failing to save his family quadruples watching blood blossom across Eastman’s back. He screams for death.
Eastman is ruthless and calm, collecting the walker to bury and leaving Morgan. On the hunt to clear again, Morgan ventures into the forest. It’s easy to find another walker. Two frightened survivors stumble into his path. The woman carefully sets chicken noodle soup and a bullet on the ground before thanking him and walking away.
Morgan snaps out of his mental fog and rushes back to Eastman’s. Tabitha is dead in the front yard. He takes her body to the graveyard behind the house. Despite his injury, Eastman is burying the walker who signed his death certificate. He gives Morgan the house and supplies, but with a warning that security alone isn’t enough. The isolation from living alone isn’t healthy. Before he dies, Eastman calmly walks to the shed to get his gun. It’s unclear who does the job.
So why did we have yet another flashback episode? Morgan has a hair-brained idea to use Eastman’s technique with the Wolf resting in Alexandria’s jail cell. Yeah, that’s not going to work. This guy is hellbent on killing the townsfolk. He found the scouting photos, found the town to be safe, possibly full of supplies he needs to fix the cut on his side, and decided Alexandria should be his. He vows to kill them all, even the children. His cell door is locked.
Yet again, we’ve made little plot progress. A show can only tread water in the same spot for so long before it sinks.
First problem, how will they get down the river? The gang finds a zombie-infested pontoon boat out on the water. After clearing it, they find the boat’s rather talkative driver. Cool. A ride and someone else to do the driving. Maybe everyone can relax. Yeah, right. They’re not on the water long before Doc spots someone in a pedal boat crammed with gear in the back. Sketch and Skeezy are the bad pennies in this show. Anytime mischief must happen, they’re involved. Already things are looking up. And then everything looks wet. The river is plagued with what the guys call zombie jams—similar to log jams, only with teeth and much fouler stench. Zombies scramble onto the boat. Roberta orders everyone into the drink—not exactly wise considering all the zombies, but sure. We’ll go with it.
In the rush to safety, the team splits. 10k ends up on the eastern shore with Sketchy and Skeezy. Roberta, Doc, Addy, Murphy, and Vasquez head west. Almost immediately, Murphy wants to leave the kid behind. Vasquez is on his side, but only because a search would cost time. There’s no love lost between Murphy and 10k. After Cassandra’s death, those two will never be on the same side again. Murphy’s ego simply won’t allow it. He saw Cassandra as his creation, then comes this little nothing human who takes her from him; it’s too much for Murphy to handle when he’s already lost control of everything else in his life. To keep the peace, and keep Doc with the crew, Roberta gives twenty-four hours to find 10k. Eventually Doc does split from the group, taking a canoe across the river the next morning. His search is fruitless.
All’s not lost. 10k is in good hands with the luckiest men alive. Boy do they take the kid on an adventure. First, there’s a group of kind, highly intelligent men who—okay, I can’t do it. The first group they meet is dumber than a boulder and just as ugly. Quick thinking Sketchy reels them in with another tale of The Murphy, portrayed by Skeezy, seeing as he kinda resembles the wanted poster. By the end of two minutes, they have these guys convinced a bite from Skeezy will make them immortal. So he bites them, Sketchy steals the guys’ drugs, and 10k watches in wonderment. Until he drops the drugs Sketchy passes off and they have to run. Luckily—ha ha—there’s a truck nearby. But, wait . . . isn’t that the truck we saw kidnap two guys at the beginning of the episode?
Yes it is, and the guys just so happen to drive the thing back to the town it came from—Burrtown, named after it’s founder. It doesn’t take long for Sketchy and Skeezy to work their magic on this last great confederate holdout. Before sunset, they have them eating from their hands. Fecal matter hits the fan when the truck’s actual owners finally catch up. Not to worry, 10k found an inside man to help. Okay, it’s a woman. A very angry woman named Sadie. She’s not part of Burr’s hillbilly paradise. She just wants to give Mercy to her second husband, who is enslaved by the town as part of their undead workforce. Her plan: Watch the town burn. It’s a good plan. I have no problem with it.
The Zeros might have differing opinions, seeing at Burrtown is one of their territories. When Sketchy and Skeezy and caught in their tangled lie net, Escorpion is brought in to judge their case. Sketchy does his best to blow enough hot air to inflate the Hindenburg. It’s not enough. Not when Skeezy’s bite victims provide damning testimony against them. Escorpion sentences the troublemakers and 10k to death by hanging.
Never fear, there’s a plan. I think. Sadie makes a run for the bridge near Burrtown where the crew plans to turn west again. How 10k knew they’d be there, I haven’t the foggiest idea, but not a lot makes sense on this show if you pay attention. Regardless of how they were alerted to the impending execution, the gang gears up and attempts a daring escape. Doc and Addy shoot down 10k and Sketchy the second Escorpion orders the execution to proceed. Skeezy dangles for a while before all’s clear and Addy shoots him down. While the others are doing the rescuing, Murphy and Sadie free the zombies. From there on out, it’s child’s play. The crew, plus their hilarious sidekicks, take off to the bridge ahead of a speedy zombie horde. Sadie lingers in Burrtown to give Mercy to her husband.
At the bridge, Sketchy and Skeezy stay behind to play with the zombies and their new weapons cache courtesy of Sadie. The others pile into a conveniently placed car, driving west once again.
Will they ever reach California at this rate? They’re down to one person with the cure in their blood since Lucy is with her adoptive parents. If anything happens to Murphy, they’re doomed. Yet he still thinks he’d make it anywhere without the crew. It’s The Murphy Show in his mind. Even if they do make good time on the road, someone may get annoyed enough to put a knife in his dome. Mankind has been through worse, right? What’s one measly apocalypse? They don’t need a savior whose ego can’t fit in Central Park.
For the first time in nearly five years, I’m throwing the B.S. flag on TWD. This episode is beyond ridiculous. It jumps from Rick shooting Pete to the Alexandria survivors staring at a walker horde numbering in the thousands. Yeah, that’s cool and all, but what are they doing there? Why are they futzing with this many walkers? Who is this guy arguing with Rick so much about a “dry run?” Dry run of what? Turning Daryl into walker bait, apparently. Just about everything before the opening credits makes little to no sense. It doesn’t get any better.
The episode bounces constantly from the present to the past. It’s confusing. Frustrating. Made me homicidal about twenty minutes into the episode when I finally just wanted to watch the plot in chronological order instead of the convoluted and drawn out method utilized in the episode. There are several moments when it cuts from a flashback—presented in black and white to lessen viewer confusion—to Rick and crew walking through the forest for ten seconds, then back to the Same Exact Scene in the flashback it cut from. Are you confused yet? Just typing it hurts my head. What were the writers, director, and editor smoking when they cobbled this idea together? Did they shoot up Krokodil in order to feel like a walker before locking themselves in the editing room? It’s the only way to make sense from the mess they made of the plot.
Sad thing is, the plot itself is pretty straight-forward. Let me try to sort it out and spare you the brain cramp I’m dealing with.
Deanna, kneeling in Reg’s blood, bonds with Father Gabriel for a brief moment after she realizes he was right to warn her about Rick. Abe takes Reg’s body to the cemetery to await burial. Pete’s family mourns their loss. Tara is awake and well in the clinic. Glenn and Nick stumble in fresh from their near-fatal fight. Maggie and Eugene fuss over their respective people. Tara is just happy the mullet survived. Carl is seen once in the episode, sitting on a roof with his kinda-girlfriend. Rick tells Morgan that he doesn’t taken chances. Morgan is locked in the prison room until morning after Rick collects his thoughts. They discuss the Wolves and what happened at the trucks. Daryl and Rick don’t see eye-to-eye on Daryl’s recruitment missions. Heath and his supply-fetching crew return to Alexandria. Eugene, in typical Eugene fashion, awkwardly allows them to drive through the gate. Morgan gets the penny tour of Alexandria. Father Gabriel sets to digging graves for Reg and Pete. Rick and Deanna agree—Pete will not be buried in town. Rick and Morgan take the killer’s body away to bury in a location none of the townsfolk will ever see. Ron, Pete’s eldest son, follows the men to the burial site. He ends up drawing a few walkers to their location. Rick saves the boy from falling off a cliff. He gives him a stern talk about how Ron can’t defend himself; Rick will teach him, but not right that second.
All of that was simply lead-up to discovering the thousands of walkers trapped in a quarry not too far from the town. This is how the people survived without learning how to defend themselves; most of the walkers are crammed in the quarry. A few escape, but not enough to pose a real threat. However, the semi-trucks the quarry’s former tenants put in place to defend themselves—that plan obviously didn’t work—aren’t so stable anymore. Rick sees the problem and brings it back to Deanna and the town. Heath fills in the information gaps since he already knew about the horde but didn’t consider it an issue. They must act now before one of the trucks barring the walkers falls. Carter, the new guy seen arguing with Rick in the opening scene, continues to argue with Rick. Big surprise.
They concoct a plan to move the walkers west, away from Alexandria. More arguing from Carter. Then Deanna and Rick corner him—he’s built a wall once, why can’t he build another barricade to keep the walkers off the road leading to their front gate? Obviously Carter agrees. The nexk set of flashbacks take place as they’re building the barricade. Daryl puts his foot down; he will be going to find new townspeople after they move the walkers. Carol continues to play “scared little lady” to fit in, however Morgan sees through it. He notices the way Carol is always watching, assessing the situation and confuses her with a cop. Maggie tells Tara about Nick’s part in Noah’s death and the murder attempt on Glenn. She gives Tara the power to spread the stories, let the town decide if Nick should be banished. For now Tara will follow Maggie’s lead when it comes to Nick. Rick corners Deanna on the premise of giving condolences about Reg. She sees through it and tells him to speak his mind. He tells her he will be training everyone how to defend themselves and use guns. Right on cue, walkers discover the build site. Rick holds back his crew, telling Carter and his friends to take care of the walkers with their shovels. That lasts about five seconds until they realize there’s too many walkers. The A Team steps in and clears the undead in a blink.
Later that night Eugene overhears Carter telling other Alexandria survivors he will kill Rick and take back the town. Eugene freaks, drops a jam jar, and is nearly shot in the head by Carter. His bacon is saved when Rick walks in and disarms Carter. The man is given another chance to work with Rick and his crew. The act of mercy doesn’t fool Morgan. He saw the real Rick in the armory with a gun pressed against Carter’s head. Grudgingly Rick admits he wanted to kill Carter just so he doesn’t screw up and get anyone killed. But he doesn’t have to pull the trigger himself; he realizes men like Carter will always end up dead. It’s just the way things happen.
In the armory again. Rick finally talks to Jessie, Pete’s widow. She tells him off for the way he man-handled and berated Ron. Understanding the need to learn self-defense, Jessie has been taking shooting lessons from Rosita and will teach her boys herself. Without Rick. Guess there’s no booty calls in his future.
The next day, the day before they play out Rick’s scheme, the townsfolk who volunteered to help with the plan meet to map out the route Daryl, Abe, and Sasha will drive in order to lure the walkers westward. Abe stops Sasha and asks her if she’s on the mission to die. She says, “No.” The crew stop by a tractor supply store with a dozen or so walkers trapped inside banging on the glass. The noise will draw the horde away from the planned route. Rick says they’ll come back before dark to clear the walkers. Glenn stops Nick to tell him he will sit out the following day; Nick isn’t ready to take on walkers again.
They arrive at the quarry. Rick gives a rousing speech about getting the walkers before they attack the town. Then things go wrong. One truck blocking the eastern path falls from the narrow road, giving walkers a direct route to their backyard. Instead of simply planning their attack, they must now act on it. Carter, of course, argues that they aren’t prepared.
This is actually where the episode begins, if you’ve lost track.
From here on out, it’s all walker action. Daryl plays pied piper, leading the initial rush from the quarry. Abe and Sasha meet him at the hill’s base. Together they lead the horde from the quarry east. While they’re driving, Glenn, Nick, and Heath double back to the tractor store to deal with the noisy walkers. After a false start on the killing, they eventually just blow out a window and open fire. Nick saves Heath’s bacon. It redeems him in Glenn’s eyes a little. Michonne, Rick, and Morgan wait on the far side of the barricade with flare guns. When the horde reaches them, they shoot westward, drawing the walkers’ attention toward where they need to shamble. At one point, a few walkers wander off. Abe jumps from the lead car and lures them back onto the road. When Sasha asks him why he’s acting like a nutjob—talking about pieces of Pete’s brain still in his ear—Abe says he’s just living large, much like Sasha when she snapped and slaughtered numerous walkers for fun.
Everything is going smoothly. Until Carter is grabbed and bitten by a walker. He squeals like a stuck pig, drawing walkers off the road. Luckily, or unluckily, Rick is nearby. He kills Carter. Michonne and Morgan lament the death, but both understand that’s just how it is nowadays. The others alongside the road fire their guns to draw the walkers back. It works. Well, for a moment. Not long after a horn sounds, distracting the walkers again. The horn is coming from Alexandria and now a few thousand walkers are out to find it.
Instead of presenting this version of the story, the showrunners decided to start with the zombie horde and edit the episode to flow inside out, starting in the middle for the present action and the beginning for the flashbacks. If they’d edited it better, I wouldn’t be so livid. Instead of large story chunks to lay groundwork, they cut it into tidbits, dropping ten seconds of storyline here and there amongst personal dramas and too-long clips featuring walkers, well, walking down a road. The undead action stopped being cool the second they hit the road. Then it became a rainy-day parade with no bathroom in sight, but you’ve down an entire pot of coffee just to be awake enough to watch the soggy festivities. It’s not fun. It makes no sense why you would put yourself through such torture for maybe a few enjoyable seconds as your favorite float passes. But it’s not the same. It’s not as entertaining. You begin to wonder if the parade will even be worth attending the following year if there’s a chance of rain.
I’ll tell you right now, if the show pulls this flashback stunt again, I’m not only done with the parade, I’ll forget there’s even a holiday to hold a parade for, rain or not. This episode was a waste of time. Whoever edited it and the people who then looked at this cut and said it was good to go need to relearn a few story-telling basics. The episode is a joke. My ability to take anyone in TWD’s post-production staff seriously is fractured. Just like my sanity after piecing the plot together for you guys. Here’s hoping the next episode makes more sense.
Matter of fact, once the cavalry arrives to restrain Jesus again, they somehow end up listening to what he has to say. They’re totally onboard with sending the town’s ruling council and the majority of their top-tier fighters with this stranger, as well, even after hearing he’d taken full stock of their supplies and people before essentially turning himself in to Rick. They were more suspicious of Morgan, the man who may be the sole reason Rick saw more than a week outside the hospital after his coma. Yes, Morgan snapped his Slim Jim after his son passed, but he is fully not crazy now and Carol still watches the man like he’s about the club them all to death and make sachets from their skin.
During the entire episode, Jesus is essentially Google—feeding Rick and Maggie exactly what they need to manipulate Gregory, Hilltop’s chicken-livered and misogynistic leader. It’s all too easy, this plot. Somehow we end up at the right place at the right time for these unfortunate people to demonstrate the kind of antics keeping Negan top dog in the county. But with all the bad Negan has done—namely, his men murdering a sixteen year old boy upon The Saviors’ first meeting with Hilltop—Jesus seems not concerned at all about being in the room with two men confessing to blowing up quite a few of the boogeyman’s goons. If that were me, I’d wash my hands of Alexandria, not matter how badly we needed another trading post.
Seriously? This is where the story goes? They veer from attempting to set up a functioning ecosystem in Alexandria to hired mercenaries who’ll just kill and take what they want. These are the people Rick wants to kill, usually. But when it suits them, murder is on the table. They wouldn’t need to kill Negan so soon if they’d stopped to do the boring things like clear fields. But they need food now. Hilltop has a functioning system in place which produces enough food to send half to Negan without forcing strict rationing in Hilltop. If Negan doesn’t need that food being dead and all, Alexandria will take it. Now. Half of whatever is on-hand is cheaper than the cumulative price to keep Negan at bay via bribes.
