I’ve made no secret about my recent disappointments with The Walking Dead, and now that Rick & co. are finally planning to stand up to Negan & co., I’m hoping things will get better. Wishing and hoping and praying.
This week brought together nearly the entire cast for the first time in AGES (though Carol’s still hiding in the woods), and they even got to meet King Ezekiel and his very large kitty cat.
The episode starts off with Father Gabriel, squirrelly as usual. He takes all the remaining food and weapons, steals a car, and just…leaves. Oddly he drops his Bible on the floor, so I guess he isn’t really trying for stealth.
Next we jump to Hilltop, where Gregory is, of course, being a dickface. Ugh that guy. He decides to disavow all knowledge of Alexandria and refuses to help Rick & the Gang against the Saviors. To the surprise of approximately no one.
After the meeting Enid takes everyone outside. Apparently she’s been doing some quiet recruiting, and several dozen Hilltoppers are ready to fight.
Jesus tells Rick it’s time to go to the Kingdom to meet King Ezekiel, and after talking their way past Ezekiel’s guards, everyone is impressed with the setup inside. It’s so peaceful and green, with food and clean clothes and people who don’t smell like roadkill (I imagine.).
They run into Morgan, who tells Rick and Daryl that he found Carol, brought her to the Kingdom where she was patched up, and now she’s gone. He doesn’t betray her “hermit in the woods” whereabouts, and Daryl looks peeved that his lady love up and left. He escaped from the Saviors and now there’s no one to pat his head and tell him to take a shower!
Anyway. They’re presented to Ezekiel and make their case. Morgan is largely sanguine when he hears about Glenn, Abraham, Spencer, and Olivia, so I mean. It’ll be interesting to see Carol’s reaction, if we ever get to.
Ezekiel invites them to stay the night, and the next day he tells them no, the Kingdom can’t help fight the Saviors. It’s too dangerous and they’ve already suffered too much. He does offer to let Daryl stay, though, since he’s a wanted man and the Saviors never come inside their gates.
On their way home, Rick & Crew encounter one of the Savior traps laid to kill encroaching zombie hoards. It involves a very large tripwire and a bunch of explosives. I guess Rosita knows about explosives? Because she disarms the bomb and explains how to harvest the rest of the dynamite and other boom boom bits.
The hoard is approaching, so she, Carl, and Tara start to fix the roadblock they dismantled a few minutes ago. The zombies are coming! Agghhh! Rick and Michonne hot wire a couple of cars (how do any cars still have juice in their batteries that’s what I wanna know) and drag the tripwire through the hoard, filleting zombies left and right.
They jump in the car with the others and drive off. The zombies set off some ordinance Rosita left behind because she thought it was junky, so hopefully the rest of the hoard is dead now too.
Back in Alexandria, the Saviors show up looking for Daryl. They tear the place apart, but ofc he stayed back in the Kingdom. Luckily. They also find the pantry completely empty, and as soon as they’re gone Rick asks Aaron what the hell happened.
He explains about Father Gabriel, and they find his Bible. Rosita is convinced he stole the food and rabbited, but Tara and Rick aren’t so sure. Rick finds a note that says, I think, “Bait,” and somehow he and Aaron connect that to where they’d been scavenging earlier.
They head out and follow his tracks to this kudzu-covered field, and all these people start pouring out from behind broken down RVs and tractor trailers. They all have weapons. They surround Rick & Friends, and my first reaction was “ah fuck good job, Gabriel,” but then this happened:
I sort of feel like I missed something there at the end. Who are these people? Why does it seem like Rick maybe knows them? How did Gabriel know to go find them? Are they his parishioners? Didn’t they get eaten?
I mean, it would clearly seem that they’re fighters, since they all have some form of improvised weapon, so that’s great for the cause…except the Saviors have guns and ammo and missiles and shit, and these guys have clubs and pitchforks. I know the Ewoks beat the Empire, but this is pushing it.
I was disappointed in Ezekiel, but it’s easy to see his pov. He has children to protect, families, and right now his agreement with the Saviors keeps them safe. Picking a fight with a group bigger, stronger, and better armed than you is never a good idea, and he hasn’t lost people the way Rick & the Supremes have.
I just wanna see Carol find out that Negan bashed Glenn’s head in with a baseball bat. Please, show, just give me that moment. Give me Carol Pelletier the Valkyrie ready to avenge Glenn Rhee. The women are the strong ones, truly, and so far Maggie and Sasha have proven that. Now let Carol give up her lady-hermit ways and shove Lucille down Negan’s throat.
That got violent I apologize. Back on topic…
I liked this episode. It was well-paced with tense action scenes that really worked. I kept having Lost flashbacks when they were playing with the dynamite, but luckily nobody got Arzt’d, and now the team has some explosives for when they go up against the Saviors.
Speaking of…we had to put up with Negan’s voice making annoying-ass fat jokes over walkie talkie, and that’s always fun. I love a good fat joke hahaha! Ugh. I was glad he sent his lieutenant guy to Alexandria, though, so at least I didn’t have to watch him swagger around like Jack Sparrow on his way to a leather party.
I just want Negan to lose, Rick & Team to win, and the show to end. I know that’s not happening any time soon, but a girl can dream, can’t she?
Images curtesy of AMC
