(All images used in this post are screencaps from AMC’s The Walking Dead unless otherwise specified.)
“Twice As Far”
“I wish it didn’t have to end. It was never my intention to hurt you. But this is how it has to be. We have so much here…people, food, walls…everything we need to live. But what we have, other people want, too, and that won’t ever change. If we survive this threat, an it’s not over, another one will be back to take its place.
I love you all here, and I’d have to kill for you.
And I can’t. I won’t.
Rick sent me away, and I wasn’t ever going to come back, but everything happened, and I wound up staying…but I can’t, anymore. I can’t love anyone because I can’t kill for anyone. So, I’m going like I always should have. Don’t come after me, please.”
💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔
Devastating, really, all around. It didn’t hit me as hard with the first watching, but Ep 614 really did it to me the rewatching, picture-taking, posting.
A very heartfelt (and heartbroken) Deadie to Denise Cloyd, and the incredible actress who plays her, Merritt Wever.
Doc Denise, you died doing one of the things you did best, giving the righteous biz, and even though your very real message got cut off mid-sentence, we, and Daryl and Rosita, heard every word. ❤ Mad props, much love. ❤
There was a whole segment of Ep 614 that I couldn’t even tackle, basically the apothecary scene to after the Denise-almost-gets-chomped-killing-the-Orange-Crush-Walker-and-throws-up-oatmeal-on-her-glasses-and-starts-yelling-at-Daryl-and-Rosita scene. It was too upsetting, too sad. This whole second half of TWD Season 6 is really doing a number on me, truth be told.
My dreams every night are basically set in the post-zombie apocalypse, with Negan and his cult army taking front stage center.
And now, there’s this:
It all makes me so stressed, and these days, when I’m stressed, I work in the garden a lot and make memes:
It seems in 2016, my playlists are quite often tribute playlists, honoring our fallen musical heroes and visionaries, and this playlist is no exception. In honor of Phife, Tip, and our sweet gang, I offer the following playlist, and will, in this and future posts, often and lovingly refer to Rick, Daryl, and our sweet, sweet gang as The Tribe. ❤
RIP Phife Dawg ❤
Much love, dear readers, and enjoy the playlist.
The Tribe Playlist
A Tribe Called Quest, “Can I Kick It?”
EPMD, “Please Listen To My Demo”
Deep Purple, “Hush”
Brilliant Colors, “Painting Truths”
Queen Latifah, “Love Again” (for Doc Denise <3)
A Tribe Called Quest, “Scenario”
The Hives, “Tick Tick Boom”
Converge, “Aimless Arrow”
Tijuana Panthers, “Time”
Dum Dum Girls, “Coming Down”
A Tribe Called Quest, “Buggin’ Out” (We #TWDFamily all be buggin’ out right about now…)
(All images used in this post are screen caps fromAMC’s “The Walking Dead” and“TalkingDead” unless otherwise specified.)
Well, that was fun!
Sad…yes.Dark, yes.Haunting…god, yes.
Admittedly, it is with some real trepidation, and assorted beverages, that I set out to craft this post, and face, at some point, the inevitable moment when I must revisit the harrowing scene where Sam, Jessie, Ron, and Carl each meet their respective, tragic fates amidst the swarm of savage walkers invading the streets of Alexandria.
I know that in the rewatchings, there will be many moments, and images, from that scene that will cling to me like burrs, imbed themselves into the depths of my psyche, and stay there for a long while.
This episode’s definitely going to leave a mark or two to remember it by.
Since Episode 609’s airing, there has been a constant stream of social media postings celebrating many of the key moments of “No Way Out” as we in TWD fandom strive to process the constantly-unfolding “new classic” moments of this iconic episode. We, the obsessed fans, show our devotion to the TWD creators, cast, and crew by shipping our favorite show, (and the characters we love so well) with the unparalleled devotion they deserve, in the form of screenshots, memes, videos, blogs, fan fiction, interviews, articles, etc.
This, of course, is as it should be.
Lucky for us, dear readers, great love, lasting love, is reciprocal. Real love, when it’s got the flows, is a mutual, symbiotic exchange, an ever-evolving dance of give and take between two (or more) parties. That, people, is how real love do.
And, lucky for us, dear readers, Robert Kirkman, Scott M. Gimple, and Greg Nicoteroknow this.
They are worldly men, with big hearts & mad skills.
They know when to bring the love, and with TWD‘s Season 6’s action-packed, chock-full of spills, thrills, and cold, ghostly chills (OMG, the Sam chomp scene…and then, Jessie…and Michonne skewering Ron…and Carl’s eye….and Rick…and Michonne…and OMG, Richonne!..and that Rick and Carl scene…and Daryl…and Glenn and Maggie…and Carol and Morgan….and Denise and The Wolf…and the epic Battle For Alexandria…and Rick Smash! taking on all the walkers, berzerker-style… I cannot…but I must, and I will, dammit, I will!) mid-season premiere, Episode 609, “No Way Out,” Robert Kirkman,Scott M. Gimple, and Greg Nicotero gave everyone in TWDfandom a big, red heart-shaped box, tied with a pink satin ribbon, like:
“Here you go, guys. Happy VDay.“ ❤
And we TWD fans receive this love offering joyfully, grateful for the respite, because we know that as we celebrate the victories and post the memes, trouble is brewing, and hard times are coming for Rick and the gang.
We know soon enough, dear readers, that we are going to get our asses kicked, but good, and we’re ok with that.
It is, of course, as it should be.
So, let us seize the day and celebrate some of the highlight scenes and pivotal moments from The Walking Dead’s Episode 609, “No Way Out.”
When we left Daryl, Sasha, and Abraham in the first four minutes of “No Way Out,” Daryl had just been roughly escorted to the back of the fuel truck, at Snidely’s orders, by one of Negan’s biker goons, “T,” while Sasha and Abraham were looking down the barrels of their own handguns as they were held at gunpoint by Snidely, who had just informed them that he was basically done talking…
Then, suddenly, Snidely brings the weapons down, by his sides, slumping into his bike’s seat, looks down, as if reconsidering...
Snidely looks up at Sasha and Abraham with a sheepish grin…
…then rolls his eyes upward…
“I’m not gonna kill you,” he tells Sasha and Abraham in a joking, friendly manner.
Sasha looks at Snidely, nods, unsure of how to interpret this…
…and turns to Abraham, questioningly, like, “Is this a sick joke, or what?”
Abraham seems to be wondering the same thing, does not take his eyes off Snidely.
“Wait,” Snidely says, as if reconsidering…again.
“…wait…”
Snidely looks up at Abraham and Sasha. “You know what? Yes, I am,” and with that shitty statement, Snidely starts to lift the handguns, ready to shoot Abraham and Sahsa…
We hear a hissing noise, and then a huge explosion engulfs Snidely and his crew of biker dicks in a huge fireball.
Later, dicks.
Hey Snidely, did anyone ever tell you that you have quite the combustible personality?
Well, rather, you had quite the combustible personality…
…because you, and your shitty crew, and your snide comments are in the past tense, now…
…thanks to our man, Daryl Dixon. ❤
Holding the smoking rocket launcher, Daryl surveys the burning remains of Snidely and his charred posse.
Daryl’s like, “Whoa!”
He looks down at the smoking weapon as Sasha and Abraham ease their way back to standing from where they dove for cover.
Coughing, sputtering, ears sure to be ringing, Sasha and Abraham survey the burning, blackened remains of the men who, just one minute before, almost killed them.
I love this look on Sasha’s face as she steps towards Daryl. She’s beaming at Daryl, and nodding, and dazed, and so stoked, like, “Well, how about that? Hell yeah, Daryl Dixon!“
Daryl turns away, says, “Sonuvabitch was tougher than he looked,”(which is pretty funny,because that guy, T, looked pretty tough). As he walks away, we see that Daryl has a bleeding stab wound on his left shoulder, leaving a bloodstain on his left angel wing. This image really saddened me, on many levels, one of them being how it seems to symbolize all of the wounds Daryl has taken right to the heart in his life. ❤ We love you forever, Daryl Dixon, and we are with you, always, every step of the way. ❤
“Did he cut you?” Sasha asks. “A little,”Daryl replies.
Daryl turns, and classic Daryl Dixon style, says, “What a bunch of assholes!”
Sasha laughs, delighted, lays her hands on Daryl’s shoulder, causing him to wince slighty, probably both from the shoulder being tender and Daryl’s general cageyness about letting others touch him. Sasha, however, is family, and this is the first time we have seen her smile like this since, well, Bob…and certainly since Tyreese.“C’mon, let’s get you fixed up athome,” Sasha says, getting to play the role of bossy, loving, sassy sister once again. ❤
“Yes ma’am,” Daryl agrees. Still beaming, Sasha follows Daryl as they take one last look at dead-ass T and climb into the truck.
Abraham turns to take one last look at the blown up bikers and in classic Abraham-style, tosses out the last word:
“Nibble on that.”
Standing ovation, cheers all around to that incredible scene, especially to our man, DarylDixon, for proving his constancy and resourcefulness by saving the day, and the peeps, once again.
Deadie of highest order, The MVP Award, to our man, Daryl Dixon, and to the fine, fine actor who plays him, Norman Reedus.
How we love thee, Daryl Dixon/Norman Reedus!❤
There will be more star players awarded by the end of this post, but we have to take a moment to show the love, “right out of the gate.” ❤
We can only imagine the awesomeness of Daryl’s silent, stealth takedown of T behind Patty the fuel truck’s back bumper. God love him, because we sure do! Five or six minutes into the S6 mid-season premiere, and we are already awarding our man mad props and highest accolades.
I am also loving seeing Sasha blossoming once again, jolted back to life after her and Abraham’s brush with death. That beaming smile…so great to see that again! The banter back and forth between her and Abraham spoke to a deepening connection between the two. Very interested to see how this all plays out.
And, while we rejoice, I do feel the need to point out that there are speculations online about this scene, about the sight of a far-off car way down the road behind Snidely and his fellow “chodes on choppers” as he goes through his comedy routine of, “I’m not gonna kill ya, oh, wait, yeah I am.”
My WD buddy sent the following link to myself and our new team member, The Rookie. (Very cute and fabulous and fun, loves to research TWD, loves The Reedus…welcome tothe fold, Rookie! <3):
When I rewatched, I kept watching back in that corner, and I did see something that gleamed like a faraway car appear in the distance. As the article in the link says, there is speculation that the car may be Negan himself, or perhaps one of Negan’s scouts, who speeds off as the explosion happens.
It’s a compelling theory, and there is definitely a car back there if you watch the link’s video footage. At the first watching, I had wondered about their leaving the burnt remains of Snidely and the biker gang behind, seeing that the road where Daryl, Abraham, and Sasha meet up with Snidely’s road block was probably a well-known and well-utilized road & route for Negan and his operation, and that sooner or later, somebody was going to come up on the charred remains of the biker gang and report back to Negan, who would start sleuthing who the perp(s) were and get to plotting his revenge.
Because it just seems like Negan isn’t the kind of guy who lets such insults slide. Negan feels like he might just be the reigning Godfather of the PZA…and if he is that guy, then I don’t think that guy lets shit like blowing up his motorcycle scouts slide.
Negan be like, “Oh, no they didn’t!“
<Sipping Stella, trying not to have a bad-boy crush on Negan.>
Replace. ❤ There, that’s better. In this post, I am going to feature some of my favorite recent offerings from various TWD-loving IG accounts. ❤ Enjoy, and if you aren’t already, give them a follow!
Meanwhile, back at Alexandria:
When the gang is able to break away from the walker herd, they duck behind a bush for a brief rest. Rick turns to the others and outlines a new plan: there are too many walkers, too spread out, for the few weapons and flares in the armory to take care of. Rick lays out a plan to head out to the quarry and recover the vehicles there, come back, and I guess, lead the walkers away from Alexandria. As Michonne watches out (looking majorly badass while doingso), Rick tells the group that they need as many drivers as possible.
Jessie, after a moment’s hesitation, agrees with Rick’s plan…Rick sees the hesitation, waits, then listens as Jessie voices her concerns about Judith’s safety if they set off for the quarry. As always, excellent boyfriend behavior exhibited by our man, Rick Grimes, and good looking out once again by Jessie.Props. <3<3
Rick turns, thinking, and we see that Gabriel has overheard this conversation, and a light has turned on inside him…this is his chance to step up, to redeem himself. Gabriel recognizes the opportunity immediately, says:
“I’ll take her…keep her safe in my church until you all lead the walkers away.”
Rick looks into Gabriel’s eyes, measuring this.I looked into Gabriel’s eyes as well, and after a brief wave of creepiness and trepidation, I did believe Gabriel would keep his word and do his best to protect Judith…and as we’ve seen in previous episodes, Gabriel def has some walker killing skills…time to put that shit to good use, son!
Mama Michonne is not taking any chances. “Can you do this?” she asks softly, like, ‘I will fuck you up if you fuck this up, got me?’ Gabriel gets her, says, “I’m supposed to…I have to.”
Gabriel turns to Rick. “I will,“ he vows. (Well, alrighty then, Gabriel. Don’t fucking blow it…or else.)
Carl passes Baby Judith to Gabriel…what a horrible, scary world to be a sweet little baby in! 😦
Jessie and Rick look on as Gabriel gathers up the baby, covers her in his cloak slimed with walker guts…one of the things that really worked for me with Jessie and Rick’s connection was that they both knew what it was really like to be a parent, and could understand/support each other in that. Jessie would have been a good mom figure to Judith and Carl. 😦 ❤
As Gabriel turns to go, Jessie has, voices the idea, “Take Sam.” Sam protests, and despite Jessie’s insistence that he would be safer in the church, with Gabriel…
…Sam insists on staying with her, continuing on to the quarry. “I’m not leaving you,” Sam tells his mother.
After Sam’s repeated assurances that he will be ok, that he wants to continue on, Jessie,God help her,relents to her son’s wishes (despite not looking too convinced…the shot pans around to the others, and they are not looking too convinced either)…
…but, Jessie gives in to Sam, thus sealing her fate, and her sons’, as well. 😦
Gabriel turns to Rick, vows, “I’m going to keep her safe.”
Rick looks at Gabriel, says simply, humbly, “Thank you.”(One of the first things that I fell in love with about RickGrimes was his impeccable good manners when someone did him a solid.The man is just solid gold, always. <3)
As Gabriel begins towards the church, Michonne shoots him a final stink eye, like, “I’m watching you, got that?”
They all watch as Gabriel walks away with Judith concealed under his cloak, making his way quietly, evenly, into the throng of walkers. He is doing well, not calling attention to himself.
Awwwww…. <3<3
Jessie looks Rick in the eye, tells him earnestly, “Hey, he’s going to make it, ok? “ Jessie gives Rick’s hand an extra squeeze.“I know it.”
After a moment, Rick takes Sam’s hand, and one by one, they begin to make their way back into the flow of walkers. Carl looks towards Ron, who hangs back, hesitating, and offers Ron his hand…
Again, Ron hesitates, looks down at Carl’s proferred hand a moment…
…before taking it in a rather dickish and aggressive fashion (Ithought,anyway). (Ugh, you’re such a chip off your dickhead dad, McSlappy!)
Meanwhile, in another part of Alexandria, Tara is peering through the barred window of the home that she, Rosita, Eugene, Carol and Morgan is safely encased in…you can tell she is peering out for any sign of poor Denise, who was taken against her will by the dark-haired young Wolf.
Outside, countless walkers pass, some lurching along in a slow, plodding fashion, others zigzagging in a shuffling sidestep, heads jerking discordantly as long-dead nerves fire intermittently in the most basic arc. a mere brain-stem connection.
There are so many walkers pouring past the barred window.
Tara turns from the window, says, “We have to try.“ (Man, poor Tara is having some pretty horrible luck dating women in these postapocalyptic times!)
Rosita, who is ever-so-hot, and ever-so-wise, sez no way, there are too many of them.
The girls go back and forth, Tara saying that the Wolf will kill Denise, and Rosita countering that they won’t even be able to get to her (through all those walkers).
Like a boss, Rosita lays it down, hard truth delivered firmly, but with love: They have one gun, and there are too many of “those things” out there. The Wolf needs Denise, as he’s sick, and she’s a doctor. (I hadn’t really thought about that angle of it, but that does make sense…he would have a vested interest in making sure Denise made it with him through the walkers.) Rosita points out that the Wolf knows how to survive out there, and that she, Tara, and Eugene need to stay back and make sure Carol and Morgan are ok…when they wake up, then they can make a plan.
A noise from the other room startles them, and they go in to see Eugene helping Carol come to standing. She’s pretty jacked, you can tell, after Morgan threw her down on that concrete floor (thereby earning himself quite the drop in approval ratings from my corner of the universe).
Like, I empathize and all, and I have love for Morgan. I know that he is trying to apply Eastman’s style of kung fu quite literally to his own life, to help him have a code to live by, but Eastman’s methods apply way more in theory than in actual practice around these parts.
Eastman had indulged his deep bloodlust desire for vengeance to the max, building a prison cage inside his mountain home to imprison the man who killed his family, and destroyed Eastman’s life, and exacting his vengeance by watching the man starve to death in that cage, Eastman keeping him alive enough to prolong the man’s suffering while watching it, 24/7 if he wanted to…like bingewatching your revenge.
I have thought about that Eastman storyline, and I tried to imagine what that would have been like, how long it would have taken, what kind of interactions he and the man had while the man starved to death, day after day without food, and Eastman had total access to watch the whole horrific day-to-day process unfold.
Basically, people, like I’ve said before, I know it isn’t real, but I still obsess, and I have formed a personal theory that Eastman was able to indulge his darkness, his obsessive desire for revenge, fully, and come out the other side, perhaps sobered and sickened by the reality of what he did to the man who killed his family. Dude, starving someone to death who is imprisoned in a cage that is basically right in your living room, where most people’s tv’s would be, is some pretty burly shit.
So, Eastman indulged his darkness, fully, and was living in isolation, so he had time, space, and distance to then immerse himself in his quest for peace and quietude: reading, meditating, practicing with his staff, working in his garden, practicing nonviolence, vegetarianism, embracing life as something precious. Those lofty ideals that Eastman espoused were much easier to practice safely removed from others, especially in the days after a zombie apocalypse.
The way I see it, Morgan’s path is vastly different from Eastman’s. Every time Morgan hesitates in killing someone, or something, who is clearly a threat and who will remain a threat, well, that hesitation seems to come back and bite him, or someone close to him, in the ass. Little Duane was killed, in a horrible twist of irony, by his undead mother, Jenny, who Morgan remained unable, or unwilling, to rekill, though he had many opportunities to do so, and knowing, deep down, that he needed to.
The Wolf boys who Morgan refused to kill found Aaron’s man purse, and came and slaughtered many residents of Alexandria, and then, those selfsame Wolf boys that Morgan continued to spare tried to ambush and kill Rick Grimes in the RV, and now, one has taken Doctor Denise as a hostage and is trying to cross the sea of walkers to scramble up and over the fence…to do something, I’m not sure what, but I’m pretty sure it involves making Denise a walker, herself, at some point. (Honestly, I am still not sure what these freaking Wolves actually believe in…for a sect of humanity that seems to devalue life so much, that dark-haired Wolfboy sure didn’t seem to be in any hurry to become a walker himself, am I right? Like, hypocrite much?)
Anyhow, not sure how all this rant got started, but basically, I think Morgan is full of crazy beans and needs to get over it, like yesterday, or he can just go free-agent or some shit and get traded to another community, because I do not think the chemistry is there if he continues on this foolhardy crusade of his.
Carol seems mos def in my camp, as she looks down at Morgan’s unconscious form, asking Rosita if she can borrow her gun, so she can take a sweep around the brownstone and see if there are “any other surprises” waiting for them in there.
And then, Morgan wakes up, looks around…
…asks, “Where is he?”
Nobody has the heart to answer right away. Morgan then asks, “Where’s Denise?” to which Carol guesses, immediately, “He took her,” (while actually managing to hold herself backfromadding,“You fucking idiot,” to Morgan). I thought this omission showed some real restraint on Carol’s part. Props, New Carol.
“Didn’t he?” New Carol presses Rosita, who answers without words, slowly coming to standing, looking at Carol and nodding, then pulling out her handgun, silently handing it to Carol, who stalks off angrily to take a sweep of the rest of the house.
Morgan’s eyes register his dismay as he realizes the truth of what has happened, while Eugene, no stranger to fucking shit up royally for others, gently encourages Morgan to stand, and offers his assistance in helping Morgan up off the floor.
While that hot drama unfolds in the brownstone, we see an ariel shot of two figures, fleet of foot and nimble of mind, dart across the expanse between the fence and the church in short, well-timed dashes, ducking behind bushes, signs, undetected by the milling walkers, until they are able to scramble up the church steps and get inside safely.
We recognize these figures, with their speed and savvy, as Glenn and Enid. #superteam
…while outside, in another part of town…
The young Wolf looks over as Denise bravely tries to keep her calm, and composure, as they hunker down and wait for an opening in the steady stream of walkers, just an iron railing away, while taking momentary refuge in the downstairs bricked-in porch/patio of one of Alexandria’s brownstones. The Wolf narrows his eyes and smiles at this, touches his gun to Denise’s back, says, softly, “Easy.”
Meanwhile, once safely inside, Glenn bars the church doors and instructs Enid to look for anything that may have been stashed or hidden, even inside torn-out pages of a bible. As Enid looks up at a proverb painted on the church’s wall, Glenn continues, instructing Enid to look for any cloths or robes, curtains that could be tied together for Maggie to climb down off the platform she is trapped up on, while a swarm of walkers press and paw at her from below.
Honestly, at the first watching, I was kind of bored with Enid’s process…sorry, but I was like, “C’mon, Enid, didn’t we do this already, like in that town, in that apartment, then out in the bushes, outside the wall, in the tree, climbing up to the wall? “ Like, I don’t know, didn’t versions of this conversation happen like ten times already, or am I being very creative with my memory (again)? I was like, “Boring.” My friends were more tolerant with Enid’s process, so I shut up and sipped champagne and tried to emulate their good example. And they were right. Sorry, Enid. I have a shot attention span. I know you are a young girl and Glenn had an important message to impart.I’s a dick.
“Faith without works is dead.”
Meanwhile, crouched outside the brownstone as countless walkers stream past, just above their heads, Denise has her eyes closed, breathing through bursts of fear, and panic, that bubble up. The Wolf regards her closely.
“How things turn,” muses the Wolf, watching Denise like a movie.
Glenn finally turns around and is like, “WTF Enid?” and Enid’s all like, staring and mopey and like, “When I wanted to run, you said that’s how you lose people…” and then it was all like, wah, wah, wah, blah, blah, blah, my parents died, everybody dies, what’s the point? and Glenn was like, “You do it because you’re here, they’re not, and so you do it for them,” and Enid was like, “Ohhhh…”(and I was like,“Come on, already!”) and Enid’s all like, “Who were your people ?”
And Glenn’s like…
“Who are my people? Girl, I’ll tell you who my people are…”
And then, Enid finally fucking got it, and I was like, “OMG, finally!” and Enid was like, “Oh, look, I found a gun in the bible!” and Glenn was like, “Good job,” and I was all like…
“Oh, YAY, Enid. You go, girl. Now, can we please move the fuck along to the other storylines? Thanks!“
So, moving right along, to other storylines…
The Wolf begins to prepare Denise for the next step of the plan, “When there’s an opening…”
“…we’ll make a break for that tower, over there.” Denise tries to convince the Wolf to leave her: “No, I’ll just slow you down…”
Poor Denise is not to be let off the hook that easily, however. The Wolf leans in to her. “Denise?You’re here…with me.”
“I need you.”
The Wolf pauses, then smiles horridly, “Maybe I want you to stay…because I’m enjoying your company so much.“
Enid, meanwhile, flips the script on Glenn when he tries to order her to stay behind in the church while he goes to rescue Maggie…
Back in the church, Enid basically pulls a classic Glenn Rhee manuever on Glenn and tells him, “You were right, and I’m here now, so I’m going out there, and I’m helping you!” Enid then hatches a pretty brilliant plan involving Glenn distracting the walkers while she helps Maggie, who is injured and needs help, over the wall. “We do it together,” Enid says. Then she laughs, shakes her head with a shrug. “I’m just going to follow you anyway.”Glenn looks at her like he’s looking in the mirror. (Well, alrighty then, Enid! I like you so much better when you’re not being totally annoying.)
Meanwhile, the Wolf continues to chat up Denise. “I liked what you said before,” he says, by way of opener.
“That I wasn’t born this way?” the Wolf continues. “You’re right…I changed.“
The Wolf looks at Denise intently. “And now, I want to help you change.” (Oh, fuck, it’s some bad, bad fucking news when the dude with reanimated torsos hanging from meat hooks in the truck trailer says that line!)
The Wolf continues, telling Denise that she’s being given “a gift.” The young Wolf looks upward, muses aloud that, maybe, one day, Denise will realize that…or maybe she won’t.
Denise be like, “Well, I don’t know about all that, but I do know one thing…your breath smells like a walker ate a dead, decomposing skunk, and then shit it into your mouth. Seriously, dude, keepfucking breathing on me like that, and I’m gonna jump up and run screaming into that sea of walkers out there, just to get the fuck away from those mossy-ass teeth and that Breath of Death of yours.”
In the next scene, night is falling, and the walkers continue to swarm the streets of Alexandria. Their hissing and snarling fill the air.
Rick leading the way, the gang makes their way carefully through the savage walkers.
At first, Sam is holding it together pretty well, until some particularly messed-up walkers come snarling close by…
Butterface Walkers be like, “Yo, young homie, looking good, son! Looking fresh.“
And then, Creepy Carol’s lilting voice begins to fill poor young Sam’s head, reciting the fairy tale that is both a promise and a curse:
“The monsters will come…”
“…and you won’t be able to run away…”
“…when they come for you.”
These images seem like they are straight from the nightmares poor Sam must have started having that very night after Creepy Carol terrorized him into keeping her secret about stealing guns from the armory…
(Damn, Creepy Carol, did you have to get so jiggy with your scary tale? That poor kid never had a chance…all he wanted was the cookies, Creepy Carol. All the poor kid wanted was the cookies!)
Creepy Carol’s voice over continues, “The ones out there, and they will tear you apart…”
“…and eat you up…”
“…all while you’re still alive.”
And with those words, the curse was cast upon the doomed young Sam…
…for once the words fell from Creepy Carol’s lips, they imbedded themselves into Sam’s fertile young mind, and black vines of terror and foreboding began on grow wild…
…until they choked out the light inside the young boy, leaving only darkness within.
Sam stops short, staring at the walker child, and when Jessie looks into her son’s eyes, she sees his terror, his paralysis…and the fear in her eyes grows because she’s seen this before with him…she knows this is bad.
As Carl looks out, alarmed, Jessie tries to coax her son, “Sam?Come on…come on.Sweetheart? Sam…”
But Sam does not, cannot, heed his mother’s quiet urging...he is frozen with terror.
Jessie pulls at her son’s hand, but Sam does not respond, does not budge, will not move…
Rick joins in, and we hear his voice, Jessie’s voice, softly calling to Sam in alarmed whispers… “Sam? Sam! Come on, honey, come with me.” But poor Sam is in the grip of his worst nightmare come to life…
To his credit (which is limited at best), Ron tries to encourage his brother, “Sam! You can do it! Sams, look at Mom!“ But Sam shakes his head, becoming more and more upset, agitated, starts to cry…his heart pounding, body temperature rising, blood surging to the skin’s surface and to extremities to be ready to fight, or flee…and predators, like the walkers, can sense, smell, prey in distress…
Jessie kneels down to Sam’s eye-level, says more firmly for Sam to come now, come with her…
Poor Sam, paralyzed by his fear, whimpers, “I want to.”
This shot really gets me…it felt to me like Sam had already resigned himself to his unspeakable fate in the moment before the walkers’ attack…
And then…oh, God! OH, GOD, oh, God, oh God.
OMFG.
Like, seriously, people…
…I may need to go on antidepressants after rewatching this scene. OMFG, is that a chunk out of Sam’s shoulder in Take A Bite Outta SamWalker’s mouth? Jesus Christ…
At this point, I usually insert a technical factoid to distance myself from the horror of what is happening in a scene, so here goes: On Talking Dead, Greg Nicotero explained how the special effects crew designed special dentures for the walker actors in this scene. The dentures contained fake blood capsules that burst when the actor bit down on them, creating the effect of the blood streaming from poor Sam’s head as the walker bites down on it.
As the walkers engulf the little boy, poor Sam unleashes a blood curdling scream that has haunted my dreams, as well as some of my waking hours, since…
And, of course, the horror is just beginning…
Poor Jessie… 😦
…ughhh…
I…cannot.(Honestly, of all the gnarly and heartbreaking screenshots I have ever posted on this site, I think this shot, of Jessie holding her son’s hand as he gets eaten alive by walkers, has gutted me more than any other image I have posted.I am so glad this shit isn’t real, that Major Dodsonand Alexandra Breckenridge are alive and well. (Andp.s., Robert Kirkman, Scott M.Gimple, and Greg Nicotero, I will be sending you three the bill for all the therapy I am going to need after watching, and rewatching this scene in the writing process.Bravo,sirs…well played, wellplayed.)
Ron looks on in disbelief as Michonne’s eyes register the horror and gravity of their situation.
And, when a walker looks up a moment, tearing away a bleeding piece of her son’s flesh, muscle…
…Jessie unleashes a primal scream of a mother’s anguish as Rick, in shock at the sudden, horrific turn of events, looks helplessly on…
This scream, of course, gets the attention of nearby walkers…
…as Carl (whose hand Jessie still grips) and Ron realize, with growing alarm, what is surely about to happen…we her Rick’s voice, sounding so far away through her echoing screams, “Jessie...Jessie!“
As her son’s hand slackens in her grip, Jessie’s gaze deadens as she stares, fixated, at the grisly sight before her, of a group of walkers feasting on her youngest son, tearing him apart before her very eyes.
Carl, pale, panicked, sweaty, calls to Jessie in a frantic whisper, tries to pull her away, but she cannot, does not, heed him…
“You have to come!” Carl begs her. Jessie pulls back, in shock, seems unable to process this horror, this nightmare.
The walkers pounce on Jessie so quickly…
…it takes Jessie a moment to register what is happening to her.
By the time she realizes, it is already too late. The walkers descend on poor Jessie.
“No,” Rick keeps muttering, in dull shock and grief, watching the lovely, good woman who he cared so deeply for suffer such an angonizing, cruel fate…
Carl’s voice cuts through Rick’s reverie: “Dad…Dad!” Rick looks over, dazed, to see Carl’s hand still held fast in Jessie’s death grip…
As if in a dream, Rick lifts the axe he is holding, and after the barest hesitation, brings it down on Jessie’s arm…
…and begins to hack away at it to save his son.
With a final swing of the axe, Rick severs poor Jessie’s arm through, freeing Carl. The walkers pile savagely on Jessie, pulling her down to the ground in frenzy of feeding.
Through all this, a handgun (I forget whose gun this is…anyone?) falls into the grass, unheeded by Rick, Carl…but someone, someone who has now lost everyone closest to him, and who blames Rick Grimes for this, notices the gun, lying there.
Carl whirls at the sound of the handgun’s safety being released, sees Ron, who is clutching the gun, pointing it at Rick, behind Carl. “You…” Ron grinds out, staring at Rick with unbridled hatred.
“You!”Ron says, again, pointing the gun at Rick.
Rick says nothing, does not try to defend himself, or talk Ron down.
Before Ron can fire the gun at Rick, Michonne comes from behind, and in one quick upward thrust…
…and skewers the shit out of Ron McSlappy, son of an abusive a-hole, bearer of a legit grudge against Rick Grimes, but…we can’t have you killing our main man, McSlappy.Michonne no likey when some dicknuts is trying to kill her man, Rick Grimes…remember that time when the Gov was beating Rick almost to death at the Battle Royale for the prison?
Then, suddenly, Snidely brings the weapons down, by his sides, slumping into his bike’s seat, looks down, as if reconsidering…
Ron, in his dying throes and jerks, does manage to squeeze off one shot, involuntarily, as he goes down. Michonne pulls her blade back quickly, silently, as Rick nods his thanks to her and walkers fall upon Ron’s dying body.
Rick then turns to his son…and sees…
“Dad?”
“Carl!” Rick gasps, stricken at the sight of his son, blood pouring out of the hole where Carl’s right eye used to be.
Carl collapses to the ground. Rick rushes to his unconscious son and quickly scoops him up into his arms.
Wild with anguish, Michonne hacks a clear path through the swarm of walkers as Rick runs behind her, Carl bleeding out in his arms.
Holy crap, gang, I tell you…there isn’t enough wine in the world to make that shit go away anytime soon.
(Side note, I was still working on this scene when TWD’s Episode 609 aired this Sunday. It did my soul good to watch the next episode, and celebrate the classic Rick/Daryl hotness, as well as the new man talent (I ❤ Jesus), but it definitely was surreal to have to go back, after the watching of that frolicsome episode, and taking part in the Richonne celebration, and reimmerse myself into recounting this dark scene.
Honestly, t kind of messed me up, and I actually woke up the next day exhausted, run-down, fighting off a cold, and asking myself, for the umpteenth time, “Why the hell am I putting myself through this?”
I know why, loves…I think I do, anyway. It’s inexplicable, but it’s something bigger than me. It’s like some kind of Field of Weird Dreams:“If you write it, it will come.”
What will come, I have no idea, but this crazy project has been a life-changing endeavor, as it keeps me writing, and creating, and the readership is ever-increasing, at an unprecendented rate, with views from all over the world.
And, thanks for that, gang. Thanks for reading my crazy-ass blog.
It means the world…it really does. ❤ <3<3<3
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Now, where were we? Ah, yes, having survived the Jessie/Sam/Ron/Carl scene portrayal, let us step back and enjoy a couple of related IG postings:
This post features the amazing makeup and technical effects that went into creating the illusion of Carl’s eye wound.The makeup effects team created an incredibly realistic dummy in Chandler Riggs’ likeness, complete with eye wound, which was used in certain scenes, like the scene where Rick is running, carrying his wounded, unconscious son through the walker horde. An image of the eye wound was also digitally superimposed onto Chandler Riggs’ face (shown in the last panel) in the final edits of the scene where Carl looks up Rick, immediately after getting shot by Ron.
And this post (by the always-hilarious @therickygrimes ) is one of my personal favorites in regards to the character of poor, doomed Sam.
And, mad props, and a round of Deadies to:
1) Alexandra Breckenridge, the lovely and talented actress who plays Jessie Anderson.
Jessie, girl, despite my initial resistance to your coming on the scene, I did grow to have love for you. Respect. You did not deserve what you had to endure, both in your life, and inyour death. I am glad you got to kiss Rick Grimes, and hopefully, you were able to knock out a quick one with him in that garage before all the shit went down.
RIPJessie Anderson ❤
2) Major Dodson, who plays Sam Anderson, the sweet, doomed boy who went in search of cookies, and found himself a world of shit, instead…sorry, little buddy. That’s some rough breaks, right there. I love me some cookies, as well, and I could see myself getting into some similar trouble in the PZA in my endless quest for tasty night snacks.
Chris Hardwick posted this hilarious IG posting comparing a childhood picture of himself next to the talented young actor, Major Dodson, with the hashtag #IAmSam
RIP Sam Anderson ❤
And, finally:
3) A very special Deadie to Austin Abrams, the handsome and talented young actor who plays the complex character of Ron Anderson(a.k.a. Ron McSlappy).
Austin, it is not an easy thing to play a character who is generally disliked by an overprotective, somewhat obsessive fan base, but you really did an amazing job. Baller, truly. ❤
May your young star continue to rise…you’ve def got the goods, son.
And, Ron, well, you started out sweet, then downward-spiraled pretty quickly into becoming a bitter young D-bag.
Carl said it best, when he told you, straight up, that “Your dad was an asshole.”
He was, and for that, I am so sorry. And, your beef with Rick Grimes was definitely understandable, but we can’t have you shooting at the man, Ron, and we certainly cannot have you shooting out Carl’s eye.
That aggression simply will not stand, Ron McSlappy.
(I think, once again, Talking Dead’s In Memoriam said it best):
RIP Ron McSlappy
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Meanwhile, back at the brownstone:
As Tara tirelessly keeps watch out the window for any sign of Denise…
…and Morgan mopes…
…Eugene ponders the machete he holds in his hands.
Sporting both a game face and the Front Lines mullet, Eugene looks up at Rosita, who is watching him with narrowed eyes.
“Sooner or later, we’re fightin’ our way out of here,” Eugene says. Rosita regards Eugene a moment more, says nothing, then turns her gaze away.
“I am fully aware that you know that we will,” Eugene continues, in classic #EugeneSpeak.
Rosita looks back at him. “Yeah,” she confirms, arms crossed, “We will.” Rosita then narrows her eyes at Eugene. “Not you,“she says, somewhat bitterly, and begins to move past him.
Eugene protests, “Well, by my reckon…” Rosita cuts him off with a sharp hiss. “Eugene!” she says, arms crossed and eyes shooting daggers down at him. “Come on!” Rosita stalks off angrily…
…leaving Eugene sitting there, holding the machete and rocking the Butt-Hurt mullet. She’s right…how many times did she, Abraham, and so many others fight off walkers to protect him in the past, while he faked having the key to curing the walker epidemic? (Gotta say, really loving this shot of Eugene.)
Meanwhile, the dark Wolf peers through the railing at the walkers moving away, en masse. “They’re moving towards the gunfire,” he says, then muses, “I suppose someone thought they could put up a fight…I guess you all thought that.“
“We did put up a fight,” Denise replies. “That’s why your friends are dead.” (Oh SNAP,Doctor Denise!You throw some shade at that bad man, girl! )
Denise cuts a sideways look as the Wolf agrees easily, “Yeah…we should have waited, and watched a little longer. I was selfish.” The Wolf smiles, remembering, as he moves behind Denise to her left side, watching the flow of the walkers. “But, if I hadn’t been so selfish, I wouldn’t have gotten that I.V.”
Clocking the walkers, the Wolf tells Denise, “We’re gonna find a gap, and GO…up that guard tower, and over the wall.”
The young Wolf then turns to Denise, looks at her intently, grabs her arm.
Denise turns to look at him, afraid.
“You don’t need to be afraid,” the Wolf tells her. Denise turns her eyes back to the steady flow of walkers in front of them, turns back to look the Wolf in the eye.
“Go to hell,” Denise tells him.
The Wolf replies, “You need to know, it’s safer out there than it is in here.” Denise does not reply. “Start moving,” the Wolf commands her, “Start moving.” Denise is left no choice but to nod, wordlessly, and starts moving towards the stairs, the Wolf right behind her.
As they slowly make their way up the steps, the Wolf instructs Denise, “Straight up the guard post, and do not stop…go!“
Using Denise as a human shield, the Wolf pushes her forward as they begin to dash across an opening in the stream of walkers.
They zigzag past the walkers, but see that there is one walker blocking their way to the ladder, and another walker or two turning towards them…
Post Blocker Walker be like, “Hey, y’all know where the dang all-you-can-eat dinner buffet is? I been lookin’ all over the place for it, and I cain’t find it anywhere!”
“Owww!Goddam, now that hurts like a sonuvabitch! Y’all young people nowadays got shit for manners, you know that?”
Early Bird Special Walker grabs Denise and starts shaking her. “You gonna tell me where that damn all-you-can eat buffet is, you hear?“
“I got all dolled up for the fancy party, wore my purtiest dress, got my hair did and everything! Now, I’m a gonna get me somma that all-you-can-eat buffet, so you better just start talking, missy!”
After killing Post Blocker Walker, the young Wolf turns around, looking for Denise, and sees her trying to fend off Early Bird Special Walker. Now, the Wolf has a clear path to the ladder, is right there, but he rushes back to help Denise, stabbing Early Bird Special Walker in her rotting skull, rekilling her.
“Aaaahhhh! That ain’t no way to treat a lady, no sir!Lookit what you gone and done…you done ruined my fancy hairdo!”
As soon as the she-walker slumps down, dead for good, You Had This Coming Walker takes a bite out of the Wolf’s left arm.
Gnarly! As You Had This Coming tears a huge chunk out of the Wolf’s arm, the young man howls with pain and rage and rekills the walker with a downward stab to the head.
As the young man’s arm begins bleeding out, Denise stares down in momentary shock, then she looks up at the Wolf. “You get me to the infirmary,” she tells him, “and I’ll save your life.” He looks at her in shock. “I’ll save your life,” she says, again.
The Wolf and Denise begin to run back towards the infirmary...
Meanwhile, Carol has done a sweep of the brownstone, and looks out the window, upstairs, down at the streets filled with walkers. She sits down heavily, her head in her hand. She looks so over it.
Carol hears a noise, jumps up, gun raised, sees it is Morgan, who approaches slowly, looking somewhat shamefaced.
Carol’s face, as she registers who it is, shows her anger. She lowers the gun, turns back to the window. Morgan comes into the room cautiously, towards Carol, not taking his eyes from her.
“You had a child…right?“ Morgan guesses, astutely.
Carol does not reply. “A husband?” Morgan guesses, again, and Carol’s eyes close a moment at that. “I didn’t want to hurt you,” Morgan explains, by way of apology. “I had to stop you.”
Carol calls Morgan out, her voice shaking with anger.. “You saved him for you, not us.”
“If it was for us,“ Carol continues, “you would have-…” and she lets the thought trail off, unsaid.
“I should have killed you,” Carol says, looking a little shaken at this realization. “I should have…”
“You can’t,“ Morgan replies, before turning and walking out of the room.
Meanwhile, Denise and the Wolf duck into an office. The Wolf stares ahead in shock as Denise unbuckles his belt to make a tourniquet for his bitten arm.
“The infirmary is right across the alley,” she tells the dazed Wolf.
“We need to get you there, now.“
The Wolf continues to look dazed with shock. “Hey!” Denise says, trying to bring him back to the present. The Wolf looks at her, then looks away, his brow furrowing with confusion. “The ladder was clear,” he says, wonderingly. “We could have made it.”
“You turned back for me,” Denise reminds him, tightening the tourniquet around his arm. The Wolf turns to look at her, remembering. “Maybe it was because you needed a doctor,” Denise says, looking at the Wolf significantly..
“Or, maybe you changed.” The Wolf looks at her, stunned at this. Denise turns to go, then turns back to the Wolf. “You ready?” she asks him, and after a moment, he follows her out of the office.
Once outside, the pair must start fighting off many walkers. The Wolf is able to shove a few nearby walkers away and clear a path, but one walker makes straight for Denise.
Sub Pop Walker be flyin’ the flannel and the ferocity.
The Wolf pulls the walker away from Denise, just in time, and calls to her to “Come on!”when a couple of pops sound out from above…
The Wolf is hit by one bullet, then another, as Denise stops and stares, in shock, first at the Wolf, then up where Carol is standing above them, on an upstairs balcony, pointing a gun at the Wolf. “Go!” screams Carol to Denise.
Denise hesitates, and Sub Pop Walker lurches forward for another go at her. The Wolf clasps his arms around the walker from behind, dragging it down with him as he echoes Carol’s command, yelling for Denise to “Go!”. Denise looks back at him a moment more, as walker upon walker descend upon the young Wolf, before turning and running.
Carol watches the young Wolf, whom she had wanted to kill, and who just so clearly intervened to save Denise’s life, get taken down by walkers. Carol’s face shows her conflict, and her sadness as she watches this.A very special Lupine Deadie goes to Austrailian actor Benedict Samuel, who plays the dark haired Wolf, and who, thankfully, is as handsome and delightful as he is talented. Well done, mate!
Denise rushes into the infirmary as Heath and Aaron quickly bar the door behind her. (And, where the hell has Heath been this whole time? I haven’t seen that dude since before the Wolves attacked Alexandria. Heath’s all like, “Whoa, man, I was totally bingewatching Gilmore Girls dvds, and then I musta fallen asleep, because next thing I know, this crazy noise wakes me up, and I look out the window, and there’s like a shit-ton of walkers everywhere!”)
Aaron peers out the infirmary window, whispers, “Oh my God!” at what he sees outside…the others peer out and see:
Rick and Michonne running, Rick carrying his unconscious, bleeding son in his arms, as Michonne hacks a path through the walkers to clear the way. They are hauling ass to the infirmary.
“It’s the kid,” says Heath. “Is he bit?”
Denise closes her eyes, takes a few deep breaths to steady herself, then replies, “No.” She then starts to order the men to gather the needed supplies, meds, IV, gurney. They rush to do her bidding. Doctor Denise is in the house!
Denise opens the door and points Rick towards the waiting gurney. He rushes through the doorway, Michonne behind him, both looking frantic with worry for Carl.
Denise immediately begins assessing the situation. “Gun shot wound?” she asks. “Handgun, close-range,” Michonne replies. As Denise gets to work, Rick pleads, softly, humbly, “Please save him…”
“Please!“ (And how about those eye wound effects? So super duper gnarltastic!)
Denise’s voice, and the others’ voices, begin to drone out, sound further and further away as it all begins to close in on poor Rick: His son is gravely wounded, eye shot out, he just watched his girlfriend and her son get eaten alive by walkers, and to add insult to injury, Rick had to hack off his doomed gf’s arm with an axe to free his son…and then, poor Carl took a bullet in the eye that was meant for Rick, and now, he’s watching a capable woman, who is an untrained doctor, begin the procedures to try to save his son. #shittiestdayever
My WD buddies and I loved this tender gesture on Michonne’s part, taking the walker guts cloak off Rick for him. ❤
Rick turns away, head in hand, then turns back as Denise begins to operate on Carl, ordering Michonne to apply pressure to Carl’s head, above the eye, to try to keep him steady during the procedure, and to limit blood loss…
Rick peers out the window, and as feared, the light that Denise is using for surgery is indeed drawing the attention of nearby walkers, who are shuffling en masse towards the infirmary.
Rick Smash! has some serious rage that he needs to work out, and so our man pulls out his trusty hatchet, goes to the door, and begins to open it.
Time to get to work, Rick Smash! (P.S. I love you. <3)
As he saunters out the door, ready to fuck shit up, we can hear Michonne’s voice calling after him, “Rick! What are you doing? Rick…Rick!”Rick Smash! does not hesitate as he out the door and closes it behind him. <3<3<3<3
Rick Smash! is not fucking around.
Our main man is all about the business of fucking some walkers UP.
Rick Smash! be like, “I am most ill and I’m axin’ and slayin!'”
(On a side note, my hubby’s been teaching me how to split logs, and I’ve been wielding the axe a lot lately, chopping a lot of wood. I have a long way to go with my building my strength and skillz, but I have been thinking that the axe might be my signature weapon in a zombie apocalypse. Just a lil FYI.)
As Rick Smash! kicks Why Don’t You Ax Him? Walker‘s rekilled ass away, Phil Side Walker looks on in dismay all the harshness going down, like right in front of him.. He’s all like, “Hey, man!Hey,man,that’s not cool!That’s not cool, bro…so not cool!!”
Phil Side Walker continues his conscientious objections: “Dude, your agro is totally harshing the collective mellow…don’t you know, like, it’s all connected, bro? We are all onewith theuniverse, man!”
But, of course, Rick Smash! doesn’t care about any of that shit. He just wants to smash him some of these undead fuckers that keep ruining his life and fucking everything up for everyone he loves. And so, he does, looking completely sexy and baller while doing so.
He gets jiggy with that shit, and we likey. ❤
At this point, Phil Side Walker feels it is his karmic duty to call out, “Dude, bro, violence is never the answer!”
❤ The Rick Smash! angels in my head are singing, “Hallelujah!” ❤
Back inside, Michonne keeps looking towards the door, getting frantic. “Rick’s out there,” she says, in a rush.. “Hold on,” says Doc Denise, calmly, stitching Carl’s wound.
“He needs my help!” Michonne presses. “Just one more suture,” Doc Denise replies, steadily working. “He’s out there!“ Michonne cries.(OMFG, were you fellow Richonners out there just loving the shit out of this, or what?I was sooo dying! ❤ )
Doc Denise is all like, “Girl, I know you gotta get out there to your bf and all, but first things first…”
Doc Denise says calmly, firmly, “This is his son. Give me a second.” Really becoming a major fan of Doc Denise, and busting out a love offering right here, right now by awarding DocDenise both a barnfullawalkers Weird Science Deadie Doctorate and naming her as one of the three MVP‘s of TWDEpisode 609…Daryl Dixon, Doc Dense, and our third MVPwill be named soon enough, loves, and I am sure you know who it is already. 🙂 ❤
Even Michonne, in her panic, is like, “Yes, Doctor.” Behind her, Aaron marvels, “He’s taking them all on…we have to go get him.“
Spencer’s like, “Say what?”(Yeah, that means you. too, pretty boy, so grow a pair, arm yourself, and get out there and get to rekilling STAT.)
Heath (who is well-rested and reinspired after his long nap and Gilmore Girls marathon) turns to Spencer, agrees with Aaron. “Wehave to.” Heath turns to the others, taking deep breaths, readying himself for battle.“This is it.”
Doc Denise announces, “Got it,”and Michonne bends down to give Carl a quick kiss on his forehead…
…then grabs her katana, rushing out the door, with Heath, Aaron, and after a moment’s hesitation, Spencer, following right behind her.
The walkers are coming full force towards Rick, who is still hacking away at them, berzerker style.
The others, Michonne, Aaron, Heath, and Spencer, join Rick, and the gang forms a kill circle, back to back, facing the oncoming walkers head on…
…as other residents of Alexandria look out from the safety of indoors, and see the small circle of warriors battling for their town… (I think this is Fax 2 Cleveland guy from the Abraham/Francine walker attack construction site. Go, F2C guy, go on with your bad self and help Rick Grimes take back this town!)
Go, Olivia!
Go, Eric! You can do it!
Heath got some mad rekill skillz…
Rick-In-Charge orders his band of warriors: “Knock “em away, drive ’em down.” He then turns to see…
…the second string, machetes in hand, running down the steps to join the fight! Yahoo!
Couples who rekill together, stay together! ❤
Spencer’s starting to get the hang of this…
“We can beat ’em!” Rick exhorts his troops.
Aerial view, as the Battle For Alexandria rages on.
From inside his church, Father Gabriel peers out the window at Rick and the others fighting. We can hear Rick shouting orders, encouragement from outside.
Judith begins to fuss, and Gabriel takes her over to a female parishioner, asks her to take the baby.
Gabriel then walks over, picks up a bloodstained machete, and walks over to the door. Tobin follows him, asks, “Gabriel, what are you doing?”
Gabriel turns to the his parishioners. “We have been praying, together, praying that God will save our town…”
“Well, our prayers have been answered. God will save Alexandria…”
“…because God has given us the courage to save ourselves.” (Can I hear a “Praise the Lord!”?)
As Rick Grimes and his merry band of Badass Berzerkers go to town on the walker herd…
Tara tells the others, in the brownstone, that the walkers outside are starting to thin out…Carol comes in and informs them that Rick, along with Michonne and some others, is making a stand against the walkers. “We need to get out there,” Carol says, heading for the door.
Carol tells Tara that Denise made it back to the infirmary safely, then tells the others that she’s going to help Rick.
Morgan chimes in, says that he is going, too. The others, one by one, voice their support. They are all in, even Eugene.
Rosita turns to Eugene. “Eugene, you don’t have to,” she tells him.
“That’s incorrect, I do,“ Eugene replies. “Nobody gets to clock out today. And, hell, this is a story that people are gonna tell.“
And so, the story of the Battle of Alexandria continues, as the invading walkers stream towards the fight…
Rosita and Eugene leading the way, the others join the seige.
The first blow Morgan delivers with his staff sends a walker to the ground, and as it rears back up, snarling, Morgan sees it is the young dark-haired Wolf.
Morgan looks down at the Wolf Walker. “I’m sorry,” he says, before swiftly delivering the fatal blow.
Meanwhile, Operation Rescue Maggie is underway, with Glenn and Enid sprinting past walkers…
…to the lookout post Maggie is trapped up on. To Glenn’s horror, the walker horde is charging the posts, and the makeshift wooden structure is rocking as Maggie hangs desperately on. It will not hold much longer.
Glenn orders Enid to “Go get her,” and when Enid hesitates, Glenn barks out the order again. “Go get her!”
As Enid rushes forward towards Maggie, and the swarming walkers…
…Glenn begins firing his handgun, screaming to the walkers, “Over here! Over here!“
Hearing Glenn’s voice, Maggie looks up to see her man for the first time since before he set out to redirect the quarry walkers and was feared dead.
Maggie immediately sees the danger Glenn is putting himself in. “Glenn!” she cries.
“Glenn!” Unbeknownst to Maggie, Enid is scaling up the side of the tower to help her. Glenn continues shooting, calling to the walkers, to draw them away from Maggie, going hand-to-hand with the ones that get too close to him. “Over here!Hey!Over here!“
Maggie helps pull Enid up, and they both watch helplessly as the horde of walkers begin to stream over to Glenn, who continues shooting, yelling, fighting them off.
The walkers continue to swarm around Glenn, backing him up against a wall. He continues to fight, and that this point in the inital watching, TWD fans’ cortisol levels were rising…
Maggie raises her gun, aims, and pulls the trigger, but the telltale click signals that the gun is out of ammo. “Shit!” she swears, then in a last-ditch effort, she bangs the gun against the railing, trying to draw their attention away from Glenn, to no avail.
Glenn Rhee continues to fight, to the very end if he has to…
…and the walkers continue to close in on him.
Maggie watches, helpless and distraught, as Enid takes advantage of the clearing to tie her makeshift rope to the railing. It is what Glenn would want her to do, and she knows it.
Maggie cries, frantic, watching the walkers close in and around Glenn.
Suddenly, the sound of shots pepper the air, and the walkers closest to Glenn go down, one by one.
Glenn drops for cover as the walkers around him go down, one by one, in a spray of undead blood and guts.
It’s the sexy sharpshooters, Abraham and Sasha, come to save the day!
As Glenn looks up dazed, he sees Abraham looking down at him.
“Can you get the gate?” Abraham jokingly calls to Glenn. “Appreciate it, pal!” And with a laugh, Abraham returns to one of his favorite pasttimes…
…blowing away some walkers.
Later, fuglies.
As Abraham, Sasha, and Enid help Maggie down onto Patty the fuel tanker…
…Glenn climbs into the shotgun seat,. Daryl asks him, “What the hell happened?” Glenn replies that he doesn’t know, he just got back there, himself. It’s crazy to think of all that has happened to each of them since they first set off for the quarry, to lead the walkers away from Alexandria.
Glenn voices the idea of leading the walkers away, but Daryl has a better plan. He bangs on the ceiling of the truck, signaling the others on top.
Meanwhile, in another part of town, Rick and the others continue to go hand-to-hand with the walkers. (I found myself admiring Eric’s sporty style of walker killing…those Alexandria cardio kickboxing classes have really paid off!)
However fearsome and badass each warrior is in holding his/her own, the walkers’ sheer numbers continue to give them the advantage as they press onward towards the living.
Meanwhile, Daryl backs the fuel truck up to Alexandria’s mini lake in the center of town…
…and while Glenn, Sasha, and Abraham fight off walkers, Daryl opens the hose and unleashes a large spray of gasoline into the lake.
The warriors of Alexandria continue to face off with the press of walkers…
…who keep backing them up…
…until they are nearly up against the walls.
The next day…
“I was wrong.”
“I thought after living behind these walls for so long…”
“…that maybe they couldn’t learn.”
“But, today…”
“Today, I saw what they could do…what we could do…”
“…if we work together.”
“We’ll rebuild the walls…we’ll expand the walls.”
“There will be more; there’s gotta be more.“
“Everything that Deanna was talking about…”
“…is possible. It’s all possible. I see that, now.“
“When I was out there, with them, when I knew it was over, I had this feeling…”
“It took me a while to remember what it was…”
“…because I hadn’t felt it since before I woke up in that hospital bed.”
“I want to show you the new world, Carl. I want to make it a reality for you. Please, please, Carl…let me show you.”
In response, Carl’s fingers close gently over his father’s hand.
Ladies and gentlemen, our third and final MVP for Episdoe 609: Rick Grimes.<3 ❤ <3<3
Well, kids, there it is. I wanted to pay homage to this incredible episode and reconnect with my fave show with a super tweaktastic post. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you enjoy the playlist as well. Next couple of posts will def be breezier, more scaled-down, but def showing the love and celebrating TWD.
Until next week, loves, and enjoy the playlist.
❤
Playlist:
Aerosmith,“Back In The Saddle”
Judas Priest,“You Got Another Thing Comin'”
Van Halen,“On Fire”
Misfits, “Last Caress”
The Smiths, “This Night Has Opened My Eyes”
Mob Deep (Nas, Raekwon),“Eye For And Eye (Your Beef Is Mines)”
(All images used in this post are screen caps from AMC’s The Walking Dead unless otherwise specified.)
Well, dear readers, once again, the joke’s on me…as I was frantically plugging away to get this epic post finished, my bare-bones, bottom-of-the-line WordPress blog theme finally buckled, and cannot hold any more images until my broke ass can afford an upgrade.
It’s something I have been wanting, and needing, to do for a while, and it will happen, loves, but not right away.
I was going to end this post with a thoughtfully crafted message to you all, letting you know that, out of necessity, I was going to have to dial way back on the level of posting I have been doing, which we can probably all agree is pretty insane. We do love it, no one more than me, but it’s become pretty hard to justify, time-and-energy-wise, and almost impossible to sustain.
I had hinted at this inner quandry in my TWDSeason 6 prepost, “The Night Before The Walking Dead Season 6 Premiere.” The reality of these times is that my family, my world needs my full, focused attention right now. Making these posts happen takes a lot of time, energy, and attention, and while I am already blown away by TWD Season6, and am inspired on so many levels, I need to simplify things, give myself, my family my full time, love, and attention right now.
Honestly, people, I’m a little fried, and I am needing to “relax the posting standards,ease into civilian life”for a while, as Abraham Ford would say. It’s time to find a new balance.
When I am able to upgrade my blogsite, I will start loading pictures, text again, at some point, along with playlists, which I will still post, weekly, on this site. The playlists are on Spotify, and I think they are easily accessible to all, even if you are on a free plan and have to deal with ads. It’s worth it. The playlists have been really fun and inspiring for me to create, with each week’s new episode in my mind, and in my heart. I stand by each and every one.
I have written 47 posts over the span of two years on www.barnfullawalkers.com, covering The Walking Dead episodes through the entirety of Seasons 4 and 5. I have left a sizable body of work for peeps to read, enjoy, and I certainly plan on posting more actively on my social media accounts. I will provide links to these accounts, along with my email address.
I would consider it the most amazing job in the world if I could do what I do here for a living, celebrating, promoting pop culture, sharing thoughts and feelings, and turning peeps on to great music. In the moment, I am but a working stiff who tries to squeeze out the droplets of time to do this…this latest obstacle seems like a sign for me to honor what I need to do, open my mind, and my perspective, and get creative with how to work around all this.
There is much fun to be had on barnfullawalkers social media accounts, so check me out, show the love, double-tap, give a follow at:
I am sorry if this sounds lame, or is disappointing. It’s just the way life happens. I have been working hard on this project for two years, a fairly solitary endeavor on one hand, but it connects me to TWD fans, and readers, all over the world. This crazy blog is far from over, dear ones, and while I get my shit together, and tend to my nearest and dearest, there is so much fun buzz, art, and conversation about this already amazing sixth season of TWD.
Much love, dear readers, and enjoy this humble, almost-complete homage to The Walking Dead’s Season 6 premiere episode, “First Time Again.”
“Rick?”
“I know this sounds insane…this is an insane world.We have to come for them, before they come for us…it’s that simple.”
“You see that!?”
“It’s open! We gotta do this now! We’re doing this NOW!”
(Dude, already, the hotness…the Rick Grimes hotness…it’s all-consuming. I love it so.) ❤
Rick-In-Charge delegating, peeps scrambling…getting it done, son.
Carter looks like he’s about to cry. “Rick, we’re not ready!” Too bad, so sad, Carter. Fucking get ready, do this shit, and you can cry about it later. (Even though Carter is a weenie, the actor who plays him, Ethan Embry, is completely awesome, total TWD fan who auditioned for various roles on the show 5 or 6 times before getting cast as Carter. He had to keep this news a secret from the group of friends he gets together with to watch TWD. How cute is that? They must have been totally shitting when they found out he was going to be on it!)
Rick bellows, “Abraham, Sasha!” “Damn straight,” replies Abraham, “We’re doing this live!”
Nicholas: “I’m here, let me help.” Glenn: “No.” Nicholas: “I’m HERE!”
Glenn: “Do everything I say.” Nicholas: “I will.”
Daryl yells, “They’re coming!”
At Rick’s command, “Get ready to hit the flares!”one, two, three flares go up, diverting the walker horde’s attention towards them…
…and here come the Plan B Walkers.
As the walker gets shoved through the narrow opening between the trucks, we see how its skin and soft tissues tear away easily from the bones. Greg Nicotero, you beautiful madman!
Taken down by Daryl’s arrow. ❤
As one of the trucks pulls away, according to plan, the Plan B Walkers spill out of the opening.
“You were wrong.”
Wordlessly, Gabriel nods.
Abraham takes a drink…
…and then pours one…
…for the dead. RIP Reg. 😦 ❤
Meanwhile…
As he gets up and rushes off, Jessie calls after her eldest son, “Ron!” (Watching this, I turned to my WD buddy. “Ron??” I asked her. Not Rowan, like I had always thought?“Ron,” she agreed, nodding. I turned back to the tv, thinking, ‘Damn, I really do need to get my hearing checked!’)
This poor family has been through such hell.
Glenn and Nicholas come stumbling in…this was right after Nicholas shot Glenn, they fought, Glenn almost killed-then-forgave Nicholas scene in the woods.
“You guys look like shit,” Tara jokes, weakly.
Glenn sees Tara, beams at her.
Maggie comes rushing in, sees Tara awake, then Glenn. As she tends to him, Glenn puts his injuries off on “walkers,” calling Maggie’s attention back to as she turns and glares at Nicholas.
Eugene comes in, then, and his face breaks into the sweetest little smile when he sees Tara awake, sitting up, “Holy shit!” he exclaims, running over to her.
Tara blinks up at Eugene. “Thank God, nothing happened to your hair,” she deadpans.
As Eugene keeps looking down, smiling at her, Tara says, “Ok, Eugene…”
She turns to the others. “Eugene’s freaking me out. Somebody needs to send Noah in here to save me.”
(Oooo, Nicholas, you are in so much trouble…)
This is the worst night in Ron’s young life, and that’s saying something, considering the poor guy is growing up in the zombie apocaplypse.
“You were right,” Morgan says to Rick. “It wasn’t over.”
“We should talk tomorrow,” Rick says, in a polite, veiled manner. He then walks over to Morgan, leans in towards the seated man.
“Listen…I don’t take chances, anymore,” Rick tells him.
Daryl pauses eating, watching the exchange, Morgan looks down, registering Rick’s meaning. He looks back up at Rick. “And you shouldn’t,” he agrees, easily.
We see the Newbies running, pacing themselves but looking scared as shit while Rick-In-Charge’s voice instructs over the radio, “You all have your assignments…you know where to rendevous.” (I’d be all like, “Yessir, General Smash! I know where to rendevous, Sir!” Good thing the Newbies were regulars at Aaron’s cardio kickboxing class, back in the day in ol’ Alexandria.)
Two other Newbies fire flares up into the air to keep the walkers coming towards their lead as Rick-In-Charge reviews the plan, “Daryl leads them out…Sasha and Abraham join him at the bottom of the hill.”
“Glenn,” Rick’s voice continues over the radio…
“You hit us when you take care of the walkers at the tractor place. That’s the one thing we gotta get ahead of…”
“Everybody, keep your heads. Just keep up.“
(Yessir, General Smash!Keeping up, Sir!) Rick stops, looks back to check on…
…Daryl, who coasts slowly on his motorcycle, coming up over the hill. We do not see the massive horde of walkers just a few feet behind him, yet, but we hear their savage cacophony grow louder and louder as Daryl rolls closer. Always putting himself at the greatest risk for the good of all.How we love thee, Daryl Dixon! ❤
Daryl does not look up as he asks Rick, “So, was he ok with it?”
“It was pretty much his idea,…he gets it.”
“It’s got a bed and a bath, but it’s still a cage, you know?” Daryl replies, quietly.
Rick looks down at Daryl. “He gets it,” he says, again. Rick then tells Daryl that Morgan told him what happened at the cannery, how Morgan found and rescued Daryl and Aaron.
“Did he tell you about those guys he met?” Daryl motions to his forehead. “W’s?”
Rick nods. “Like that walker we saw…yeah.“
“We need more watch points,” Rick continues, “and I’m gonna tell Deanna…”
“…we don’t need to go looking for people any more.”
Daryl takes this in, silently, before giving a nod, turning away. Rick can see this doesn’t sit easy with Daryl.
“You feel different about it?” Rick asks him.
Daryl turns back, looks at Rick, nods. “Yeah…I do,” he says. ❤
“People out there, they need to take care of themselves, just like we do,” Rick asserts.
Daryl says nothing, but his look seems to say: But we were people out there, not that long ago, and we’d still be out there if Aaron and Eric hadn’t found us. Rick tells Daryl that he will let Morgan out soon, that they shouldn’t keep him “in there” any longer than they have to, and turns, walks away, leaving Daryl to process all this.
As the car speeds down the road, Abraham looks out the window, asks Sasha, casually, “You good?”
Keeping her eyes on the road, Sasha nods. “Yeah,” and she does sound like she might actually mean it.
“I’m trying,” Sasha amends. Abraham suggests something about “Because if you were gonna go buckwild,”implying that maybe Sasha was still hellbent on her deathwish.
Sasha, annoyed, retorts, “If you were so worried, why did you get in the car with me?”
“Listen,” Sasha says, “Doing something as big as this, that’s living.”
Sasha sees the marker. “There it is,” she says, pulling up and stopping at the red helium balloons tied at a tree. “We’re at red,” she radios in, “Bottom of the hill.”“Alright,” Rick radios back, “Here comes the parade.”
“Where’d you learn that?” “Friend,”Morgan replies.
“Before, or after?” asks Rick. Morgan looks up and regards the man in front of him.
And says nothing.
This makes Rick snarky. “I ask, you answer, it’s common courtesy…right” Rick smiles tightly, and Morgan gives a little laugh, looks down, remembering. (Now, darlings, I know that Snarky Rick is not the hottest incarnation of our man, Rick Grimes, but remember, it’s been a rough couple of days, and thankfully, this snarky period does not last too much longer…we seem to be moving through it pretty well by the end of Episode 601, when many, many more pressing matters present themselves in front of Alexandria’s hallowed steel walls…but,more on that, later!)
“After…it was after, everything.”(Ok, I cannot wait to see that backstory episode, but if I have to watch little Dwayne get chomped by his undead mom, Jenny Walker, I may lose it…just saying.)
This softens Rick a bit, and his hotness meter immediately starts to climb as he apologizes, “Look, I’m sorry for this, for having to do this,” and he gestures around the detention mansion that Morgan has been detained in. “That’s alright,” Morgan says, quickly, then adds:
“The way I look at it, sometimes you’re safer when there’s no way out.” (Great line, and I find myself hoping this is true, because I think there’s a bit of foreshadowing happening with this statement…like, Alexandria’s going to be surrounded by thousands of walkers, and there will be no way out…)
“Gotta get to know each other again,” Morgan says, easily.
“For the first time, again.” (I really do love how Scott M. Gimple inserts the episodes’ titles into the dialogue, somewhere…a consistent favorite moment for me, in each episode!) ❤
Meanwhile, manning the gate, Eugene hears the sound of a vehicle pulling up, then a voice on the other side of the fence, “Hey, it’s us, you gonna let us in, or what?”
In response, Heath is greeted by a mulltastic stranger who replies, “I technically am not authorized, so I will not be doing so.”
“Who the hell are you?” “You first,”replies Eugene.
“I’m Heath. I live here. My team’s been on a run these past couple weeks.”
“I’m Eugene…I brought myself and my group directly within that window…
”
Heath cuts in, “Open the gate.”
“If I do, how do I know you will not attempt to kill me?”
Heath gives a little laugh at this. “Look, I’m not going to kill you…”
“…but the longer you make me wait, the more you’ll motivate me to want to beat your ass.”
Eugene looks at Heath a moment, then at Carter, and another woman, the driver, waiting behind Heath in the car…and after another brief moment, the gates roll open to allow Heath and his team inside. Eugene meets others, Scott and Holly, and as Heath closes the gates, he asks Eugene, “Anything big happen while we were gone?” Eugene thinks a moment. “We had a meetin’ last night…”
“Oh, yeah?” Heath asks. “About what?” Eugene pauses. “You might want to talk to Deanna, get it from the horse, her mouth, you know.” he replies. As Heath turns to go, presumably to find Deanna and find out what the hell’s going on, Eugene calls after him, “It’s nice to meet somebody like me…I fully respect the hair game.” This leaves Heath more confused than ever…was he just complimented, or insulted? Fully rattled, Heath turns and walks off…not realizing yet, of course, that he hasn’t heard the half of it.
In the next scene, we see Rick and Morgan, walking up to a section of the wall. Morgan asks who put it up, and Rick tells him that there was a man, Reg, an architect, who put up the wall early on. He explains to Morgan that the Alexandrians had food, energy, not many walkers…they had been just living, for much of this time, and haven’t really had to survive. Rick tells Morgan they figured this out, and found Rick and his gang, brought them in as ones who could show them, teach them.
Rick tells Morgan, “It still may be too late.”
“Too late, how?” Morgan asks. “For them to come around…we’ll see,” Rick replies. He begins to tell Morgan that he’ll have to talk to Deanna, the woman in charge…she was married to Reg. “Was?” asks Morgan. Rick is about to explain when he sees Gabriel’s head through the bushes, and walks ahead quickly to investigate.
Snarky Rick comes up on Gabriel and Tobin, digging the graves for Reg’s and Pete’s bodies…and of course, Snarky Rick ain’t having it. No murderers get to rest underground within the precious real estate within Alexandria’s walls.
Tobin diplomatically tells Rick that he understands how Rick feels, but says, “It’s not your decision.” Rick looks down at this with a little laugh…
…when Deanna Monroe walks up, just at that moment, and sides with Rick. “Tobin,” she says, “Rick’s right.” She looks down at Pete’s body. “Take it away.”
Poor young Ron looks on from behind the bushes as Deanna instructs, “Go west, down Branton Road a few miles.” (I do feel bad for Ron, but if he’s the one honking that damn horn in the end, I am going to want to get in the long, long line of peeps waiting to kick his angst-ridden little ass…just sayin’!)
As Ron looks on, Deanna continues, telling the men to take Pete’s body “past the bridge…we don’t go that way. Let the trees have him.” (Brrrr...that’s cold, Deanna Monroe!)
Later, as they load Pete’s body into the car trunk, Rick looks over at Morgan. “I shot him, because he killed Reg. That was it. We didn’t have a choice,” Rick explains. Morgan looks down at the body in the bag. “You do have a cell,” he says, mildly. “Not for killers,” replies Rick.
Morgan looks over at Rick. “I’m a killer, Rick. I am, and you are, too.” Rick gives Morgan a long look before shutting the car trunk.
In the next scene, we see Rick, Michonne, and Morgan running ahead of the dreaded walker parade. Rick radios Glenn, checks in. Glenn tells Rick that they’re almost at the tractor store, and will have a handle on things before “they” get there.. As Rick, Michonne, and Morgan regard the barricade they set up, before, RV and car parked in front of metal gates, Rick says, “It’ll hold.” Michonne replies that’s good, considering where they’re standing. It seems the barricade will soon be the only thing standing between them and the massive walker horde.
As they stand there, Michonne looks over at Morgan, as if waiting for him to say something, and he does. “Michonne?” he asks. “Yeah?” Morgan waits a moment before asking, “Back when you were in that place…where I lived…did you take one of my protein bars?”
Michonne looks over at Morgan, her face softening with inner mirth, and she answers quietly, with a smile in her voice, “No.”
Morgan processes this a moment. He doesn’t seem convinced. “See, I could have sworn that there was one more peanut butter left.”
Michonne shakes her head, says, comically, “That’s how it is, isn’t it…you always think there’s one more peanut butter left.” This sweet, comical moment stands a second more before the roar of walkers approaching begins to swell over the barricade.
In the next shot, time shifts back, again, and we see Ron, coming out from under a bridge, alone.
He looks up, and a moment later, the trusty old “Astoundingly Ugly Car” drives over the bridge.
Ron springs up, over the rocky hillside, after it.
As they step their way through the woods, Morgan leading the way, trusty staff in hand, RIck prompts, “Morgan…maybe we just leave him here.” If it were up to Rick Smash!, they would have heaved the body just off the road and taken off. Later, McBeaty. However, the Bear McCreary music in the background is all soft and dreamy, so we know that somebody is going to have a human moment in life and love coming to them, and Snarky Rick is def due for one of those…
And, here it comes…
Morgan smiles at Rick, taps the shovel in his right hand a few times into the ground, says, “That’s not who you are…I know.” Morgan turns and continues down the path. Rick follows quickly, catches up with Morgan. “Hey,” Rick says, and Morgan turns around to face him.
“You don’t,“ Rick says quietly.
Morgan looks at Rick a moment, says nothing, shrugs off his bag, and begins spearing the shovel into the ground. In the background, there is a quiet roar, the telltale noise of…
“You hear that?” Rick asks, listening.
The men approach the edge before a steep drop into a deep quarry, where thousands of walkers are, below, snarling and milling about, trapped in all sides by steep embankments, piles of rock, and serendipitously placed tractor trailers. It is a fearsome sight, with staggering implications.
The men are startled out of their shock by a noise from behind…
…of young Ron, running for his life from a band of…
…boythirsty Cougar Walkers!
The impetuous young dummy is speeding right for the cliff’s edge…
…before being tackled in pimp linebacker-style by his newdad, Rick Fucking Grimes.
And so the Cougar Walkers charge, one by one, over the cliff’s edge, as so often happens in the troll for tender young boyflesh…better luck next time, Cougar Walkers!
Watching this scene, I found myself wondering what Daryl would be thinking about, riding for all that time with thousands of walkers snarling on his tail, just a few yards behind him. I imagined that he would be thinking of Beth, either reliving those sweet, stolen moments with her, or perhaps creating a fantasy world inside his mind of the two of them, together, in his quiet moments, to help him escape the hellish world all around him.
Sasha and Abraham meet up with Daryl in the Astoundingly Ugly Car.
And, here comes the parade that nobody loves, the Parade of Walkers.
As Rick and Morgan look down at the steep quarry filled with walkers…
…Ron comes up quietly to stand beside them, looking down. Rick looks over at the boy. “What are you doing out here, Ron?” he asks gruffly.
Not looking at Rick, the teen answers, “I wanted to know where my dad was buried.”
“This is how…” Rick realizes aloud. “How what?” Morgan asks.
“This is how the community is still here,” Rick replies. “They’ve had walkers at their walls…”
“…but a lot of them, most of them, ended up here.”
Ron flexes his teen rebellion once again and turns to leave, only to be stopped by Rick. “You shouldn’t be out here,” Rick says, grabbing the boy by the arm.
“I don’t care what you think,”Ron says (of course). “It’s not what I think, it’s what I know,” Rick tells him.
Rick tells the young man that he has no idea how to protect himself out here, and while Rick can show him how, right now, as he is, if he comes out here, “You’re gonna die.” Rick lays it out for Ron…the death won’t be quick, and it won’t be over, because he’ll be “one of them.” So, basically, NewDad Rick gets the last word on young Ron, tells him he’s going to come back with him and Morgan, now. Rick looks at Ron significantly. “Don’t make it hard,” he tells the young man, before walking back over to Morgan.
My WD buddies and I were so happy, watching this scene, to see Rick step up and do the right thing. ❤
Glenn, Nicholas, and Heath have reached the tractor store, without a moment to spare. If they are too late, the noise of the tractor store walkers could distract the walker parade off the road. They must act fast.
Glenn comes up with a plan, for Nicholas to man the door, let out a couple of walkers from inside the store at a time, so Glenn and Heath can take them as they come out. Heath is unsure of this…what if Nicholas can’t shut the door, hold them off? Glenn tells him then, they take them on. “Take them on?” asks Heath, incredulously. Glenn tells him if too many come out at once, they lead them around the building, towards the woods.
Nicholas tells Heath, “You’ve been on runs this whole time…he knows what he’s doing.” (Nicholas was def scoring some redemption points with me at this point in the episode.) Nicholas looks at Heath, admits, “Me and Aiden…we didn’t.” Heath shakes his head at all of this. “This was supposed to be a dress rehearsal,” he gripes. Glenn shakes his head at Heath in disbelief. “I was supposed to be delivering pizzas, man,” he says. Ha! Zinger!
Glenn counts down, and Nicholas pulls the door open to reveal…metal security door! “Shit!” Glenn must improvise now, and quickly.
At the meeting, Heath clears up the mystery of the quarry walkers…he says early on, in some of the first scouting trips around the area, he and his “team” spotted the quarry…
It had once been a camp, and he surmised that the people down there must have tried to seal off the entrances into it with the trucks. It didn’t work, however, for all the reasons Rick and Morgan saw before, with the walkers sliding down the embankment, right into the lower levels.
Heath says that the last time he saw it, there were about 12 “roamers” down there. When Maggie asks him if anyone’s checked on it since, he replies that nothing on goods runs was in that direction, and that he didn’t exactly want to have a “picnic next to the camp that ate itself.”
Michonne, being brilliant as well as beautiful, and a badass, points out that the sound of the walkers draws more walkers, who fall in, making more sound, drawing more walkers…it’s like one, big, horrible equation of undead exponentiation!
As Rick begins to outline his plan, which, he admits, sounds “risky,” Carter stands there, looking like the poster child for the word “lugubrious.”
Rick points out that one of the trucks holding the walkers back could fall over the edge any day now, like after one more hard rain, and that would send the walkers east, right towards Alexandria.
“Marshall and Redding…we’ll force them west, here.” “How?” “Block it off, so they can only go one way, west, away from the community.”
“Block it off with what?” “Cars…we’ll use the RV, some of the bigger trucks, park ’em in the end.”(It’s actually a great plan. It should have worked, Rick Grimes…it almost did!)
Michonne reminds them that they’ll be drawing the walkers away, that the horde will keep moving.
Carter, however, is not convinced that the barricade will hold against the walkers, and questions the plan. What if the barricade doesn’t hold, and the walkers start slipping through the cracks, and that noise catches the other walkers’ attention…what then?
Heath looks over to Rick, tells him that “The man’s got a point.” Michonne shoots Carter a look like, “You really are a whiner, and kind of a pussy, you know that?”
A voice, bearing the familiar Texas drawl we love so well, speaks up from behind. “We got plates,” says Eugene, standing tall and bearing the mullet we love so well. “Big-ass metal ones from the construction site. We could use them to fortify the whipwall, disperse the force of impact and help direct the walkers clean…like a pool table, 8-ball, corner pocket.” (Yes, Eugene! I loved seeing him step up in this moment, as it really felt like Eugene was starting to find his role in this community: Professor Mullet.)
Carter objects, of course, but that’s just because he’s mad that Eugene is showing himself to be more of a man than Carter is, and everyone knows it.
Rick Grimes shuts down Carter’s whining by telling him that he, Carter, a.k.a. ConstructionDick, better help make sure that barrier holds against the walkers.
Morgan chimes in, “That wall, you built it. So, you’ve already done the impossible,” with incredible deadpan delivery, referring, of course, to Alexandria’s hallowed steel wall barrier (featuring Reg’s patented “outside-the-wall” supports which thoughtfully provide easy climbing access for any live enemy forces to invade, and defile, the VanillaDream…hey, now that I think of it, Carter, was that your idea? If so, thanks for nothing, asshole.)#letsblamecarter
The scene shifts, and we see it’s the moment of truth…Daryl is leading the horde to the corner pocket…will the barrier they built hold?
As the mass approaches, Rick, Morgan, and MIchonne begin firing well-timed, well-placed flares to distract the walkers’ attention from charging full-forward into the wall, and lead them around the bend.
The flares begin to capture some walkers’ attention…
Michonne fires a flare, then edges closer, bracing herself, peering through the corner…
More and more walkers notice, are drawn towards the flares…
Putty Face Walker is like, “Oooo, pretty!”
The indignity just doesn’t ever end for the Trampled Underfoot Walkers…they fall into a quarry, get stuck there for like a year, and when they finally get out, now this! They’re like, “Goddamn it!”
So far, the plan seems to be working…
Go West, Walkers!
Time shifts back again, and we see the beginning of the construction of the barrier.
Jessie looks up from her digging to see…
…Rick looking at her. He seems to be thinking, “Do they make a Hallmark card for ‘Sorry I Killed Your Husband (But He Was A Dick)’?”
Rick nods at Jessie, goes back to his task, when Daryl comes up, pushing a wheelbarrow. “What you said before, about us needing to take care of ourselves?” he begins, as he dumps the contents of the wheelbarrow…
“Going out, and finding more people, that is taking care of ourselves.”
Daryl finished dumping his load, and Rick looks up at him. “Your call, though,” Daryl says, turning and heading for another load.
Carol brings Rick a drink, and they confer quietly. Rick tells Carol she should stay back, get a feel for how the citizens are taking all this, how they feel now. “We still have a long way to go with them,” says Rick.
Carol looks over the assembled workers, all busy, sweating. “We’ll get there,” she says. “She’s in charge, but you’re in charge, now.” Carol walks away, leaving Rick to ponder this.
Time shifts again, and the tractor store walkers are banging against the glass in a fury to get out and chomp Glenn, Heath, and Nicholas, who stand outside in the parking lot.
“This is a bad idea,” moans Heath. “This is the only idea,” retorts Glenn. Nicholas peers in the window, estimates there to be about 12 walkers inside.
Glenn outlines the plan…they stand back, he and Heath standing at opposite ends, splitting up the walkers when they come out, taking them on.
Nicholas offers to help, cutting the walkers to four each, but Glenn is having none of it. He hands Nicholas the radio, instructs him to radio Rick if this goes south, and lead the tractor store walkers away.
Nicholas starts to protest, only to be shut down by Glenn, who orders him to stay back.
Time shifts back, to the barrier construction, as Glenn and NIcholas work, side by side.
Tara watches them, vibing Nicholas as says to Maggie, “He got Noah killed.”
“He did,” agrees Maggie, calmly, like her father would.
“He did more than that,” Maggie continues, telling a shellshocked Tara that Nicholas lured Glenn into the woods and tried to kill him. Maggie tells Tara that Glenn asked her not to tell anyone, as this would get Nicholas exiled, and surely killed, out in the feral open. Tara is angry, and pretty hellbent on blowing the horn on Nicholas.
“Glenn saves people, even people like that,” Maggie replies.
Watching Tara struggle with this information, Maggie tells her, “I couldn’t accept it either…but then, I thought about you.” Tara turns to look at Maggie. Maggie continues, “I thought about how we were on different sides of that fence, on the worst day of my life…and now, you’re one of the most important people in the world to me.”
Maggie tells Tara that things can get better, that they can make them better…she tells Tara it’s her decision, whatever she wants to do, now that Tara knows the truth.
“I’m just gonna follow your lead,” Tara tells Maggie.
The girls hug, and Tara seems to be thinking, “But I am gonna trip his ass when nobody’s looking.”
“…but since you’re doing this thing, anyway…” Glenn points his gun, readies himself.
Back in time, back at the construction site, Carol offers Morgan a cup of water, which he accepts with a thanks.
As she turns away, Morgan looks at her. “It’s Carol, right?”
Carol beams a sunny Junior League smile at Morgan. “Yeah,” she replies. Just lil ol’ me, the water girl. Carol tries, once again, to turn away, and Morgan asks, “You been with Rick long?”
Carol turns back to Morgan, her forced smile even bigger. “Since Atlanta,” she says, brightly.
Morgan regards Carol. “Were you a cop, too?”
Carol, nonplussed, plays dumb, asks, “Why would you say that?”
“You’re always watching…”
“You always, ah, seem ready.”
JL Carol wrinkles her nose. “For what?” she asks.
Morgan looks Carol over with a deferential nod, looks away, “To handle things.”
Carol, unsettled, tries to mask this, fixes Morgan with one more coquettish smile. “Aren’t you sweet,” she says, before walking off. Ha! #Corgan
Back to the present, in the Astoundingly Ugly Car, some of the the Rearview Walkers seem to be wandering off the beaten path, and into the woods.
“We got some looky-loos taking a constitutional off the shoulder,” Abraham reports.
Abraham cranes his neck around for a better look. “They’re starting a walkout.” “Should we get Daryl to circle back?” Sasha asks.
“Naw,” Abraham says, opening the door and jumping out. He tells Sasha to keep moving, he’ll catch up…and proceeds to run in front of the wayward walkers, yelling and grabbing a shiny piece of plastic hanging from a tree branch (probably the thing thatdistracted them in the first place), waving it around, recapturing their undead attention.
“Idiot,” Sasha mutters, in the car, watching.
Abraham jumps back in the car, checks his appearance in the rearview mirror, chuckles. “Look at me,” he remarks.
He then says, conversationally, that Sasha “Didn’t see Reg…that was a mess…and Pete…his face blowing up like Pompeii.” It seems even a seasoned soldier like Abraham is having a hard time shaking the horrible images from that fateful night.
“Right when we were cheek to cheek,” Abraham continues, then laughs it off, jokes, “I still feel like I got some of his brains in my ear.”(That’s right, Abraham was the one who wrestled Pete down after he slit Reg’s throat…he was right there when Rick blew Pete’s brains out. Totally gnarly.)
Abraham checks the rearview, notes with a satisfied smile that the walkers are back on track. “Everything is aces again,” he announces. Sasha is looking majorly disturbed by this lowgrade wack-attack. “What the hell are you doing?” she asks him. “I’m just grabbin’ the bull by the nut sac…I’m living, darling, just like you.” he replies, in inimitable Abraham-style, before laughing at some private joke.
Back in time, at the construction site, Rick tells Deanna, “I’m sorry I haven’t had the chance to say it yet, but I’m sorry about Reg. He was smart, and kind.” Deanna nods silently.
“He was a good man,” Rick says.
Rick gestures to the crew, setting the walls and barriers, commends Deanna on going with the plan to lead the walkers away from the quarry, and route them away from Alexandria. “We need this,” Rick tells her. Deanna is astute, and she asks Rick what else he needs to say to her. Rick looks at her.
“People need to be armed inside the walls,” Rick tells her. “They need to be trained…everyone.“
And, case in point, the Perfect Timing Walkers make their appearance through the woods, coming towards Carter and others.
Rick tells them to use their shovels, that guns will draw too much attention from other nearby walkers. “You can do this,” he coaches. “You need to.”
Carter, I think, puts down his shovel (dude, seriously…you’re killing me, here…didn’t you go onruns, before?Like, WTF?) as another Alexandrian shoves a walker away.
The newbies are basically useless, cringing, stumbling backwards, and crapping their pants. Amateurs!
It quickly becomes apparent that these Alexandrians don’t know shit about killing walkers.
Rick calls Morgan and Daryl in, and soon, the seasoned gang is making quick work of the walkers.
Ow, My Head Hurts Walker takes an arrow to the mulligan. Soon, all the walkers are rekilled, no thanks to any Alexandrian.
Morgan looks at Rick, rebukes sharply, “You said you don’t take chances anymore.” Rick looks at him, at Carter, nods. It was risky, and Rick probably doesn’t feel great about his call, but it does make a clear point to Carter, Deanna, and all the other Alexandrians: Time to get battle-ready, chumps.
Well, apparently, Carter had a different take on the earlier day’s events, because as Eugene stocks up in the commissary, he overhears the hushed whispers and scheming of Carter and others…
…shit-talking Rick and basically planning on overthrowing the Ricktatorship, killing Rick. Ungrateful assholes.
“Plain and simple,” Carter is saying, “we kill him, before he kills us.”
Poor Eugene is so shocked, he drops one of the cans in his armload, and it crashes to the floor, loudly.
Et tu, Tobin?Olivia?Spencer?Francine?? Tsk, tsk, tsk…
Eugene is so scared now, he falls back, sending an entire shelving unit crashing down. Carter comes around and gapes at the poor mulleted man on the floor.
In true Josh McDermitt comedic timing and delivery, Eugene looks up at Carter, says, “Hello…”
Carter says slowly, “He heard.”
And as the others protest, try to dissuade him, Carter raises his pistol and points it at Eugene.
Just then, the door opens, and there stands Rick Grimes, flanked by Daryl and Morgan.
Ooooo, Carter, you are so busted, son.
“What the hell’s going on?”Rick Grimes asks softly, dangerously, and Carter’s bowels look like they are about to unleash into his, well, his Carters…
“What are you doing?” Rick Smash! growls, and Carter manages to reply, “I’m taking this place back from you.”
Rick Smash! looks over at Tobin and the others. “That’s what you were talking about in here?” Spencer is quick to reply, “That’s what he was talking about.”
Rick Smash!nods, taking this in. “Shit, I would have set up some lookouts…”
“…that would have been the smart thing, if I had -…” and then Rick Smash! lunges at Carter, disarming him in one swift, pimp deputy manuever. Whew, the hotness…!
“You really think you’re going to take this community from us?” Rick Smash!grinds out, holding the gun at Carter’s head.
Carter says, in a shaking voice, “It was just me…just me. Just kill me.”
Daryl looks up at Rick. “Rick,” he says softly, holding out his hand for the gun.
Rick looks up at Daryl. “I’m good,”he says, and his voice, manner, are very calm, clear.
Rick looks down at Carter, who seems like he can’t believe he’s still alive. “You can try to work with us,” Rick tells the shaken man. “You can try to survive.Will you do that?”
The scene shifts back to the present, with the grisly walker parade shuffling down the road, led by Daryl, Sasha, and Abraham.
As they hide behind the trees, surveying the walkers, Carter says, “It’s working.” He turns to Rick. “You were right.”
Carter holds out a hand, and Rick takes it. The men shake, making peace.
Rick then turns to the others, tells them that “we need to finish this.” Basically, they need to flank the horde on both sides of the road, monitoring the “parade’s” progress, firing shots if it seems like the horde is wandering off the path, and directing their flow back along the road.
Carter says he’ll take the front, and Rick goes after him, after making sure everyone knows their places, one after the other. The team splits up.
Unfortunately for Carter, who leads the way to the front, alone, some bad luck is hiding behind a tree…
Oh, shit, Carter!
I was def obsessed with this tree walker, couldn’t stop taking pictures of him…so scary!
Nicotero, you crazy beautiful genius, you’ve outdone yourself once again with this episode!
Poor Carter gets face-chomped so hardcore, it’s like you can feel it when you watch this scene. Ouch!
Damn!
So gnarly! (On a funnier note, Greg Nicotero said later on Talking Dead that the effects crew guy in charge of pumping the blood from actor Ethan Embry’s fake facial wound had to stomp on the pedal pump to try to dislodge a clog in the line, sending a spray of fake blood gushing out full-on horizontal, like a fake blood super-soaker…this sight-gag take was sent around, to much hilarity, among the TWD cast and crew.)
Ethan Embry did such a great job as Carter, who started out as major tool, and a whiner, but who finally started coming around, and then got face-chomped just as he was becoming tolerable. That really sucks, dude. Sorry about that. I would like to award Ethan Embry, the TWD fan who finally landed a role on the show, with a very special Deadie: The Red Shirt Guy Deadie, for a standout single-episode performance, and for being so fun, and funny, and for being such a good sport. Kudos, bud. You’re awesome!
Carter, of course, cannot stop screaming, and honestly, I cannot blame the poor guy. I mean, Jesus.
The horde of walkers begins to follow the sound of the screams…
Rick can see the walkers are veering off from the road, but doesn’t yet know why…he radios Tobin, then rushes to see what is happening…
This scene shifts to the past, where Morgan sits outside on Rick’s porch, polishing his staff.
Rick comes out, carrying Judith, and he and Morgan remark about the lovely evening.
Morgan apologizes for invading Rick’s porch, but says he wanted to enjoy the evening, and his place doesn’t have a porch, so…
Rick reaches in his pocket, tosses Morgan a key, tells Morgan he should go get his stuff. “You should stay with us,” Rick offers.
Michonne comes forward, overhears this conversation. Morgan asks Rick if they have room, and Rick tells him they’ll make room. He gestures to Morgan’s quarters across the street, “We don’t need to do that anymore,” i.e. keeping Morgan separated, confined.
“I know you, Morgan,” Rick says, “even if this is the first time.”
Morgan looks at Rick, pleased. He then looks at Judith, which Rick notices. “Do you want to hold her?” Rick asks him.
Morgan laughs, looks down, shyly, then accepts the offer.
It’s so sweet to watch.
I sent my WD buddy this pic from my phone, texted her, This is the stuff. ❤ ❤
Morgan turns to Rick and tells him that when he saw Rick with that man, Carter, in the armory, “That’s you. You’re still the same man I met in King County, the one who told me it wasn’t over.”
Morgan looks at Rick, nods. “That was you, same you that’s right in front of me, right now.”
Rick looks at Morgan a moment…
…then looks away.
“I wanted to kill him,” Rick confesses, “so it would be easier, so I wouldn’t have to worry about how he would screw up, what stupid thing he would do next, because that’s who he is…”
“Somebody who shouldn’t be alive, now…I wanted to kill him….it hit me, I realized I didn’t have to do it… “
“He doesn’t get it.”
“Somebody like that…they’re gonna die, no matter what.”
Rick reaches poor Carter, and manages to pry him off the tree walker.
It’s horrifying to see a big piece of Carter’s flesh in the walker’s mouth as Rick throws the suffering man off the undead ghoul.
With thousands of walkers just feet away, and Carter screaming in his shock, pain, and anguish…
…Rick quickly dispatches the tree walker with his knife.;
By this time, I was really feeling pretty awful for poor Carter.
Rick tries to shush the screaming man…
…looking up towards where the walkers will surely be coming, soon.
Carter’s eyes are wild, and he keeps screaming in his panic and agony…
To his credit, Rick Grimes tries to calm him, but to no avail, of course.
Honestly, by the time Rick put the knife into the base of Carter’s skull, I was relieved. He made it quick, humane.
Rick Grimes, once again, doing what must be done, tireless against these grim, horrible, unrelenting times. I love that man so hard, sometimes I tear up with emotion when I think about him. I really do. Rick Fucking Grimes, for fucking ever and ever, Amen. ❤
Once again, Rick looks up from killing a man, to see Morgan there, looking all judgy and horrified. It’s like, What? He was fucking bitten, and he was fucking screaming, and there are like a million fucking walkers out there. Sue me.
Tobin, as instructed by Rick, peppers the silence with faraway gunfire, drawing the wave of walkers away once again, redirecting them onto the road course.
Michonne comes up, sees Carter’s dead, bloodied body on the ground…like seriously, just five minutes ago, they were all standing around, daring to think, “Hey, this might actually work!” And five minutes later, this guy is dead. Shit’s crazy.
Rick radios Tobin, tells him he got them, the walkers are heading back out to the road. Tobin copies, then asks what that screaming was. Rick, crouched over Carter’s dead form, matter-of-factly tells Tobin that Carter got bit, right in the face, and he, Rick, stopped him.
Rick comes to Morgan, and it’s basically back to business, because it has to be. They need to make sure those walkers make it to the point where Daryl, Sasha, and Abraham continue on with the herd, draw them out 20 miles. Rick tells Morgan to go and tell the others, that they need to know about Carter. Morgan tries to tell Rick something, but Rick shuts it down. He doesn’t want to talk about feelings right now.
Rick asks Morgan if he can do as he asks, and Morgan quietly agrees. Rick leaves, onto the next. There’s a walker ambling through the woods, and he needs to go kill it before moving on to the next order of business.
Michonne steps forward. They look down at the dead young man who lay at their feet. “I know it’s how it is,” Morgan says. “I do.”
And this, dear readers, is where the media storage buckled under the sheer weight of my tweakerness, and we are currently on media blackout. Before I turn you over to the music, Deadies to Scott M. Gimple, for leading us deeper and deeper into the beautiful, crazy world where television and comic series meet; Greg Nicotero, who thinks and directs 3-dimensionally; and the entire TWD cast and crew, for another outstanding job.
The trucks fell into the quarry in my world, loves, the walkers are out, and we’re doing this live. Let’s see what happens, and it’s all good. Check out the playlists, posted here, and follow barnfullawalkers’ social media sites. We’ll keep this party going, people.
Cheers, to you, dearest ones. One love, peace, respect. ❤
And, enjoy the playlist! Many more to come.
Playlist:
Jane’s Addiction, “Mountain Song”
Death Cab For Cutie, “The Ghosts Of Beverly Drive”
Tonight. 9 p.m. Eastern. Season 6 is finally here.
What can I say, at this point, that hasn’t already been said?
I, like you all, am feeling the love, the anxiety, the excitement. I am so nervous about what dangers are coming, and I am so worried for our gang. I love them all so much, and I don’t want to lose a single one of them…but I know that’s not really how this all works.
I know it’s not real, people, but I still obsess. It’s how I do. And if you have found this blog, and actually read my tweaker posts, then I guess that’s how you do, too!
Welcome aboard the Crazy Train.
I have come to refer to this time, when the TWD television series is about to resume, and kick all our asses, as “blog season.” Ever since the fall of 2013, when TWD’sSeason 4 began, I have been writing about each new episode of The Walking Dead television series, and aside from some questionable font choices, and typos (which I still find), I can pretty much say that I stand by my crazy product.
I have read, and reread, each post I have written so many times by now that I cannot even face them…this phase will pass, and I will return to them, one day, and reread, and do some much-needed editing.
One day, when I have time…
Time.Time is something that I am constantly negotiating, on many levels, in my life. As a mom, a wife, and a grown-up who works two jobs for my paycheck (unfortunately, this writing gig is not one of those jobs that pay…yet.). But, I am hopeful. Momentum is building. I am pleased.
This blog is something I started doing`for myself, something soley for myself, that had nothing to do with anybody else. This was my joint. While I had dabbled in writing, before, and had some aptitude for it, I had never fully committed myself to writing any kind of cohesive project, writing for long hours at a time, until the self-consciousness and inner constraints fell away from sheer exhaustion, and a strong voice I didn’t even know I had began pouring out, and glimmers of inspired magic began to appear on the screen.
The concept of this blog started forming itself in my head, and in my heart, years ago, when I, an exhausted, nursing mom, would read over the hilarious text exchanges between myself and my WD buddy as we watched The Walking Dead tv series together, in our separate homes, after our kids went to bed. I really have no idea where exactly this idea came from, but once it took root, it was like a, “Build it, and they will come” kind of thing.
So, I lined up a trade with a technical wizard friend, and he helped me set up a WordPress account, helped me load in my artwork for the banner, and showed me how to insert playlist widget embeds into my posts. And so, when TWDSeason 4 began, I began writing.
My writing style asserted itself from the beginning as a kind of “live blogging” style, letting my personal responses to what I was watching lead the narrative. I wanted what I wrote to have the same organic, conversational feel as my text exchanges with my friend.
When I first started writing my posts, I was not on any kind of social media at all. Not even Facebook. Truly. In the beginning days of www.barnfullawalkers.com, I would send a mass text to my circle of friends every time I completed a post.
Now, two years later, I am a big social media ho(or as much of one as I could, or should,be,being a mom and someone who is old enough to know better). I try to keep my usage of social media as a fun, creative way to promote my blog and explore whatever element of pop culture I am obsessed with in the moment. While I do, at times, get political on my social media accounts, being a “citizen of the world” and all, I usually try to keep it light, tight, and deliciously superficial.
Speaking of keeping it tight, I have been thinking about the evolution of my writing style, and what I want for myself, the blog, and my readers as TWD Season 6 unfolds.
Look, I know that nobody asked me to basically write a 10,000+ word dissertation on every new episode of The Walking Dead. The highly-detailed synopsis-parody-deconstruction style I offer is self-imposed, tweakeresque, and inexplicable, really. I really have no idea what exactly I am trying to achieve with any of this.
After each episode’s breezy 400-word recaps have come and gone, there I am, long after everyone else has moved on, wading around the fake blood, guts, and gore in my mucking boots, pulling key items of interest out of the mire and holding them up for others to see, “Hey, guys, look what I found!”
I’m like a TWD episode archeologist or some shit, and the funny thing is, I think it’s filling a need out there, because my readership is growing at unprecedented rate. I’m still small-time, for sure, but just to give you some specifics: Last year, over Thanksgiving weekend, barnfullawalkers hit a milestone of 3,000 total views. At the time of this writing, not even a year later, barnfullawalkers is fast approaching 10,000 views, from different countries, all over the world.
That’s a 200% increase in less than a year’s time, if I’m doing the math right.
At the very least, my detailed synopses and my crazy rantings seem to be adding something to the conversation surrounding the TWD phenomenon, and that makes me smile. I am pleased. I know many readers started tuning in with my Season 5 posts, with all the fun screenshots, crazy captions, and epic playlists.
I love what I achieved with my Season 5 postings…it was such an incredible season, and I am proud of have honored it in the way I did. But, it cost me. It left a mark.
To post in that high-media style, taking, loading, naming, and uploading all those pictures, takes a lot of time and energy. I committed myself to it, then, but for someone in my position, who is raising children, working, running a household, and trying to stay married, it is not sustainable to devote that much time to a recreational endeavor that does not bring in a paycheck.
When you are a parent, you begin to think of things in a “needs before wants”framework. You have to. The needs must be met before the wants can be considered. In my Season 5 posting style, I was able to achieve a lot of great things, stylistically, and I feel like the blog grew, and evolved, in a way I never thought possible. But, personally, it was a constant struggle to try to make it happen.
You can’t create time where there is none, and so, time-wise, I robbed Peter to pay Paul, as the saying goes. I pulled all-nighters, worked all day on weekends to make those posts happen. There were fights, there were tears. It was kind of crazy, and by the end of it, I was completely fried. I still don’t know if I’ve completely recovered, honestly. Probably never will, and that’s why man discovered how to make alcohol.
If I could get a paying job doing what I do with my blog, with my social media accounts, I would consider it the best job in the world. And I think I would totally kick ass at it. When I look at what I can achieve doing it on the side, I think, “Imagine what I could do if someone actually paid me to do this!”
I personally think I would be a great social media marketer…Robert Kirkman, drop me a line if you think you could use me. For instance, I feel like I could singlehandedly raise the hype on your new spinoff series, Fear The Walking Dead, which I was posting about before I was beset by technical difficulties. I got what your new show was trying to do, and I felt like the shots I got, the moments I highlighted really captured the feel, the nuances of that show. Plus, amazing L.A. based playlists!
Think about it, Robert Kirkman. I would work my ass off for you!
Anyhow, shameless self-promoting aside, while my Season 5 style contained lots of glitz and glamour, I did miss my grassroots Season 4 writing style, where I paddled out, until I caught a wave, and rode the swells and breaks of prose. Some of my personal favorite posts are from that time: “The Grove,” “Claimed,”“Still,” “Alone,” “Us,” are all from that period, TWD Season 4.
Is it weird of me to kind of think of them as “classics” in my crazy world of barnfullawalkers?
To me, the feel of the writing is more organic in the Season 4 posts, and when I read back on them, I can see how the direction of the writing took its shape and form. I really found myself missing the purity and innocence of that time, that style, and while the Season 5 posts shine in their own high-media glam style, I am gravitating towards combining my Season 4 and Season 5 writing styles for my upcoming postings on TWD Season 6.
I’m going to open it up, dear readers, and not hold myself chained to any one style, or set of self-imposed expectations. There may be fewer pictures, less blow-by-blow in some posts, while, in other posts, we may hearken back to the Instagram-style postings for TWD Season 5’s “Forget,” and my brief posting foray into Fear The Walking Dead, a show which I really loved, by the way. (Had an epic post in the works for FTWD finale episode, “The Good Man,” with amazing sweet 16 song L.A. playlist, in the works, but I ran out of time, so I had to abandon it…it’s saved, so one day, I will try to put it out there. If I find the time.🙂 )
So, don’t worry darlings. It all gets better and better. I wanted to keep you up on what is really happening, and while there will be a shift in how I do things this season, I imagine it will still be chock full of all the fun and crazy you have grown to know and love with www.barnfullawalkers.com !
I promise. In many ways, dear readers, I feel like things are just getting started. And I am pleased. 🙂 ❤
I predict TWD Season 6 will be about evolution…Rick and his gang must evolve, Morgan must evolve, as do Deanna and the Alexandrians (um, band name alert!), and we must all learn to evolve alongside them.
We may gain some, we may lose some, but one thing will always be true: We are family. #TWDfamily XO
Much love, dear readers, and raise a glass with me tonight, when the first strains of the iconic Bear McCreary opening title sequence begin to play, and let us toast to Rick and the gang.
To Rick Grimes, and to our sweet gang, and to you all, dear readers.Cheers! ❤
Enjoy the playlist, which features some sweet selections from my epic L.A. FTWD finale playlist.
(All images used in this post are screen caps from AMC’s “The Walking Dead” unless otherwise specified.)
Hello, loves…it has been far too long. While I have been immersed in the rich layers of life in the IRL, my thoughts have been, quite often, with my fave show, and my #TWDFamily, all over the world.
This is the moment I have been waiting for, when I finally get to sit, focus, and endeavor to conquer “Conquer.”
We have much to discuss with The Walking Dead’s Season 5 finale, Episode 516, but before we do, dear readers, let us take a moment to look back on TWD’s Season 5, and honor those we have lost...family, friends, foes, both living and undead (and even an inanimate object or two), while we raise our glasses, our bottles, our mugs, and serenade our dearly departed with a classic by Neutral Milk Hotel, “In The Aeroplane Over the Sea”:
(At this point, before, I would have inserted this classic song, via the beloved Grooveshark widget embed, into this post; but alas, loves, Grooveshark is no more… I grieve, as we had some good jams, and Grooveshark made the music available to many, for free. I did know that Grooveshark was embroiled in some legal trouble, as free music sharing does raise the issue of compensation for the artists… I knew that one day, Grooveshark may be gone. And, like so many of our beloved TWD characters, gone it is.
R.I.P. Grooveshark…we had some good jams.
And now, (drum solo, please), dearest readers, may I present: Neutral Milk Hotel’s, “In The Aeroplane Over The Sea,” via the new tunes tech: Spotify ❤
So pimp, right? At this point, I am not sure if playlists will be available for immediate listen if the reader doesn’t have an account with Spotify. If not, hopefully you can create a free account, and access the playlists, perhaps with some advertisements thrown in. If you are on the Spotify premium plan, you can listen to my shit uninterrupted. I do apologize for any inconvenience this change of events may cause. Change happens, and once I recovered from my shock at having my existing playlists be wiped from existence…
… I realized the opportunity was there for a serious upgrade. And so, upgrade I did.
One of the many perks of “said upgrade” is that my playlists will now be available on mobile devices for those who have the Spotify app, so now, those readers may enjoy the playlists on their phones, tablets, etc., which they could not do before, with the previous tunes tech. ❤
And so, dear readers, if you will, cue the music, and raise a beverage for:
The WD Season 5 Hall of Fame Neutral Milk Memorial ❤R.I.P. and cheers, and much love to:
Grooveshark ❤
Beth Greene ❤
Tyreese ❤
Bob Stookey ❤
Noah ❤
Noah’s mom ❤
Noah’s Lil Bros ❤
Lil Bro Walker ❤
Aiden 😦
Rick’s Beard ❤
Bob’s Leg 😦
Gareth
Mary
Alex (Technically a Season 4 casualty, but Alex did enjoy a brief posthumous cameo in Season 5, so we include him here.)
Shitty Martin
Terminus
Sam ❤
Friends With Benefits Walker ❤
Joan Walker ❤
Dawn Lerner
Gorman
Mr./Dr. Trevitt
Sgt. Lamson
Officer O’Donnell
The Van
The Bus ❤
The Mission to D.C. 😦
Ragin’ Face
Walkers Interruptus ❤
Hey, Where’s The Party At? Walker ❤
I Died In A Barn Walker
Rick’s Little Bit Of Flare Walker ❤
Buttons ❤
Wild Dog Pack 😦
The Owl Sculpture
Grabby Walker
I Wanna Eat Francine Walkers
White Walker ❤
Poor Girl Tied To A Tree Walker ❤
Hostage Walker ❤
Reg ❤
McBeaty
Leonard Nimoy ❤
The Walking Dead’s Episode 516 opens with a shot of a car, hood smashed in, abandoned in the woods. The sun is low on the trees, suggesting either the dawning, or the darkening, of another day.
Inside the car, we see Morgan sleeping.
Morganawakes…
.. sits up, smiles…
…as he looks up, sees his rabbit’s foot, hanging from the rearview mirror…it seems to have kept him safe for another night. I am assuming that this rabbit’s foot belonged to Morgan’s son, Duane,who was bitten by his mother-turned-walker, Jenny Walker. While watching this scene, I imagined that Morgan started every day by taking a moment to remember his son, his wife, his family. The rabbit’s foot was an item that Morgan lay on the altar back at Gabriel’s church (right before finding the map to D.C. with Abraham’s note to Rick written on it) as he knelt in prayer at the altar. It seems here, from Morgan’s serene countenance, that he has found some peace within himself since Rick, Carl, and Michonne last encountered him in Season 3’s “Clear.”
In the next shot, we see a small campfire, surrounded by rocks, with a small metal grate placed over the flame, and a metal cup placed on top, presumably to heat water.
Morgan takes the cup from the fire, rips open a packet of instant soup or something, and pours the contents in the cup. As he stirs his breakfast, the shot pans out…
…and we see another figure approach, a young man with dark hair, who steps forward upon a rock, across from where Morgan sits. The young man balances playfully on the rock a moment before stepping down. He appears to be pointing a handgun at Morgan. Morgan says nothing, does not acknowledge the young man’s presence.
The young man leans forward slightly towards Morgan. “Looks good,” he says, sitting on the rock across from Morgan, still pointing the pistol at him.
“Hi,” says the young man. He peers closely at Morgan, waiting for a reaction.
Morgan does not respond right away, looks over his shoulder, casually, in both directions, checking to see if anyone else is there. He looks back at the young man.
“Hello,” Morgan says. He motions to the gun the young man points at him. “You may want to lower that,” he suggests, mildly. The young man does not respond, nor does he lower the gun. The two men regard each other in silence over the campfire.
“What’s the “W” for?” Morgan asks the young man, who bears a “W” mark on his forehead.
In response, the young man narrows his eyes at Morgan. His mouth sets to the side, somewhere between a smile and a grimace. He cocks the pistol he is pointing at Morgan, who does not seem afraid of the young man or his gun.
“You know the first settlers here? They put bounties on wolves’ heads,” the young man begins.
(Editor’s note: Putting a bounty on wolves’ heads is a practice that has actually resurfaced, in the United States, in recent years. In the U.S., federal protections for wolves are being systematically stripped away, state by state, across the country, leaving hunters and poachers free to kill wolves and wolf pups on sight alone, without provocation, with the intention to decimate the species. Congress is considering passing a bill, at the time of this writing, to delist the gray wolf as an endangered species. Google this issue, visit the Defenders of Wildlife online site http://www.defenders.org/the-war-on-wolves/delisting-disaster, and write to your elected officials if you want to protect the future of this iconic species, and tell them in reinstate federal protections for wolves.) #SaveTheWolf
The young man continues, telling Morgan, “(The settlers) brought the natives into it, made them hunt (the wolves)…didn’t take them too long to kill them all.”
The young man then taps the “W” on his forehead. “They’re back, now,” he informs Morgan.
Morgan regards the young man, and all his posturing, with amusement.
He looks down, biting back his laughter…
…and as Morgan looks away, composing himself (and rechecking his periphery), the young man prompts, “Thoughts?”
In reply, Morgan turns his attention back to the young man, looks at him a moment before answering.
“Every thing gets a return,” Morgan replies.
The young man sits back and processes this a moment, then smiles, uncertainly.“Are you shittin’ me?” he asks Morgan.
Morgan shakes his head earnestly. “No, I shit younot,” he assures the young man. The two men share a laugh at this.
Still laughing, the young man sits back, regards Morgan. “I like this…just talkin’,” he says. Then his face becomes somber again. “I don’t get to meet new people very often,” he tells Morgan, figuring, “Maybe, once every two weeks.”
“That’s a lot,” Morgan exclaims softly. The young man nods. “I work at it,” he says, amends, “We do…sometimes we find camps, run through them. We have traps,too.” The young man pauses, muses, “It’s different…it’s not like meeting like this…as equals.”
As he tells Morgan this, the young man’s manner is very matter-of-fact, conversational, reporting the information simply and truthfully, like a child would. The young man seems like he is no older than a post-teen, early twenties tops.
In response, Morgan looks casually over his other shoulder, checking again to see if anyone else is coming up on him. He looks back at the young man, regards him.
The young man continues, musing, “Little chats in front of the fire, with a stranger…that’s the closest thing to movies, now.” Morgan keeps his eyes on the young man, nods warily.
“I miss movies,” the young man muses. “I used to–put that down,” he orders Morgan, who has lifted his mug to take a drink of his soup.
Morgan’s hand pauses, the mug stops mid-sip. He lowers the mug. “Why?” he asks the young man, puzzled, free hand turned up in question.
“Because I want it,” the young man replies, frowning. He blinks slowly, then says to Morgan:
“I want everything you have…every last drop.”
“Can I keep a little of it?” Morgan asks, testing the young man. “Just to get me through a day or two, you know, just to keep me alive?” I feel like Morgan is testing the young man, to see how much of a danger he really is, testing if the young man has any empathy or compassion left inside him at this point.
The young man looks at Morgan. His eyes are devoid of any feeling or compassion. “I’m taking you, too…” the young man says, slowly.
“…and you won’t exactly be alive,”
Morgan looks at the young man, says nothing, and slowly, deliberately puts his mug down. When he returns his attention to the young man across from him, Morgan’s look has changed…his smile, and friendly manner of before, are gone.
The young man resumes talking, “Some of the tribes, around here, they thought that the first people were wolves, transformed into men…and, now, well, you know…‘Everything gets a return,’right?”
(The implication here, I think, is that the men, the people, once they die and reanimate (as walkers), are then transformed back into an incarnation of wolves…savage, wild, predatory creatures who hunt the living in packs.)
Morgan smiles, slightly, and nods, slightly, at the young man, looks at him a moment.
“You can have my supplies. You can have everything,” Morgan offers the young man.
“There doesn’t need to be any ugliness,” Morgan continues, “but I can’t allow you to take me away.”
“I will not allow that,” Morgan says, gently, firmly.
Morgan reaches down for his wooden staff, only to be stopped by the sound of the safety being released on the young man’s gun.
“Don’t move,” the young man commands, and Morgan’s hand freezes mid-air, above the staff.
Morgan turns back towards the young man, his hands raised in a gesture of surrender.
The young man motions Morgan back, still pointing the gun at Morgan.
“Just…be still,” the young man says to Morgan. Then the young man’s eyes harden a bit, and a small smile returns to his face. He says it again…
“Just…be…still.”
Morgan knows the attack from behind is coming, and he is quick to evade the young blond man who leaps at Morgan from the bushes behind him, swinging a curved scythe down at the spot where Morgan was sitting. The pointy end of the scythe strikes only rock as Morgan whirls aside, grabbing his staff in one deft motion…and with that, the #MorganStyle kung fu beatdown begins…
After Morgan leaps away from the young assailant’s first strike, he grabs his staff and whirls around, delivering a swift blow to the dark haired young man, knocking him to the ground.
Morgan ducks low to evade another wild swing from the blond wolfboy’s scythe, and the young man’s balance is thrown off again…
A swift strike from Morgan’s staff into the young man’s lower spine sends him toppling forward into the dirt.
Morgan then brings his staff end down, so it rests in one hand, standing tall beside him, like a shepherd’s staff. It is a posture of peace, and power, an unspoken message of, “Run along now, wolfboys, and don’t make me kick your ass again.”
As the young men come to a shaky stand, the dark-haired one regards Morgan with a new respect, and fear.
The blond one menaces forward, glaring at Morgan. “You should just go,” Morgan warns them. “Now.” The blond young man growls, “No,” and lunges for Morgan again.
Morgan sidesteps the young man’s attack, and brings his staff down, blocking the scythe’s blade, then delivers a series of quick strikes upside the blond wolfboy’s, well, everything, and then sends blond one’s dark-haired little bastard compadre back into the dirt with two fierce blows, one with the staff, followed by one downward blow with his gloved fist.
It is truly satisfying to watch Morgan kick some wolf-poser ass, with style, grace, and restraint, in the way of the master. #kungfupimp
#MorganIsMySifu
Morgan then whirls with pimp flourish, twirling his staff expertly as he changes direction, readies his stance. His young opponents struggle to come to another shaky stand… they flank Morgan, pause, wait for their opportunity to strike again. This next time, they will both rush him at once, and Morgan knows this, waits for the attack.
“Just go,” Morgan says again. The young men, of course, do not listen.
The young dark haired one draws his knife. It seems the two wolfboys aren’t used to having to work this hard to subdue other victims…
…as they crouch, reading Morgan, readying for the next attack. The blond one seethes as he looks at Morgan. This time, it’s personal.
Morgan softens his gaze downward, as if at a focal point in front of him. Watching this scene, I was reminded of young Luke Skywalker, wearing eyeshields, learning to tap into The Force and block an attack with his lightsaber, without relying soley on his sense of vision to guide him. Morgan seems to use the point in front of him to access his peripheral vision equally on both sides, to be able to feel and read sudden movement from either end, and respond accordingly. “Please,” he asks, once more.His unspoken message is clear: Go now, young wolf posers…don’t make me do this.
Suddenly, the dark haired one screams,“Now!”and both young adversaries rush Morgan at once, from opposite sides.
It’s time to shut it down. Morgan sends the dark haired boy into the dirt, unconscious, with one or two swift high strikes to the head…
…Morgan whirls to the other young man and sends him out with a high, then low, strike, from each end of his staff, bam bam!There is no more movement from either of the young men. #knockedthefuckout
Morgan bends and picks up the handgun, hears a walker approaching. He points the gun at the walker and pulls the trigger repeatedly, gets only clicks.
The damn gun was empty the whole time?
Nothing to be done but sully the staff with some walker brains…Morgan pulls a cloth from his coat pocket and wipes his staff clean of the undead mess on his chosen weapon.
In the next shot, we see Morgan carefully lay the unconscious blond man on top of his dark haired counterpart in the back seat of the abandoned car he himself had spent the previous night in. (Enjoy your nap, wolf-posers, and btw, those “W’s” you drew on your foreheads look really fucking stupid. Wearing a “W” on your forehead doesn’t make you a wolf, or a primal tribesman, or anything remotely cool like that. It just makes you look really dumb, like you’re fronting wolf while acting like sadistic, demented assholes.) “W”clearly stands for “wack” and “Whatever, weirdos.”
Morgan shuts the young feral felons into the back seat, and then leans across the front seat of the car, honking the horn 2 or 3 times, ostensibly to alert their “tribe” to come look for them. We see that Morgan’s way of dealing with the men is very different from the way Rick Grimes would have handled them. Morgan could easily have killed his young assailants, or left them to be killed by walkers, but didn’t…he seems to value their lives to the degree that he took the time and effort to move them to an enclosed, protected place, where they wouldn’t be prey to walkers as they lay unconscious. Morgan then looks up at Duane’s rabbit’s foot, hanging from the rearview, and smiles at it once again before tearing the lucky charm from the mirror, taking a quick look around, and slipping off into the forest, in search of Rick Grimes.
Before we move on, kudos and Deadies to the following mavericks (I am giving out mad Deadies this post because it’s the WD Season 5 finale, people, and attention must be paid, props must be given, and the love must be shown!)
First Deadie goes to Greg Nicotero, directorial and special effects prodigy, who directed the TWD Episode 516, “Conquer,” as well as other groundbreaking episodes in Season 5: “No Sanctuary,” “What Happened and What’s Going On,”(just to name a couple of my personal favorites).
Standing ovation, Greg Nicotero. You really brought TWD Season 5 to a whole new level, and set an unprecendented standard of excellence to television as a whole.
Suck on that, Emmy snubbers.
There are many who say that Season 5is, hands down, the best season yet of The Walking Dead television series. In many respects, I fully agree. I personally feel Greg Nicotero is a huge reason for this season’s artistic excellence on all levels, and I imagine anyone working directly with the project knows this to be fact.
Much love, many thanks to Crazy Uncle Greg from us at barnfullawalkers. Thank you, Crazy Uncle Greg, for bringing the love, and the pain, and for being so beautifully twisted, genius, and spectacular. You are bringing it like Bukowski.
Next Deadie goes to our man, Lennie James, who plays Morgan Jones, kung fu badass who walks the way of the peaceful warrior. I do not know if Lennie James has been studying martial arts for a long time, or if he had to immerse himself in a quick study for this role, but damn, that man is pure poetry in motion. Style. Speed. Grace. Power. Poise.
And, impeccable acting, time and time again, in every project I have ever seen him in, and especially as Morgan Jones in The Walking Dead.
(I was a huge Morgan-and-Duane fan from the first moment I met them in the TWD pilot episode, Season 1’s “Days Gone Bye,” when Duane clocked Rick in the back of the head with a shovel, and he woke up, bound, in Morgan and Duane’s house.
As I watched WD Season 1, I kept asking Rick, on the screen, “Rick, have you tried to radio Morgan yet today? Call Morgan and Duane! They need to know where you are so they can meet up with you!”
Look, people, I knew Rick was super busy in Season 1, reuniting with his wife and kid, getting cuckolded, road tripping back and forth to Atlanta, trying to get to the CDC, but I was always super worried about Morgan and Duane.
I never stopped thinking about them, and I was kind of mad at Rick for dropping the ball on keeping in touch with Morgan like he said he would. I got over it, of course. I can’t stay mad at Rick Grimes for long, and who would want to? That’s just crazy talk, people!
I must tell you, however, when I watched Season 3’s “Clear,” when Rick, Carl, and Michonne found Morgan, and we found out what happened to Duane, it messed me up, hard…I won’t go into the sordid deets, but suffice it to say that the entire rest of that night was awash in bourbon and tears. I was haunted. I wore a black armband for days after under my work attire. It wasn’t pretty.
But, as hard as “Clear” was for me, I was mesmerized by Lennie James’ performance in that pivotal episode.
I remember hearing an interview with Andrew Lincoln on Talking Dead, and Andrew Lincoln said that he and Lennie James filmed the Morgan-to-Rick soliloquyscene in “Clear” on Andrew Lincoln’s birthday. In the TD interview, Andrew Lincoln said that the way that Lennie James delivered that monologue was the best birthday present he could have asked for.
For me, personally, Duane being alive and well would have been the best present I could have asked for, but alas, that was not to be…Kirkman said no, so I abide.)
R.I.P.Duane. ❤
So, much love, Lennie James, and mad props. You are an amazing actor, a talented martial artist, a total master, anda total pimp.
And, the last of the First Round of Deadies goes to genius composer, Bear McCreary, who delivered another incredible score, bringing the Morgan kung fu asskicking scene in the woods to new heights. Pure perfection, really. Once again, kudos,Bear McCreary.
Speaking of kudos, and sheer awesomeness, let us now return to Episode 516, where we see another beloved character, doing one of the things he loves best, being a beautiful badass on a bike…
Daryl Dixon. ❤
Behind Daryl, Aaron follows in a car that has seen better days. Daryl, then Aaron, pull over on an abandoned dirt road, shut off their vehicles, and gather their belongings. After a quick look-around, the two men slip into the woods.
Meanwhile, back in the Alexandria Juvenile Detention Center…
Rick Grimes wakes up in lockdown.
Rick blinks awake, peers around at the darkened room. There are rays of sunlight pouring through some small opening, or window, and Rick tries to sit up, painfully. He laughs a little, softly, to himself, shaking his head before giving it up. Shielding his eyes, he starts to lie back on the cot, when he is surprised by a voice in the room.
“What’s so funny?” we hear Michonne’s voice ask.
Shielding his eyes, caught unawares, Rick looks up at her.
Girlfriend is not looking pleased.
“You were here the whole time?” Rick asks her, hoarsely.
“All night,” Michonne answers, succinctly. She asks again, “What’s so funny?”
“This,” Rick replies, sitting up with some effort, motioning to the room around him, “is like the train car. After the whole thing…I’m still there.“
“Deanna wanted you in here,” Michonne replies. “Calm things down.” Her manner is terse, annoyed. “Rosita patched you up, Carl came by for a while, sent him home.”
Michonne’s tone and manner with Rick right now seems to be like: “Hey, remember your kids? Your people? Or did you forget about all that while you went off chasing after your own little drama story of, ‘Let me get all up in Jessie’s biz and fuck it all up for everyone else?'”
Then, Michonne stands, brings her chair a few steps closer to Rick’s bed, sits down again, looks at Rick. Classic interrogation room style.
“Rick,” Michonne asks, “what are you doing?” Rick shakes his head slightly, does not reply, rubs the back of his head.
Oh, Rick, does your head suddenly hurt sooo bad that you can’t answer the question? I love the man, but Rick Grimes is kind of being a total dramaking right now.
Michonne knows this, looks away, rolls her eyes, takes a deep breath. “They put Pete in another house,” she informs Rick. (And yes, they should have done that way sooner…but who exactly was going to enforce that, before Rick Grimes came along?)
“You could have told me what was happening,”Michonne tells Rick.
Rick turns the baby blues up to max volume, looks at Michonne. “It moved fast…and then, Noah,” he says, by way of explanation. (Whatever, dude. That’s code for, “I was seeing everything through my one-eyed monster, and now, here I am…here we are.”)
Michonne ain’t buying it, and, really, neither am I.
“I couldn’t tell you about the gun,” Rick continues.
Michonne fixes him a look, replies, “Nooo,you couldn’t…” Her tone quietly calls bullshit on Rick. I tend to agree. The gang is a tribe, a family, and after all they’ve been through, true family shouldn’t keep big secrets like that from each other. Go down in folly, whatever, but go down together, get checked before you wreck it for everyone.
“You wanted this place,” Rick says.
Michonne narrows her eyes at him. “We needed to stop being out there.”
Rick looks around the room. “Well, we’re here,” he says, stretching his leg out on his prison cot.
(Like I said, people, I love the man, and we all know that Alexandria is rife with bullshit on many levels, and I do love when Rick Smash! comes out to play and fuck shit up, but I find myself siding with Michonne on this one.
The gang needed to get to a safe place, and change is something that happens slowly, not all at once. Rick and Carol have been enabling each other’s drama and crazy, big time, which is, of course, completely delicious on many levels…but once it was clear that Deanna Monroe and her people were not malevolent, merely clueless, perhaps Rick and Carol could have dialed it down a little, and given it some time, let things play out.
I know the storyline here is all about Rick Smash! having a hard time readjusting to society, but is plotting a hostile takeover within the first week of being at the choice new digs really necessary? Dude, you’re a dad…when was the last time you cuddled your baby girl, or have you been too busy being all up in Jessie’s grill to even think about your own family?
In my opinion, Rick is being pretty self-obsessed, all about his own drama, and he is being a bit of a brat right now. While I love Rick, this isn’t all about him, and his actions are having a direct, negative effect on the rest of the righteous gang.
Talk to me, people…I would love to get readers’ thoughts on this one.)
In response to Rick’s drama king “Well, we’re here“comment, Michonne regards him coolly, replies, “Well, you just said you weren’t.” Rick looks at her like, “D’oh!” Oooo, burn, Rick Grimes!
The door opens then, and Glenn, Carol,and Abraham file into the room.
As Glenn, Carol, and Abraham stand, watching, we hear Michonne’s voice ask Rick, “Where’d you get the gun?”
Before Rick can answer, we hear Carol’s voice chime in, quickly, ” You took it, right?” (And thus begins the Carol’s Gonna Save Her Own Ass part of this program…)
“From the armory?” Carol prompts, looking hard at Rick, like, <“Um, I ain’t getting exiled along with you, dude…just sayin’.”>
Carol continues her award-winning performance. “That was stupid,” she admonishes Rick. “Why’d you do it?”
TheFirst Carol Commandment states: First and foremost, thou shalt save thy own ass.
Rick looks away, turns up his hand like a shrug, then looks back at Carol, locks eyes with her. Then, Rick says, “Just in case,” cocks his head to the side. Michonne watches all this, studies Rick closely through narrowed eyes.
Glenn says that Deanna is planning on having a meeting tonight, for anyone who wants to. “To kick Rick out?” Abraham asks. “Totry,” replies Carol.
“We don’t know that,”Glenn points out. He turns back to Rick, tells him that Maggie is with Deanna right now, and is going to try to find out what exactly the meeting is about.
As Rick takes all this in, Carol begins coaching him. Her voice is shaky, betraying her worry for Rick. “At the meeting, you say that somebody was being abused, and no one was doing anything about it. You say you took a gun, to make sure that Jessie was safe from a man who wound up attacking you. You say you’ll do whatever they want you to, just tell them a story that they want to hear.”
Carol looks over towards Glenn, says, “That’s what I’ve been doing since I got here.”Glenn looks down, puzzled, like, “Wait, have I missed something, here? What the fuck is happening with everyone?”
Michonne turns to Carol now, her arms crossed. “Why?” she asks.
“Because these people are children, and children like stories,” Carol replies.
From behind, Abraham chimes in, looking at Carol, but addressing everyone in the room, “What happens after all the nice words, and they still try to kick him out?”
Glenn informs them, “They’re guarding the armory now.”
“We still have knives,” Carol muses, aloud. “That’s all we’ll need against them.”
Rick takes this all in, his fingers working. How are you enjoying this nice little war you’ve started so far, Rick Grimes?Any20/20 hindsight kicking in yet?
Apparently not, because Rick begins to plan aloud, “Well, tonight, at the meeting, if it looks like it’s going bad, I whistle. Carol grabs Deanna, I take Spencer,” and then, Rick points his finger towards Michonne, “and you grab Reg…”
Listening to this, Michonne’s like, “What the shit?”
Rick continues, working out his super cray “Hostile Takeover of Alexandria” plan aloud, “…Glenn and Abraham cover us, watch the crowd…”
Wow, great plan, dude. It only has about 1,000 major, gaping holes in it. I’m sorry, but what the hell are he and Carol talking about? Knives v. guns? Have either of them checked in with the the rest of the gang, to see what they think about this? What about CarlandJudith?
Michonne tries to interject some sense into all this. “We can talk to them,” she asserts.
“Wewill,” Rick assures her. “But, if we can’t get through, we’ll take the three of them and say we’ll slit their throats.”(Hmmm. Well, Rick, I’m sure that will be a real turn-on for your new gf, Jessie, and I’m sure her sons will be so impressed with their NewDad’s take-charge attitude.)
Rick looks over at Michonne after delivering this announcement. (I guess no good deed really does go unpunished, does it, Deanna Monroe?)
“Like at Terminus,” Glenn says.
“No,” Rick asserts. “We just tell ’em: They give us the armory, and it’s over.”
Glenn’s look says it all. Yeah, ok, dude. One question… do you hear yourself right now? WTF?
Glenn looks at Rick. “Did you want this?” he asks him.
“No,” Rick replies. “I hit my limit, I sna-…” Rick gestures to his head, does not finish the thought in words.
Instead, Rick opens his arms in mock surrender, announces to the room, “I screwed up!”
(Well, that’s something, anyway…first step to overcoming a problem is admitting that you have one…and that you did, indeed, screw the pooch on this one, Rick Smash! P.S. You are still looking majorly cute though, all beat up and bandaged and bratty in your prison bunk 🙂 )
Rick looks around at the others in the room. “And, here we are,” he says. (Um, yeah, Rick, you said that already. He really does seem to know that he’s kind of fucking up the second chance they’ve been given, and the choice new digs for everyone else.)
And with that, Rick Grimes turns away, towards his pillow, and dismisses them.“And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to sleep some more.”
Two words: Hot Brat.
And, speaking of brats…
Looking out a window, Maggie watches Gabriel, the holy brat, take his priest’s frock down off the clothesline.
Reg comes in to collect Maggie, tells her Deanna’s out on the porch. Maggie follows him out to where Deanna is waiting. As Maggie walks out, onto the porch, Deanna looks up from some papers in her hands. Her manner is more businesslike than warm towards Maggie, and she asks, “What do you need to talk about, Maggie?”
Maggie faces Deanna, answers, “The meeting tonight.”
Reg, who seems to greatly dislike conflict, tries to interject, reassure, but Deanna talks over him.
“I want to talk to everyone about what happened, and what we need to do about it,” Deanna says, firmly.
“If it includes sending Rick away,” Maggie says, looking Deanna in the eye, “It’s not going to work.”
Deanna looks at Maggie. “Tell me what that means,” she says.
“You let Rick in. You let all of us in.” Maggie looks at Deanna a moment before continuing. “You talked to us; you decided.”
Deanna looks down. Maggie continues, “And, now you want to put the decision on a group of very frightened people who may not have the whole story. That’s not leadership.”
Reg explains to Maggie that the meeting is just a forum, to give people a chance to say their piece…
…and Deanna says that she will make the final decision, as she has done since the beginning.
Maggie explains, “(Rick) was frustrated…the things he’s seen? The things he’s lost…the things we have all lost.”
Deanna raises her eyebrows at this last part. “The things he’s lost?” she asks, softly.
Reg looks over at Deanna, like, “Uh oh...danger zone.“
Maggie looks at Deanna. “We’ve lost so much more,”she dares to say.
Deanna looks back at Maggie, angrily. “Rick took a gun, and he pointed it at people.”
“He didn’t pull the trigger,” Maggie replies. “That’s a metric, that he didn’t pull the trigger?” Deanna asks incredulously.
“Yes,” Maggie asserts. Deanna is clearly getting agitated, and Reg steps in, faces Deanna.
Deanna looks at Maggie. “I’m going to do what I have to do, Maggie,” she tells the young woman. Maggie looks at Deanna a moment, then stalks off. Reg calls after, then goes after, Maggie, as Deanna turns back to the papers in her hands.
“Maggie!” Reg hurries down the stairs after her. Maggie whirls around to face him. Reg stands on the steps, looks at the young woman before him, collects his thoughts a moment before speaking.
“The cave men… were all nomads, and, um, they all… died. Then, we evolved into this,” and Reg gestures around, to the buildings, the homes around them, “and we lived.” Maggie looks at Reg, listening, and he comes down a couple more steps until he stands at Maggie’s level, facing her.
“Civilization starts when we stop running,” Reg says, his hands in his pockets. He shrugs. “When we live together…when we stop sending people away, from the world, from each other.”
Reg looks at Maggie. “That’s what I’m going to tell her…that’s what I’m going to tell everyone.”
Maggie looks at Reg, silently expressing her thanks and gratitude, before walking off. Reg, man, you’re awesome. Solid gold. ❤
Meanwhile, just outside the steel gates of Alexandria…
Sasha is doing the lonely work of cleaning up the walker bodies she rekilled up in the tower. She loads another corpse on her cart and pulls it towards a deep pit that has been dug for walker burial.
Sasha looks down at the bodies in the pit, then turns and tugs at the body on her cart…the body is stuck, and is hard to dislodge, and Sasha herself slides into the pit with the dead walkers.
After a moment, Sasha lowers herself down until she lay on top of the pile of walkers in the pit…
…and the shot pans out as Sasha closes her eyes, opens her arms, and surrenders to the strange peace of lying on top of the fallen walkers. A really dark concept, creating a really beautiful shot, Nicotero-style.
The next shot we see is of Daryl and Aaron, making their way through the woods. Daryl notes that somebody came through that way a while back, and Aaron is quick to say that if they see the people, they hang back, set up the mike, “Watch, and listen.”
“For how long?” asks Daryl. “Until we know,” replies Aaron. “We have to know.”
Daryl continues to stealth through the woods, tracking as he goes. “You sent people away?” he asks Aaron.
Aaron confirms yes, they did. “What happened?” asks Daryl. Aaron tells him that it was early on…it was three people. Two men, and a woman.
“Davidson was their leader,” continues Aaron, as he follows Daryl through the woods. “Smart ashell, strong…I thought they’d work out. They didn’t.“
“I brought them in,” Aaron tells Daryl, “and I had to see them out.” The two men continue through the woods, the cool air misting their breath. Aaron tells Daryl how he, Aiden, and Nicholas drove the exiles out, far away, gave them a day’s worth of food and water, and left them.
“They just went?” Daryl asks. “We had their guns…all their guns,” replies Aaron.
“I can’t make that kind of mistake again,” Aaron tells Daryl.
Back in Alexandria, Carol is sitting on the edge of Rick’s bed, shaking his sleeping form. “Wake up,”she says, softly.
Rick starts awake, sees Carol sitting there, and sits himself up.
Carol gets right down to business. “It’s good what happened last night,” she says. “We have more cover now…all of them think you’ve been‘found out.’ They think it’s over.”
Carol holds out another handgun to Rick, and after a moment, he takes it.
After taking the gun, Rick looks at Carol. “Why didn’t you want to tell them we had more guns?” he asks her.
“Michonne stopped you…she knocked you out,” Carol says.
Rick looks away a moment, then back at Carol. “I deserved it,” he admits.
Carol doesn’t agree. “It was stupid,” she says, disgustedly. Rick looks at her. “She’s with us, Glenn is,” he asserts.
Carol looks at Rick. “I didn’t tell them about the guns, just in case,” she replies.
Rick leans his head back against the wall, then looks back at Carol.
“I don’t want to lie anymore,” Rick says.
Carol looks at Rick. “You said you (don’t?) want to take this place, and you don’t want to lie? Oh, sunshine, you don’t get both.“
Rick shakes his head, taking in the full import of Carol’s words.
(A couple of thoughts, before moving on. I replayed Carol’s response to Rick quite a few times, and she clearly said, to my hearing, “You said you don’t want to take this place,“ which confused me. I can’t really understand, after repeated playbacks, what exactly Carol’s saying, but I think I am picking up what Carol’s putting down. To me, it sounds like Carol’s still riding the train of, “Let’s take this fucking place.” It’s kind of the only interpretation that makes sense to me, in the moment, and as I’m sleep deprived and on mad deadline right now, a lot doesn’t really make sense in my world, right now…so, really, I have no idea.
Another question…is Alexandria really that bad, that Carol thought that Michonne was stupid to interfere with Rick’s Fifty Shades of Cray moment out in the street, the day before? If Michonne hadn’t interfered, and knocked Rick out, where would Rick’s standoff have ultimately led to? Would Carol have pushed Sam off her, run to get her guns, and come out, barrels blazing? What exactly is their grand takeover plan, here?
Is their plan to kill Deanna, Reg, Spencer, and all the other Alexandrians in charge, and then offer the other citizens a choice, join us or die? Are Rick and Carol really up for slaughtering any resistant elders, innocents, children, to take over a peaceful, established community that took them in, that appears to truly mean them no harm, as clueless as the Alexandrians appear to be about the true state of life outside the walls? Especially when they are not sure if all of their people, their best people (like Michonne, Glenn, Daryl, Abraham, Maggie, Rosita, Sasha) would be on board with this plan to begin with?
And, what does Rick think Jessie would say about all of this? How was he planning on explaining this to her? “Oh, it’s simple, babe…I just kill your abusive husband, we take over your community, and then, you are riding high as First Lady of the Ricktatorship! What was that you said? What about your sons? Oh, they’ll be cool with it…their biodad’s a real dick!”
How would Rick’s own son, Carl, feel about this plan? What about the inherent danger a hostile takeover would be to the most vulnerable Alexandrian citizens, like Baby Judith? A loud gun battle within the walls of Alexandria would bring every walker within a twenty mile radius, hissing and pounding on those walls…and don’t even get me started about potential living threats who may come knocking!
And, how does Carol think that Daryl will feel about this plan? As Carol and Rick plot and plan, Daryl’s with Aaron, 50 miles out, looking for others to recruit into the Alexandria community. Does Carol think that Daryl will approve of this hostile takeover, or that Aaron’s just going to sit back and accept this order of things upon his return, especially if his boyfriend, Eric, is one of the dissenters, and gets killed for his refusal?
Sorry for the rant, gang. I, of course, love all the hot crazy in theory, but when it comes down to it, I say:Bad plan, sorry, can’t back you guys on this one.)
Anyway, back to our story…
50 miles away, out on the scout, Daryl and Aaron have spied a lone man, wearing a red rain poncho, carrying a backpack. They watch him through their binoculars.
“What’s he doing?” Aaron asks, as they watch the man bend down, pick something from the ground, and rub it vigorously on his hands, then his face.
Watching the man, Daryl remarks, “Wild leeks…looks like somebody knows how to keep mosquitoes off him.”
After a moment, Daryl bids Aaron, “Come on,” and they begin to follow the man, keeping a safe distance behind.
Back at Alexandria…
Rick steps out of juvie, blinking in the sunlight…
…and begins to walk down the sidewalk, where Tobin and two other men stand. Tobin is wearing a rifle on his shoulder, a new development in Alexandria…the armory is being guarded, and it seems that Rick’s quarters are under watch as well.
Rick and Tobin greet each other as Rick passes. It is safe to assume the men with Tobin are armed as well, and Rick is most certainly packing his heat. When I first watched this episode, I thought Rick was carrying his pistol openly on him, but rewatching it, I am not sure if it’s open, or hidden, but it most certainly is on him.
Deanna looks up from her papers and watches Rick pass, with some alarm showing on her face.
Rick passes by Deanna, makes eye contact with her, but neither one greets the other as Rick passes.
Seems like Rick could have taken the opportunity to greet Deanna, or apologize for the previous day’s events, but I guess that’s not happening…
Meanwhile…
Glenn sits on the porch, waiting for Maggie to return from her meeting with Deanna as a shady lurker watches him from the shadows….
Nicholas Lurker watches Glenn, hatred in his eyes…he surely has his handgun on him.
Maggie comes up, and Glenn asks her what the verdict is…Maggie tells Glenn it’s what they thought.
Maggie assures Glenn that she will go and talk to people today, before the meeting, plead Rick’s case.
Maggie assures Glenn. He manages a small smile, nods. Maggie sees something is bothering Glenn, asks him, “What?” He does not reply. Maggie sits down next to him, asks again, “What?”
Instead of voicing his real thoughts, Glenn puts his hand on Maggie’s knee, smiles, tells her, “I love you.”
Maggie looks at Glenn’s troubled face. “We’re gonna work it out,” she tells him. “I know it.” They look at each other, and Maggie smiles bravely at Glenn. “I’ll see you there,” Maggie says, and the young couple parts ways.
After Maggie leaves, Glenn sits a moment more on the porch, thinking…a sudden noise makes him look up, and he sees…
… Nicholas, climbing up, and over, the fence. Glenn stands, looks around, then sets off after Nicholas.
The weird just keeps on happening, it seems, because in the next scene, we see Spencer, at the main gate, opening the door for Gabriel. Spencer asks Gabriel, “Sure you don’t want a gun, Father?”
Looking intense and spooky as all get-go, Gabriel replies, “I just want a quick walk.” He looks around, adds, “The Word of God is the only protection I need,” before heading out.
As he closes the gate, Spencer’s look is like, “Ummm…ok.”
Rick, meanwhile, has made it to his house, opens the door, and is greeted immediately by Carl. “Dad!”Carl exclaims, relieved, and rushes forward to give his dad a hug.
Carl, please talk some sense into your father.
Carl asks Rick if he’s ok, and Rick assures him he is, apologizes to Carl as he continues walking through the living room. Carol tells his father he heard about the meeting, and Rick is quick to issue the order, “You’re staying home.”
“That’s what it is, now, right? Home?“ Carl asks. The question stops Rick in his tracks, and he turns around to face his son.
Damn. Even with bandaids and shit all over his face, Rick Grimes is just one fine-ass looking man.
Rick looks at his son for a moment, then answers, “Yeah.”
Carl looks at Rick. “They need us,” he tells his father. “They’ll die without us.“
Rick looks at his son a moment, walks over to him, faces him.
“I may have to threaten one of them,” says Rick. “I may have to kill one of them.” “You won’t,” Carl asserts. “I might,” counters Rick.
“You have to tell them,” Carl says. Rick protests, “I tried to tell them last night.”
Carl looks into his dad’s eyes. “You have to tellthem so they can hear you,” he tells his father, wisely. (I love Carl in this scene!)
Rick leans in towards his son. “I don’t know if they can,” he says softly. He asks Carl, “Does that make you afraid?” Carl shakes his head, then looks at his dad again.
“For them…you have to tell them,” he insists, looking earnestly into Rick’s face. Carl’s right, and deep down, Rick knows it. The Alexandrians may be clueless about some things, but they are basically good people, and both Carl and Rick have grown to care about certain members of the community very, very much.
Rick looks at his son, and nods.
Rick Grimes has some of his finest moments when he is getting schooled by his son. ❤
Meanwhile, about 50 miles away…
Peering through binoculars, Daryl and Aaron spot a couple of tractor trailers which look promising for a major food score.
As Daryl surveys the trucks through the fence, Aaron laments, “We checked the forest, we checked the roads…we can’t find him.” He is talking about the man in the red jacket, who they spotted earlier. They have been searching for him, in vain, and ended up here.
“Sometimes, they (people) slip away, it happens,” Aaron continues. He looks through the fences, at the tractor trailers, then at Daryl. “But, you don’t come across something like this every day.”
Daryl points out that if they do this now, it means they’ve given up on finding the man with the red jacket. Aaron replies that home is 50 miles back…it’s time to go.
“You saw it last night…there’s bad people out here,” Aaron says.
“That’s why we gotta keep looking for the good ones,” Daryl maintains.
“We need more people, we do, and when we find them, we’ll need to feed them,” Aaron points out.
Daryl thinks about this for a moment, then agrees,“All right.” He takes his knife and raps on the metal fence, calling over the walkers that are milling around outside the inner fencing, blocking the way to the trailers.
After making quick work of rekilling the walkers through the fencing, Daryl and Aaron pull open the gate, and make their way towards the trailers, sitting abandoned in the loading area of the canned foods distribution center.
It seems like an ideal score...too good to be true.
As they approach the tractor trailers, Daryl and Aaron don’t seem to notice that each trailer has a couple of empty cans, with holes punched through and strung up alongside, or under, the trailers. The cans catch the wind, and seem to be some kind of noisemaking or alert mechanism.
As they approach the backs of the trailers, each emblazoned with colorful images of cans, vegetables, laden fields, Daryl keeps watch while Aaron, beaming, crouches, opens his backpack. and begins unscrewing something low on the back of one of the trucks.
“Whoa!” Aaron exclaims, looking delighted. “Wasn’t sure I’d see one of these!”Yep, too good to be true…
As he works, Aaron tells Daryl that he doesn’t like giving up either, but, you know, the guy is in a red poncho…
“You can see him from a mile away!”
Aaron pulls up a license plate from Alaska…triple bonus score!
As they stand in front of the three trailers, Aaron happily remarks that even though they may have lost track of the man they were tailing, finding trailers full of canned goods is a pretty great find… Daryl agrees, squats down to pull open one of the trailer doors…the sliding door seems to set off some kind of chain-reaction mechanism, and all at once, all three doors slide open, and what they reveal inside is not quite the bounty the two men were looking for.
Sometimes, it seems, the universe has quite a twisted sense of humor…
…and triple bonus score is merely another name for…
…triple fucked.
Walkers begin to pour out of the trailers, snapping and snarling, while other walkers, without arms or legs, hang on hooks, helplessly gnashing their rotting teeth...just what is the deal with these torso walkers?
Daryl and Aaron make a run for it, only to find their way blocked by another large group of walkers…it seems the trailers open at both ends once the booby trap mechanism is set off.
Daryl and Aaron must fight through the first wave of walkers…Daryl uses his knife to spear through the walkers’ rotten skulls…
…while Aaron uses his newfound Alaska license plate to slice through the walkers’ brains, like a walker-killing MacGyver.
There are too many walkers to fight through, and Daryl and Aaron dive under one of the tractor trailers for momentary cover.
The walkers, however, are not far behind them, clawing their way, hissing, towards the men.
Daryl finds a good-sized length of rusty chain, and he bids Aaron to follow him out the open side of the trailer, away from the crawling walkers. Daryl encounters three walkers in his path, and he chainwhips them in badass bullwhip style…
I have no idea how the WD special effects mavericks achieved this particular effect, but kudos to them…so seamlessly realistic.
Daryl then spears his knife into a walker that has come up on Aaron. Aaron must be taking notes, because he machetes two walkers upside the head in pimp padawan style as the men run for cover from the walker horde that is closing in around them.
Daryl and Aaron run to the only refuge from the walkers they can find, and abandoned car that is sitting in the middle of the lot. As they dive in and try to shut the doors against the crush of walkers, Aaron slams his door on SquishNasty Walker’s head, squishing it nasty…
Yuck.
After a couple of tries, Aaron finally gets the car door shut, and then the two men are trapped in a closed car, as the walkers swarm the outside of it.
Oh noooo!
Back inside the truck, hanging from hooks, the Torso Walkers are all like,”Goddamn it…we miss all the fun shit!”
Well, this sucks.
Aaron says the glass should hold a while…right? Daryl says he thinks so, comes up with the idea to cover the windows, so the walkers can’t see them in there, and eventually lose interest…if they can find something in the car to cover the windows, maybe they can ride it out, or maybe somebody else will come along…
As Aaron and Daryl look around the car for something to cover the windows with, Aaron finds a crumpled note, saying, “Trap. Bad people coming. Don’t stay.”
Aaron, alarmed, looks at Daryl, who looks down at the note. Shit.
Fucked creek, without a paddle, this is.#yodaspeak
And, speaking of fucked creek…
We hear a knock on the door, as we see McBeaty sitting alone in his dark, solitary mansion…it sure is gloomy and lonesome when there’s no one around to terrorize, huh, McBeaty?
After the second knock, McBeaty gets up, goes to the door, and opens it. Carol strides in, carrying a casserole.
“What the hell are you doing?” demands McBeaty.(Wow,McBeaty, you have quite the way with all the ladies, don’t you? What these Alexandrians have yet to realize is that a Carol casserole on the doorstep seems to be the equivalent of a dead canary…)
Still holding the casserole, Carol informs McBeaty, “You need to check on Tara. You treated her, you’re a surgeon, you need to do that.”
McBeaty points to the door. “Get out,” he growls at Carol, beginning to walk back to the dark living room, presumably to sulk some more (as I am sure that Deanna Monroe, Inc. cleared out all the alcohol inMcBeaty’s detention mansion).
As I watched Carol casually reach for her knife, still holding the casserole, I could only think: McBeaty, McBeaty, McBeaty… remember when you tried that line, just yesterday, on Rick Grimes? Remember how that turned out?
As I remember it, as soon as you uttered the fatal words: 1) your wife basically jumpstarted the process of quitting your ass and leaving you for another man, 2) that said man threw you through a window, and, 3) you got your ass beat on some hotasphalt in front of the entire town of Alexandria.
I dunno, McBeaty, maybe next time, you should try another angle…that line doesn’t seem to work very well in your favor!
“I could kill you right now,”Carol informs McBeaty, holding the knife under his chin.
“I could,” Carol continues. “I will…”
“And who would believe I did it because I didn’t like you? No one,” Carol singsongs, holding the pointy end of her knife right up under McBeaty’s chin, twisting it for effect. McBeaty’s breath becomes shaky.
(It is truly comical to see this tiny woman holding a huge knife to this big man, who is breathing hard now, truly shaken.)
Carol keeps the knife point under McBeaty’s chin, not letting up. “They’d believe you tried to hurt me…they’d definitely believe that,“ she informs him.
With one quick swipe of her knife, Carol deftly draws the barest drop of blood from under McBeaty’s chin, and shows it to him on the tip of her blade.
Carol brings the knife down, invites McBeaty, “Come at me.”McBeaty takes the barest step forward, then thinks better of it. “No?” asks Carol. McBeaty wisely doesn’t move, doesn’t answer. “Yeah?” taunts Carol. McBeaty stays still and silent as a stone. “No,” concludes Carol, with some regret in her voice.
Carol regards the tall, shaken man in front of her. “The way this has played out, you have a chance,” she informs him. “You’re here, your wife’s…there,” and New Carolmotions her head towards the end of the street.
New Carol sizes up McBeaty. “You’re a small, weak nothing,” she says, disgustedly. “And with the world how it is, you’re even weaker.”
New Carol tells McBeaty, “Play your cards right, and maybe you don’t have to die.” She then shoves the casserole hard, into his gut, turns to leave, then turns back once more. “I want my dish back clean when you’re done.” And with that, New Carol walks out the door. McBeaty stands there a moment, in shock, before dropping the casserole to the floor, and in an impotent rage, storms into the other room and starts trashing it. “This isn’t my house,” he seethes. “This isn’t my house!”Loud crashing ensues.
Ah, so very good, New Carol…a low bow to you, most honorable master. ❤
Meanwhile, out in the woods, Glenn is following Nicholas, keeping some distance behind. Nicholas scurries deeper into the woods, and after looking around, Glenn follows behind.
Glenn peers at the rekilled remains of Houdini Walker(forgot about you in the memoriam,bud…sorry!) R.I.P.Houdini Walker
Glenn approaches the site cautiously, taking in the sight of the walker, and the bloody chain Aiden and Nicholas used, to try to keep the walker tethered, so they could torture it for their sport when they weren’t feeling so good about themselves, back in the day.
Glenn hears a noise in the bushes, and draws his knife, looking around. A loud shot rings out, and Glenn is hit, the bullet grazing the top of his shoulder.
No!
Glenn winds back, falls to the ground.
Nicholas rushes forward from his cowardly hiding spot in the bushes. (Nicholas! You bastard!)
But when Nicholas reaches the spot where Glenn fell, he only sees drops of blood on the grass and leaves…Glenn is gone.
You tell him, Nelson:
Ah, this next scene…so beautifully done. One of my all-time favorites.
As Jessie tries to clean up the broken mess of her living room window, we see a gentleman caller has come to pay a visit…
I love this look on her face when she looks up and sees Rick coming up her porch stairs. AlexandraBreckenridge does an amazing job in this scene, this episode, and of course, Andrew Lincoln…well, there are no words, even for me. Beautifully shot, beautifully acted. Michael Satrazemis, director of photography, director Greg Nicotero, of course…Deadies all around for this scene, another classic TWDmoment.
“You should go,” Jessie says to Rick (translation:You should goto my bedroom, with me, now!)
“I just wanted to check on you,” Rick says, gently. #constabledreamy
Jessie and Rick share a sweet moment, looking at each other, not saying anything…in words, anyway.
Rick leans forward, noticing. “Your eye,” he says, concerned. Jessie is indeed sporting a black eye from McBeaty’s savage backhand when she tried to pull him off Rick, and break up the fight.
Jessie assures Rick that it happened during the fight. McBeaty has been in Lockdown Mansion, down the street, and hasn’t had a chance to lay a hand on her since.
Jessie then says that they shouldn’t be seen talking right now…but it’s pretty hard to tear themselves away.
“I’m not sorry I did it, no matter what happens, or what I have to do,” Rick tells Jessie (which is pretty much the most perfect thing he could say in this moment). #swoon
After another moment, Rick turn to go. As he turns away, Jessie calls to him, “Don’t turn around, Rick.”
Rick stops, waits. He doesn’t turn around.
“You were right,” says Jessie. Rick turns his face slightly towards her, before walking away.
And down the street, from inside a house that isn’t his own, we see McBeaty watching this interaction.
Cue the sinister Bear McCreary music…
Meanwhile….
50 miles away…
Inside the car, Daryl looks at the walkers outside the window, then looks straight ahead, gives a little laugh as a funny thought occurs to him. “Huh!”
Aaron looks over at Daryl. “What?”Daryl explains, with a shake of his head, “I came out here to…I feel all closed up back there (in Alexandria).”
Daryl looks towards Aaron, then slightly away as he marvels, “Even now…it still feels more like me.”
Daryl sadly muses that back at “those houses,” he was really putting himself “on.”
Aaron winces as the pain of Daryl’s sad statement hits him. Daryl feel his importance as someone who can contribute to his group out in the wild, but is overcome with self doubt finding his place in a walled, polite society, housed in homes that would have never been an option for someone like him before the turn.
Aaron looks at Daryl, says, gently, “You were trying.” Daryl looks ahead, thinking a moment, then replies, “I had to.”
Aaron shakes his head. “No, you didn’t.” Daryl doesn’t respond. Aaron continues, “Listen, I saw you out there with your group, in the road…and you went off, on your own, by the barn. The storm hit…you led your people to safety.” Daryl is silent, listening to Aaron’s words.
“That was it,” Aaron says, remembering. “That’s when I knew that I had to bring you people back.”
Daryl does not reply, and then it is Aaron’s turn for self-reflection, and self doubt. As the walkers continue to hiss and paw at the windows, Aaron looks down, muses, “You were right. We should have kept looking for that guy in the poncho.” Aaron shakes his head. “I shouldn’t have given up. You didn’t.”
After a moment, Daryl pulls out a cigarette, puts it in his mouth, and reaches in his jacket, fishing for a light.
“I’ll go,” Daryl offers. Aaron turns, looks at him in disbelief. “I’ll lead ’em out, you make a break for the fence,” Daryl says, gesturing beyond the car’s windows.
Daryl then lights his smoke, inhales deeply.
“No, no, no,” Aaron counters. “This was my fault.”
Daryl looks at Aaron.
“It wasn’t a question,” rebukes Daryl, “and this ain’t your decision. Ain’t nobody’s fault.”
“Now, just lemme finish my smoke first.” (A very special Deadie right here, right now, for our man, Daryl Dixon:The Most Beautiful, Tender Hero, Always Award)DarylDixon, you are the most beautiful, tender hero, always. ❤
“No,” whispers Aaron. “You don’t draw them away…”
“…we fight.”
Aaron looks at Daryl. “We go for the fence. We do it together…whether we make it or not, we do it together. We have to.” ❤
( A Padawan Hero Deadie for Aaron, here, and a Most ExcellentNewcomer Deadie to Ross Marquand, the actor who plays Aaron. He even does impressions! ) 🙂
Daryl looks over at Aaron, regards him with the barest of smiles, and a new respect. “All right,” he agrees. He takes one more drag of his smoke, asks, “Ready?”
“Yeah,”Aaron replies, softly. Daryl says, “We’ll go on 3.”Aaron grips his machete, and Daryl draws his knife, begins to bounce himself in the seat, readying himself for battle as he begins to count, “1…”
As Daryl counts, Aaron, gripping his machete, turns and locks eyes with one of the walkers, outside. 1-2-3 Walker seems to be smiling at Aaron, as if it knows what is about to happen…
“…2…!” Daryl counts, and as if on cue, 1-2-3 Walker’sbrains are suddenly dashed against the car windows, to Aaron’s shock and surprise.
The car door is flung open, and we see who the rescuer is…Morgan!
Brandishing his trusty wooden staff, Morgan continues taking out walkers, buying Aaron and Daryl a moment to get out of the car and begin battling walkers themselves.
Aaron brings his machete down on a walker’s head…
…as Daryl stabs at the walkers, and Morgan takes them out with his staff. Between the three of them, they are able to clear a line to the gate and quickly get outside, pulling the gate closed behind them, barring the walkers’ way.
As the walkers rush the fence, Aaron, Daryl, and Morgan take a moment to process the fact that they just escaped, with their lives, against all odds. They did it!
Aaron turns to Morgan, ecstatic. “That was…” he begins, bowing his hands towards Morgan, unable to find the words. “Thank you,” he says, simply.
Morgan receives Aaron’s thanks, and praise, humbly.
Aaron introduces himself, and Daryl. Morgan introduces himself, “Morgan.” Daryl regards Morgan, puzzled.
“Why?” Daryl asks him. Morgan looks at Daryl.
“Why?” Morgan replies. “Because all life is precious, Daryl.”
As Morgan and Daryl regard each other, Aaron begins talking, quickly, reminding them that whoever set that trap will be coming back, at some point, and that they have good news…they have a community, with electricity, and walls. Aaron tells Morgan he is welcome to come with them, if he likes.
“I thank you,” Morgan tells them, politely and sincerely, “but I’m on my way somewhere. Fact is,I’m lost.” Morgan begins fishing in his coat pocket for something, says, “If you could tell me where we are,”and hands a map over to Daryl…
…who takes the map Morgan has handed him, and looks down to see Abraham’s note to Rick: “The new world’s gonna need Rick Grimes!” ❤
Daryl looks down at the map, then up at Morgan a couple of times, trying to wrap his head around this. Morgan returns his gaze in an open, friendly manner, his eyebrows raised in silent question.
🙂 Cue the sweet Bear McCreary piano music
Some ways away, another type of music is in the air…a singsong bird whistle carries hesitantly through the woods as Gabriel walks along, clad simply in a long-sleeved white shirt with dark pants.
Gabriel seems to be dressed in white for some sort of ritualistic Eat Meself-sacrifice, and is whistling, presumably, to attract walkers. Judging from Gabriel’s face, however, he may be whistling because he’s really, really terrified and doesn’t quite know what to do with all that.
Gabriel approaches a clearing, and what he sees beyond it warps his little singsong whistle into some shrill, discordant notes…he makes himself step closer…
…towards the walker feasting on some poor doomed somebody in the road.
Gabriel seems to find his resolve more and more with each step towards the walker, who is pretty busy in the moment, and who does not yet notice Gabriel behind it.
Gabriel opens his arms and calls out, “I’m ready!“
That gets Eat Me Walker’sattention, and it turns to face Gabriel.
Eat Me Walker stands and begins lurching towards Gabriel, whose eyes are wide with fear, but who continues to step towards the fast-coming walker…
Arms open, walking towards the walker, Gabriel repeats, more uncertainly this time, “I’m ready.”
Eat Me Walker lurches towards Gabriel, whose face begins to look more and more like, “I’m not ready” for this…
“No, fuck this, I am definitely not ready for this! Fuck. This!”
Gabriel pushes the walker back with its first rush at him, and it takes him one more second of considering his course before he does what any other person, sane or not, would do if he/she wanted to continue living…he defends himself.
Crying, hating himself, Gabriel pulls at Eat Me Walker’s hanging noose end until the walker’s head pops off its rotten neck.
So much for self sacrifice. Never been a big fan of it, myself.
Gabriel takes a large rock and smashes it into Eat Me Walker’s gnashing, reanimated head, spattering its brains all over the ground. The only thing I could think in the moment, watching this scene, was, “Well, where was all that brawn and bravado before, Gabriel, when Rick and the gang could have really used another killing machine in their many righteous battles against the undead, and your ass just hung back, and watched, and sniveled? You better be jumping up and getting up in there next time…just sayin’…time to be ahelper, Gabriel!”
Gabriel walks over to Eat Me Walker’s chomped victim, who lay convulsing on the ground…
Gabriel lifts the rock high, and brings it down on the poor man’s head, killing him for good.
Gabriel breaks down, sobbing. He collapses in the road, crying in real anguish. The Renegade Deadie goesto our man, Seth Gilliam, who is killing it once again as Gabriel, the tortured priest! (I do hope that Seth Gilliam can start living closer to the rest of the TWD cast during Season 6 shooting, and not be an outsider any more…closer digs would be way more fun.)
Meanwhile, back in Alexandria, Abraham comes to visit Tara, bearing hand cut flowers in a jar…
…and stops short when he sees Eugene’s dozing form, slumped in one of the visitor’s chairs beside Tara’s bed.
Abraham turns to go. “I’ll come by later,” he mutters, trying to duck out the door. “He’s asleep,” Rosita says. Abraham stops. Rosita smiles at him, as if trying not to laugh. “He’s asleep, sit,” she says. Rosita turns back to writing as Abraham quiety closes the door and begins to gingerly step over to Tara’s bed.
After taking a second to stare down at Eugene, determining if he really is asleep, Abraham begins to ease himself slowly into the chair beside Eugene when…
…Rosita deliberately pushes a metal pan off the counter, sending it clattering loudly to the floor. “Whoops, “ Rosita mock laments. Abraham freezes in mid-sit, his face saying it all. She got him good, and they both know it.
Eugene jolts awakes, sees Abraham beside him. He peers over at Abraham, who is turning back from shooting Rosita a look…Abraham and Eugene regard each other a moment.
“Good afternoon,” says Eugene. Abraham says nothing.
First Abraham, then Eugene, turn their gazes back to Tara, sleeping in her bed. An awkward moment passes, then Eugene speaks up. “She saved my life,” he says, of Tara.
Eugene continues, “She also cracked open my gourd to considering implications I hadn’t… I’ll remark on those at this time.”
Eugene turns to Abraham. “You got us here. All I did was craft a top shelf lie, to which a person of strength and heroism could apply their talents.”(Editor’s note: The Top Shelf Lie is an amazing name for a mullet.)
“My bet was that you needed that,” Eugene continues, still looking over at Abraham. Abraham is kind of staring ahead, at Tara’s sleeping form, taking it all in.
“I thank you,“ Eugene says, simply and humbly, and bravely. Abraham turns to face Eugene.
Tears in his eyes, and a shake in his voice, Eugene looks at Abraham and says, “I am sorry.” Awww!❤
“And I mean both, emphatically and in equal measure,” Eugene concludes.
After a moment, Abraham looks back at Eugene…
…then looks away again. As Rosita and Eugene watch, Abraham seems to really struggle with saying the words: “I’m…sorry, too.”
Eugene hurriedly tries to assure Abraham that his apology is “utterly and completely unnecessary,” when Abraham reminds him that:
“I almost killed you.” Abraham’s voice betrays his anger at himself for losing his shit on Eugene so hard after Eugene confessed his big lie.
“Yes,” Eugene concedes, “there’s that.” The men look at each other for one more awkward moment, then both turn back to look at Tara.
Meanwhile, Spencer, who is pulling gate duty, hears a rap at the gate, peers through an opening in the tarp covering the fence, and sees Gabriel has returned.
Spencer rolls open the gate. “You’re back,” he greets Gabriel. “Good. Just wanted to sneak off to the meeting.”
Gabriel does not reply, just looks like his usual spooked self, and Spencer turns to go, then turns back to Gabriel. “Do you think we could find some time to talk later?” he asks the priest. “About Aiden? There’s just some things I need to say, and I’m not sure who I can say them to.”
Spencer looks shyly at Gabriel, confesses, “I don’t really have anyone here, right now, if you know what I mean.”
Oh, I think Father Gabriel knows exactly what you mean, Spencer!
Gabriel whispers something like, “I see,” which really isn’t the most comforting or reassuring reply, but Spencer seems like he’s already onto number next. There’s a meeting to get to, and it’s a big one…they’re gonna be talking exile and shit.
“Cool,” Spencer says breezily, and turns to go, then turns back to Gabriel, motions towards the gate. “Can you get that?” Spencer asks Gabriel, and like someone half asleep, Gabriel whispers, “Yeah…”
“Thank you,” says Spencer, turns, and strides off towards the meeting. Gabriel turns and pulls the gate closed, half-heartedly, and is already walking away as the metal door bounces against the frame and begins to roll back open…unlatched, unlocked, unmanned…open.
Dude, really?
Meanwhile, out in the woods…
Nicholas is running through the woods, buggin’ hard, trying to find Glenn, who he shot, and lost…he sees a figure moving through the trees, raises his gun.
The moving figure, however, turns out not to be Glenn, but Je Ne Sais Quoi Walker, whose face alights as it spies Nicholas, and begins to stride towards him with a certain, undead, je ne sais quoi flair to its shuffling step.
Nicholas pulls out his knife as the walker approaches, but seems to lack confidence in his hand-to-hand walker takedown skills…
Nicholas goes for what he knows, reaching for his pistol and firing upon the walker , rekilling it instantly. Glenn knows this is the moment to strike, and he tackles Nicholas against a tree.
Glenn, being shot, has the definite disadvantage of being wounded, in pain, and losing blood, but he manages to land some good shots at Nicholas…
Nicholas gets some good shots in on Glenn, and does the dick maneuver of jabbing a finger or thumb into Glenn’s bullet wound, causing Glenn to cry out in pain. Glenn tackles Nicholas to the ground…
…and manages to stomp the inside of one of Nicholas’s legs, hard, most likely breaking the bone. Nicholas gets the advantage once again, ending up on top of Glenn, punching him again and again, jabbing poor Glenn’s wound. Glenn screams out in pain.
The noise attracts the attention of Aye, Aye, Aye Walker, who ambles up crookedly with a high-pitched, gurgling snarl, “Aye…aye…aye!”
As Aye, Aye, Aye Walkercomes up, Nicholas rolls off Glenn and flees, leaving Glenn at the mercy of the she-walker and two other undead fiends…Nicholas, you bastard!
Aye, aye, aye! Watching this finale episode, my WD buddy and I were super freaked at this scene, which ended with the shot fading out, to the next scene, or commercial. I turned to my WDbuddy and said, “They’re not going to take Glenn down with a fade-out!”
Meanwhile…
Rick is sitting alone, looking down, thinking. Michonne comes up behind him, watches him a moment. “Rick,” she says, softly, “you ready?”
Rick sits a moment, then turns to Michonne, and starts to confess the truth. He looks pretty adorable, abashed, not really able to meet her eyes at times as he comes clean with her.
“Daryl, Carol, and me…we worked it out together. Carol took three guns from the armory. I still have one, she still has one.” Rick turns to look at Michonne, who is digesting all this information.
Rick takes a deep breath before continuing. “We lied to you, because I wasn’t sure how you’d take it, what you’d do.”
Rick holds out the gun for Michonne to take. Michonne, however, makes no move to take the gun.
Michonne tosses the constable’s jacket on the bed, fixes Rick with a look. “You think I’d try to stop you?” she chides gently.
Rick, still holding out the gun, looks at Michonne, who still does not reach for it.
“Well,” he jokes, “you did hit me over the head.”
“That was for you,” Michonne replies, “not them.”
Rick takes this in, gets up from the bed, walks over to Michonne. He stands before her, faces her.
“I was afraid you’d talk me out of it,” Rick tells Michonne. “You could have.”
Michonne’s face softens as she looks at the big adorable dummy in front of her. “We don’t need them (guns) here,” she says gently, shaking her head. “I don’t need my sword.”
Michonne looks up at Rick, looking like The MostBeautiful Wise One (and you know that’s a Deadie, and you know it goes to Michonne/Danai Gurira!). ❤
Michonne tells Rick, “I think you can find a way.” Rick looks away, in a moment of resistance, or embarrassment, as he hears aloud what he probably already knew, deep down, to be true.
“We can find a way…” Michonne continues, “and if we don’t?” Michonne pauses a moment to let her next statement sink in, “I’m still with you.”
Dammit, Richonne, why? Why?? It could have been so amazing! I am trying to be supportive and unconditional with the whole Ressie thing, but you two, together, would have been the sexy superhero team-up of my dreams… <sob!>
Continuing to be a beautiful oracle,Michonne tells Rick, “Something’s gonna happen…just don’t make something happen.”
Rick takes the wisdom, and the lesson, in. He tries to hand Michonne his handgun one last time, and she presses it back towards him.
Michonne turns to leave. “Don’t be too long,”she tells Rick, who stands silently, mulling over her words.
Rick sits on the end of the bed, unsheathing a long, machete-style blade, weighing options, remembering words that Bob had told him, back on the goods run at the food bank:
“And you’re gonna find yourself in a place where it’s like where I used to be…and if you let too much go along the way, it’s not gonna work. “
As Rick stands and looks at the gun in his hand, Bob’s words continue to come back to him: “You’re gonna be back in the real world.”
Rick’s own words to Bob come back to him as he tucks the handgun into the back waistband of his pants, “This is the real world, Bob.”
We hear Bob’s laugh, then his reply: “Naw, this is a nightmare…and nightmares end.”
Rick is pacing around the room, thinking, deciding…as he looks out the window, something outside catches his eye…something very amiss.
Alarmed, Rick grabs his jacket, and rushes out of the room.
Outside, Rick walks quickly towards the gate, which is open…he checks all around the fence, peers outside, then sees…
…blood and gory bits left on the slide-latch part of the gate…Rick looks down at the ground, sees drops of blood in a line leading into Alexandria.
Rick quickly pulls the gate closed, latches it locked, and turns to scour the streets of Alexandria…
…for uninvited, undead intruders!
Meanwhile, we see Gabriel, gate-jacker, returning to his makeshift chapel, where a surprise visitor awaits him…
Sasha.
Gabriel and Sasha look at one another a moment, then Gabriel walks silently up to the front of the chapel’s altar. Sasha looks down miserably towards the floor in front of her as she talks. “I came here…because I don’t knowwhat to do…I’m losing my head.”
“Can you help me?” Sasha asks, still staring towards the floor, unable to look at Gabriel, tears in her eyes.
Gabriel turns to regard the woman seated in his chapel. “No,” he replies, cruelly.
Meanwhile, the town meeting is waiting to begin…Rick is not there, nor is Glenn, Gabriel, Nicholas, Carl.
Deanna Monroe’s face looks grim as she waits with Reg and Spencer.
Maggie is trying to keep cool, but glances over towards Deanna. You can tell she’s worried. It doesn’t look good for Rick, his not being there. And where is Glenn?
We see a shot of the assembled townspeople, seated in chairs around a fire. We see Michonne looking around, surely wondering where Rick is, where the others are.
We see Jessie, sporting a black eye, most certainly freaking out inside, but outwardly keeping it together pretty damn well, and looking pretty cute doing it.
After a moment more, Deanna announces to the assembled townspeople, “We’re going to start.”
“Can we wait?” Maggie’s voice is soft, but firm. “There’s still people coming. Glenn…Rick.” (Awarding a Maggie For President Deadie to Maggie Greene/Lauren Cohan here, for bringing it in Season 5, and looking gorgeous doing it!) ❤
In response, Deanna Monroe turns back to the assembled citizens, says again, “We’re going to start.”
Deanna turns to look at Maggie. “It’s alreadydark,” she says, petulantly. Man, these Alexandrians really have gone soft behind these walls!
Deanna turns and begins to make her case to the assembled. She orates grandly, and it is easy to imagine her before the turn, taking the stage, or the floor, and addressing the public, or her fellow members of Congress.
“We’re going to talk about what happened,” Deanna begins, “not the fight, not what precipitated it. We’re dealing with that. We’re going to talk about one of our constables, Rick Grimes. We’re going to talk about how he had a pistol…”
“… he stole from the armory…”
“…about how he pointed it at people…”
“And, we’re going to talk about what he said.“
Deanna lays it on thick as she shakes her head and mock laments, “I was hoping he’d be here.” (It made me think that Deanna considered it a personal affront on Rick’s part, and a show of disrespect for the Alexandrian way, his not being at the meeting. It seemed to me that while Deanna considered herself an impartial judge, she had, on some level, already made up her mind about how she wanted to handle Rick, with this perceived insult at the forefront of her consciousness.)
Junior League Carol chimes in, with a hopeful smile at Deanna, “I’m sure he’ll be here…and I’m sure we can work all this out.”
The scene shifts to the darkened woods outside the walls…
…and we see Nicholas looking around fearfully…
…making his way back towards the walled town, limping on his broken ankle, thinking he had gotten rid of Glenn for good.
The scene shifts again, to the darkened streets of Alexandria…
…where Rick Grimes runs through the streets, knife drawn, patrolling the town that is deciding his fate in this very moment .
Meanwhile, in Gabriel’s chapel…
“I think I wanna die,” Sasha says in a shaking voice. Gabriel looks down grimly a the candles he is lighting. “Why wouldn’t you want to die?” he asks, brutally.
Gabriel turns to face Sasha. “You don’t deserve to be here. What you did, can never be undone.”
Gabriel flings his words, and contempt, at Sasha like weapons. “The dead don’t choose, but the choices you made, how you sacrificed your own….”Gabriel trails off here for a moment, looks away. Is he talking about Sasha…or himself?
Sasha looks at Gabriel, says, “I know what you’re doing.”
Gabriel does not let up, however, and the hurtful words keep coming.
“Bob was mutilated…consumed…destroyedbecause of your sins.“ “Stop it, ” Sasha tells him, eyes wide. But Gabriel keeps walking towards Sasha, jabbing his finger at her, accusing. “Your brother thought that he was apart from it…he was a part of it. He didn’t deserve to be here! You don’t!” (Yep, Gabriel seems to definitely be projecting his guilt and anger at himself onto Sasha, Tyreese, and the others.)
“Stop it! Stop it!”screams Sasha, rushing Gabriel, shoving him up against the wall.
Rick, meanwhile, is racing through the yards, searching…a couple of dogs from inside the houses begin barking, obscuring the sounds ofsomethingcoming up behind Rick…
One of the Freejack Walkers sneaks up behind Rick…
…who whirls around, just in time, to face his undead attacker.
At the meeting, Michonne is trying to explain reality to the Alexandrians. It’s hard to know if the lot of them are picking up what she is putting down…
“And after being out there, and then not being how you were out there, it can drive you crazy. Rick just wants his family to live. He wants all of you to live.”
Michonne looks around at the assembled Alexandrians, then at Deanna Monroe. “Who he is, that’s who you’re gonna be…if you’re lucky.“
In that very moment, in another part of town…
Rick is busy fighting off, stabbing the Freejack Walkers…
Back at the chapel…
Sasha and Gabriel battle it out, wrestling the gun, which fires an errant shot through one of the chapel windows…Sasha manages to smack Gabriel in the head with the butt end of the gun, and he falls to the floor.
…and out in the dark woods…
We see Nicholas, limping through the trees, looking around, looking frightened…a noise behind him startles him…
…and we see Glenn come up behind Nicholas, and beat him down with one punch. Yes!
And, back around the fire, the Rick Grimes Testimonials continue…
“Rick Grimes saved my life, over and over,” Carol tells the group. “There’s terrifying people out there, and he rescued me from them. People like me…people like us, need people like him.” Amen to that, New Carol!
Junior League Carollooks at the others. “I know what happened last night was scary…and I’m sure he’s sorry for that…but maybe we should listen to what he was saying.”
Rick, meanwhile, has his hands full, as Blow Yer Top Walkerhas him pinned underneath as it snaps at Rick’s face…
Rick Smash! summons all his strength, pressing his handgun into Blow Yer Top Walker’s rotting neck with all his might. We hear the horrible liquid sounds of Blow Yer Top Walker’s head reaching max pressure as Rick presses the pistol deeper and deeper into the decaying flesh under the walker’s chin…
As Glenn takes another, then another shot at Nicholas, out in the woods…
Abraham testifies on Rick’s behalf. He informs those gathered at the meeting, “Simply put, there is a vast ocean of shit that you people don’t know shit about…Rick knows every finegrain of said shit, and then some.”
Case in point, elsewhere in town…
Rick, underneath Blow Yer Top Walker, continues to press into the underside of the walker’s chin, upward into its brain, pulling the trigger, and exploding Blow Yer TopWalker’s head in a gorish spray of fetid blood and brains, all over his face. Rick sputters, pushing the dead walker off him, and lying there with walker blood and goo all over his face and front.
RIPBlow Yer Top Walker
And, speaking of terrifying people…50 miles away, at the canned food distribution center…
We see the Wolfboys walking Red Poncho Guy, whose hands are tied behind his back, up to the gates of the distribution center, where the walkers snarl and grab at the fence.
The poor man pleads with them, but the Wolfboys pay him no heed. “They’ll hear you,” the dark-haired one tells him. “It will take longer to reset.”
Repeating his words to Morgan, earlier that day, the dark-haired one tells the Red Poncho Guy, “Just be still…just be still.” The blond one then turns the Red Poncho Guy around, and the dark haired one slashes the poor man’s neck with one swift stroke of his knife. RIPRed Poncho Guy 😦
The dark-haired wolfboy turns to the blond one, as their latest victim, a newly deceased addition to their walker army, slumps to the ground, his life’s blood streaming out of the gash in his throat. “Welcome home,” the dark-haired one says, as the wolfboys turn to regard the savage walkers, fenced in, snarling, beyond the gate.
After a much-needed commercial/beverage re-up break, we are taken back to Alexandria, where Maggie is talking to the group about Rick Grimes.
“My father respected Rick Grimes,” Maggie tells the others. “Rick is a father, too. He’s a man with a good heart, and he feels the things he does, the things he has to do.”
Maggie continues, “And all of us, who were together before this place, no matter when we found each other, we’re family now. Rick started that.”
Maggie looks at the group, then turns to look at Deanna Monroe. “And you won’t stop it. You can’t. And you don’t want to.”
Maggie looks around at those gathered, at Deanna. “This community…you people…that family…you want to be a part of it, too.”
Deanna, and the other citizens of Alexandria, seem to have many things to consider while deciding Rick Grimes’ fate.
After Maggie finishes speaking, Deanna steps forward. “Before we hear from…anyone else, I would like to share something in the spirit of transparency.”
Deanna rubs her hands, pauses, then with fingers laced, thumbs tapping together, continues: “Father Gabriel came to see me the day before yesterday, and he told me that our new arrivals can’t be trusted, that they are dangerous, that they would put themselves before this community.”
Maggie looks over at Deanna, but holds her tongue...once again, Maggie is exhibiting way more self control in this moment than I ever could!
Deanna continues, “And, not one day later, Rick seemed to demonstrate all the things that Father Gabriel said.” Deanna looks at the group assembled, concludes,“I had hoped Father Gabriel would be here tonight.”
As Deanna moves to sit back down, Jessie speaks up.
“I don’t see him here, Deanna,” Jessie says clearly, stopping Deanna mid-sit. “So, you’re just saying what someone said…did you tape him?” (Yes, Jessie, way to have your man’s back!)
“He’s not here,” Maggie confirms.
“Neither is Rick,” Deanna fires back.
And, neither is Noah…and for that, out in those dark woods, Glenn wants to make Nicholas pay…
“Noah died because of you,” Glenn grinds out, pinning Nicholas to the ground.
“And I tried to tell you how it is, how it has to be, and you tried to kill me?!” In the face of Glenn’s fury, Nicholas is crying, shaking his head… to no avail, of course. Too little, too late, Nicholas.
Glenn cocks the pistol, points it into the center of Nicholas’s forehead, as Nicholas starts to sob in terror.
And back in the chapel…
Gabriel lay on the floor, dazed and terrified, himself…
…because Sasha’s been pushed too far. Sister’s got her #killinface on, and she’s standing over Gabriel, pointing her rifle down at him, ready to defile another chapel with some blood and guts! (Gabriel, I guess if you were hellbent on dying today, you picked a quick, effective means of departure from this world!)
Meanwhile, 50 miles away, a surreal moment unfurls…and the plot thickens.
We see a hand press a button on a remote, and suddenly, lights flash inside the open truck trailers, and a happy, soothing, singsongy song plays loudly in the fenced distribution area. The walkers turn toward the lights and noise…
The wolfboys watch the walkers turn and begin to shuffle back towards their trailer/holding pens, as if trained. It is easy to imagine these young men were technically savvy before the turn, and have used their talents in these times…
…to rig up a system of manipulating, keeping, and even customizing walkers, for use in some mysterious, nefarious scheme (which I am sure will be revealed, courtesy of Kirkman, Gimple, Nicotero & Co.,in due time!). Shudder!
Back at the meeting…
Tobin has the floor. “I just want to keep my family safe,” he is saying. “I don’t know what that means anymore, but if that means we have to get rid of some-…”
Tobin stops mid-sentence when he sees…
Bloody Rickhas finally made it to the meeting, and he’s brought Deanna a present…
Rick throws Blow Yer Top Walker’s rekilled body onto the ground, right at Deanna’s feet, as his people, and the assembled citizens, gape wordlessly at him.
Bloody Rick looks around at the group, like, “You were saying, assholes?”
Out in the woods, pistol to his head, Nicholas is terrified, pleading, blubbering…
“I was scared…I was scared…I don’t belong…I don’t belong out here!”
“Shut up!” Glenn grinds out, but Nicholas is too scared to stop himself, keeps saying, “I was scared…I was scared…”
“I don’t…I don’t belong out here…I don’t belong out here…”“Shut up!” Glenn hollers at Nicholas, preparing to squeeze the trigger, but we see Glenn’s face, his anguish as he holds the gun to the sobbing man’s head...can he really pull the trigger, kill a man who is crying, pleading for his life?
“Shut up,” Glenn whispers to the crying man underneath him, before rolling off Nicholas. Nicholas sobs in relief. Glenn cannot do it. Despite all he has seen, and all he has lost, Glenn has not lost his humanity, his compassion. Beacon of Humanity Deadie for our man, Glenn Rhee/Steven Yeun❤
Back at the chapel, pointing her rifle at Gabriel, Sasha is struggling with her own moral dilemma…
Sasha points the rifle at Gabriel, but cannot bring herself to pull the trigger.
“Do it,” urges Gabriel.
Maggie comes in to the room, sees what’s happening. “Sasha!” Maggie admonishes, coming quickly to her friend’s side, gently placing her hands on the gun, and holding steady as Sasha breaks down in tears. Maggie gently takes the gun away from Sasha.
“You should let her,” Gabriel says, miserably. “They died…they all died because of me.”
Maggie looks down at Gabriel, her face showing her compassion for the priest’s anguish. She kneels down, and looks at Gabriel.
“They did,” Maggie agrees, simply, taking Gabriel’s hand, and pulling him up to standing. Truly her father’s daughter. ❤
Meanwhile, at the town meeting…
Rick tells the assembled, who are still staring in disbelief at the dead walker in front of them, “There wasn’t a guard on the gate…it was open.”
Deanna looks at Spencer, who tells her, “I asked Gabriel to close it.” Deanna takes this in. “Go!” she orders her son, who rushes off.
Rick turns to the townspeople. “I didn’t bring it in…it got inside on its own.”
Rick turns to Deanna, and Reg, who look like they are finally ready to listen to what he has to tell them. “They always will…” Rick tells them.
“…the dead, and the living, because we’re in here.The ones out there...”
“…they’ll hunt us…”
“…they’ll find us…”
“…they’ll try to use us…”
“…and they’ll try to kill us.”
We see one of the wolfboys collect Aaron’s dropped bag from the ground at the distribution center…
…and look through the pictures, images of people living a life like before the turn…
…in a peaceful, idyllic community, nestled behind tall steel walls. Choice digs for the taking.
“But,” Rick continues, “we’ll kill them. We’ll survive. I’ll show you how.”
Rick looks around at the assembled citizens of Alexandria. “You know, I was thinkin’…I was thinkin’ how many of you do I have to kill, to save your lives?”
“But I’m not gonna do that…”
“You’re gonna change.”
Rick turns to Deanna. “I’m not sorry for what I said last night…”
“…I’m sorry for not saying it sooner. You’re not ready, but you have to be. Right now. You have to be. Luck runs out.“
And right on cue, here comes Mr. Bad Luck himself, Dr. Petey McBeaty…
“You’re not one of us!” McBeaty grinds out, brandishing…Michonne’s katana?
Reg, being the kind, kind soul that he is, rushes forward, between McBeaty and Rick, trying to talk McBeaty down. “Pete…you don’t want to do this!”
McBeaty growls out, “Get the hell away from me, Reg.” Reg, being a good, reasonable man, continues to try to talk sense into a furious, probably drunk, madman. (Let’s face it…if McBeaty broke in and stole Michonne’s katana from their house, he probably took the booze, too!)
Deanna frantically tries to call Reg back, but before she can get him to back away from McBeaty, luck does indeed run out for Reg…and Deanna. 😦
McBeaty pushes Reg, who is trying to talk to him, stop him from certain folly, then McBeaty slashes Reg’s throat with the katana. Horrible. Just… horrible.
It is so awful watching Deanna hold her beloved husband as his life’s blood pours from his wound, sobbing, “My love…my love!”
Deanna looks up at Rick, anguished. “Rick…” she says.
“Do it.”
Rick turns and fires one fatal shot into McBeaty’s head…later, McBeaty.
And, hello, Morgan!
“Rick?”
Can somebody say, “awkward??”
Wow. Done. It has been a long, epic, and sometimes arduous journey to get this last post out. Life, and all that. Thank you for reading, and for being patient, and a special thank you to all those who kept checking in these last two months, to see if I had posted yet. It was like a blue jay pecking at my open wound (completely intentional reference to Seth McFarlane’s hilarious western spoof, A Million Ways To Die In The West…once again, I say, thank you, Seth McFarlane!) to see my sad stats page, knowing I was letting readers down.
All apologies, loves, and I do hope, with my finale post, and with my homage to WD Season5, that I brought it in a way that was worth the wait. Let me know. Give me a shout.Much fun to be had this summer, with social media, new music tech, and new spinoff series, Fear The Walking Dead.
Start of the turn? In L.A.?I am so there! Not writing about it (unless someone wants to hire me for recap/synopses…give a shout! I can be brief, and not use cuss words…really!) but maybe a pic or two, a playlist with each episode. I have lots of fun on social media, always throwing random stuff out in my continuous worship of pop culture, so keep posted with barnfullawalkersthis summer:
Happy summer, loves, and enjoy the playlist. Lots of fun to look forward to…stay tuned, and keep in touch…I may be showing up in some TWD chatrooms, waxing poetic about Richonne and shit…and if I pull it off, a new graphic header just in time for Season 6!
I dedicate this post to my sister, Peg. Thank you for supporting me, and believing in me. I love you.
Season 5 Finale Playlist:
Carl Douglas, “Kung Fu Fighting”
KRS One, “Sound of the Police
DMX, “What’s My Name?”
Prodigy, “Smack My Bitch Up”
Ty Segall, “Shoot You In The Head”
Royal Blood, “Little Monster”
The Soft Moon, “Insides”
Cold War Kids, “Relief”
Father John Misty, “True Affection” (for Rick and Jessie)
(All images used in this post are screen caps from AMC’s The Walking Dead, unless otherwise specified.)
Ladies and gentlemen, in the spirit of brevity, levity, freedom, and frolic, may I present…TWD, Episode 513, IG-Style:
WD Ep 513 opens before the sun rises upon Alexandria: Vanilla Dream. In the predawn darkness, we see framed pics of some unknown white people arm in arm, smiling, laughing, trying to look casual and unscripted while posturing themselves in various wacky antics for the camera.
Those white people are crazy fun…they really know how to throw down! Just look at those smiles…good times, good times.
And here’s one of Mom holding Muppet, her beloved little dog.
Sasha lay awake in the darkness, staring around at the frozen smiles of dead people, in better times.
Finally, after lying there a while, Sasha’s had enough of trying to sleep, She sits up, gets dressed.
Good Morning, Alexandria!
We see Sasha walking into the Alexandria Storeroom and Gun Lending Library, followed by Olivia, who’s like, “Oh, yeah, it’s cool that you came and woke me up before the dawn…I used to work in a coffee shop, so, you know, no problem.“
Sasha gets what she came for…hello, lover.
As Sasha checks over her rifle, Olivia has a special request…
“Hey, if you bag a boar, can I have a leg?”
Sasha’s like, “Say what?”
Olivia explains that she used to cure meat in her basement, even before the turn (…) and she’s asking, you know, so she can make prosciutto. As Sasha processes this, Olivia begins to wax nostalgic for the prosciutto and “those pickles”she used to make. (Put blond hair on Olivia, and a bottle of something in her hand, and she would be the real-life embodiment of Pam on Archer.)
Sasha’s like, “Ok, got it, Olivia,”while probably thinking, <“Bob, Ty…why the hell’d you go off and die, and leave me all alone in this neo-suburban nightmare, surrounded all these crazy people?”>
Sasha thanks the gate keeper as she walks out of Alexandria into the world outside the gates.
We see Sasha begin to set up the framed pictures, one by one.
Sasha takes aim…
…and finally gets a reprieve from her constant, crushing grief and inner torment, for that one brief second when she can put it all aside, and focus on the target in her scope, on pulling the trigger and watching her bullet explode the target into bits.
Sasha nails the first frame with a single bullet.
After the first frame goes down, Sasha looks around, seeing if anything, or anyone approaches, attracted by the sound of the gunfire. But all is quiet…
…so Sasha sets her sights on the next target.
Sasha listens, but aside from the loud caws of ravens nearby, all is quiet in the woods.
Sasha’s eyes are wild, and her manner is more and more agitated as she raises her rifle again, and begins picking off all the framed pictures, one by one. Each shot is perfectly aimed, not a bullet wasted…
Sasha pauses, waits, but nothing comes….
Bye, bye, Mom and Muppet.
After all the pictures are shattered and lying on the ground, Sasha walks over to the large tree stump, sets her rifle beside her, and waits…
“Come and get me,” she says.
After the Bear McCreary opening title sequence and the McConaughey“it’s not about huggin’ trees” car commercial, we see this opening shot of two walkers, both dropped by a bullet to the brain…I’m assuming they were Rick’s bullets that rekilled these walkers.
We see Rick, in his constable’s uniform, Carol, in her Junior League uniform, and Daryl in his Daryl Dixon uniform, angel-wing leather vest and greasy hair. Brother has still not taken a shower yet…that’s some willpower. I would have taken like 25 showers by now, and brushed my teeth about 100 times already.
The Porch Council has reconvened, this time outside the abandoned little house in the woods where Rick had stashed his handgun in the plastic blender… they can hear the hiss and slaver of a walker nearby. Daryl returns, says he can’t see the walker, but it’s close. Rick says they’ll be quick, and asks them both, “So what do you think?”
“We go in when it’s empty,” Carol offers. “How’s that?” Rick asks. “It’s locked at night.” Carol replies that the window just has a latch, and she’ll leave it open. It seems they are planning on sneaking into Alexandria’s storeroom and stealing some guns that are stored away there.
Rick takes this in…
“A latch?” he asks, incredulously. Having a mere latch on a window be one of the only things keeping someone out of a storeroom that holds valuable food, supplies, and guns must seem laughably naive to ones who have seen, and experienced, the horrors of the world outside the walls.
Daryl chimes in,“What if one of those pricks shuts it?”
Carol thinks quickly, suggests if that happens, she can wait a couple of days, then leave the latch open again.
Rick replies that they need to do it sooner than later, while they are not being watched or monitored…whether or not they’ll actually end up needing the guns that they are planning on taking from the storeroom. Carol is quick to reply that however it all turns out, they’ll need the guns.
Rick shakes his head, says the Alexandrians are “the luckiest damn people I’ve ever met…and they just keep getting luckier.” “How’s that?” Daryl asks. “We’re here now,” Rick replies.
Daryl considers this statement, nods.
Carol turns to Rick, tells him that the storeroom has footlockers filled with 9 mm’s, auto’s, Kel-tech’s, all just sitting there, unused. Carol says the guns will never be noticed, or missed.
In his usual matter-of-fact style, Daryl turns to the trash heap, with the empty plastic blender, and remarks that “someone’s got one now, right?”(When rewatching last week’s episode, Episode 512, “Remember,” I wondered if maybe Enid saw Rick stash the gun, and she took it, or if she may be working, or spying for someone else, maybe one of the exiles, who saw Rick stash the gun, and took it…I thought maybe Enid was sent to infiltrate Alexandria by some bad guys who have the upper hand on her, like someone she loves is being held captive by them…and with that thought, The Enid Theory sprang out of my head like the goddess Athena sprung out of Zeus’s.)
Rick turns to Carol and Daryl, says that they should keep their doubts, suspicions, plans about Alexandria to themselves, that they want the others in their group “to try” with Alexandria.
Carol turns to Daryl at this, adds, “You, too.”Rick nods at something past their shoulders, tells Daryl, “There it is,” as the walker from the woods has entered the clearing and is coming towards them.
Carol, however, motions to the men…she’s got this. She points her gun and starts shooting at the approaching walker.
Carol keeps firing bullets into the walker’s chest, and finally drops it with a shot to the head. At Rick’s questioning look, Carol explains that they said they were going shooting, and she couldn’t very well come back with a full mag…
Daryl sees something on the walker’s forehead, bends over for a closer look. “What’s this,” he asks, “A ‘W’?”
The others bend over and see the “W”clearly marked on the walker’s forehead.
Rick kneels over the walker, studies it a long moment…surely he must remember those walker heads and upper torsos that fell on the van’s hood back at the Shirewilt Estates, 100 miles away…those walkers’ foreheads, too, were clearly marked with “W’s” carved into them.
Rick looks troubled, but says nothing to Carol and Daryl about this. I wonder why, but I am thinking that Rick is not one to say something if he feels it is too soon, or not time. Seems like he remembers those other “W” walkers, though…his face looks like he does, and is trying to figure this out.
Seeing this marked type of walker twice now, first time 100 miles back, at the scene of a community cruelly ravaged and destroyed by an unknown foe, and now, here, suggests that some big, bad trouble is coming for Alexandria. I feel Rick knows this, on some level, and will keep it to himself, for now…but he will be thinking, and planning. Watching, and waiting.
Meanwhile, Michonne models her new constable’s uniform in the mirror.
I am def loving the lace-up in the back of the jacket…would love a black leather jacket, with a lighter colored lace-up situation in the back like that…super styley.
Michonne pulls out the katana and customizes one of the laces that is too long to be functional.
Michonne looks at the katana…she seems to be wondering, “Does katana go with ‘constable’?” Seems like she’s leaning towards “no.”
Rick comes up, looks at her new getup. He wonders aloud, “I don’t know if this is some kind of play, handing authority over to strangers.”
Michonne quips, “The authority to break up fistfights.” Rick banters back that if breaking up fistfights was all this was for, they should have given one of these uniforms to Daryl.
Michonne appreciates the funny mental pic of Constable Dixon meting out his own special brand of justice in Alexandria. That shit would be awesome.
Richonne, Richonne, Richonne…
…you two, together, as a sexy crimefighting superteam would have been the total tits, my fave ever. But, alas, Rick Smash!’s brain stem, and his donkey kong, have spoken, and Richonne is not to be, in the romantic sense. He wants Jessie. So, it’s Ressie, which is pretty much as dumb as it sounds…but, I did say, recently, that I was, now and forever, riding in Rick Smash!’s car, so I will support his choice in mate (even if it wouldn’t be my choice). I gotta throw down the unconditional for my man, Rick Smash! and put up with his questionable taste in women. Can’t be helped, gotta move on.
Michonne replies, after a moment, that she doesn’t know “if it’s for us, or for them,” but if Deanna wanted to get rid of “us” and “them,” and put the jackets on Michonne and Rick, to show to everyone that they are all equal citizens of the same community, then in Michonne’s opinion, that “play” would be “smart.” It would be ideal, for sure. Michonne adds that Deanna “seems smart.”
“Smart for then, or smart for now?” wonders Rick. Michonne replies, firmly, that “This is now.”
Meanwhile, as Daryl prowls through the woods, crossbow in hand, he hears and noise, whirls. “Come out, now!” Aaron emerges from the trees, hands raised.
Aaron is pretty amazed. “You can tell the difference between walkers and humans by sound?“ It’s interesting that Aaron uses the gang’s terminology for the undead with Daryl. Daryl doesn’t answer, just looks super hot silently vibing Aaron.
Aaron asks, over Daryl’s silence, “Can you tell the difference between a good guy and a bad guy?” Aaron adds that Rick seems to be having trouble telling the two apart. Daryl growls, “Ain’t much of a difference no more.”
“Is that how you feel about your people?” asks Aaron. (He is definitely braver than I initially gave him credit for!) Daryl menaces closer to Aaron, demands, “Why are you followin’ me?”
Aaron replies, bemused, “I didn’t know I was,” and, in what I hope is a homage to Bugs Bunny/Elmer Fudd, Aaron adds that he just came out to “hunt rabbits.”
“I know why you’re out here,” Aaron adds. “Mind if I join you?” (Aaron really is one super ballsy dude, with impeccable manners to boot.)
Daryl vibes Aaron a moment more, then turns, ordering Aaron to “Keep up…keep quiet!” Way to go, Aaron…you’re in!Now, try not to blow it.
Meanwhile, Deanna is outlining Rick and Michonne’s duties as co-constables. “You protect and serve…you patrol, walk the wall, protect the kids.”
Deanna does not mention guarding or maintaining a watch beyond the walls for any outside threats to the community as a whole.
Deanna says that the people of Alexandria believe in Rick and Michonne’s authority, so it’s official…with jackets, even, from a former police officer who used to live in the community.
Deanna continues to outline her long-term plans for her community…government, industry, commerce. She says that’s why she wants Maggie working with her. “It may be just horses and mills (at first), but-“ Deanna stops, looks at Rick’s face. “What?” she asks him. “Does that sound like pie in the sky?”
Maggie looks at Deanna. “No,” she answers. Deanna then looks at Michonne. “No,” replies Michonne. Deanna finally looks up at Rick. “No,” he says, after a brief pause. He then looks at Deanna. “Can we talk security?”
Rick brings Deanna outside, points out that the walls need to be patrolled always, not just checking for damage, but also for any activity or signs that they had been breached. Rick also points out that someone could move right up the supports on the outside of the walls. “That’s what I’d do,” he says. Rick looks at Deanna. “People are the real threat now.” Yes, exactly.
Sasha approaches, volunteers to take lookout in the clock tower. Deanna replies that they don’t have lookouts in the clock tower…
Constable Grimes be like,“Say what?”
We see a small glimpse of Constable Smash!as Rick grinds out, “We need a lookout in that clock tower right now, 24/7.”
Michonne adds that it’s the only way they’ll be able to see if someone’s coming at them.
Sasha immediately volunteers to take as many lookout shifts as possible… Deanna is looking a little spooked by Sasha, and the entire conversation. She looks at Sasha, asks, “Why?”
Maggie speaks up, tells Deanna that Sasha’s “one of our best shots…she can do it.” Deanna nods, but says while she will consider putting Sasha as primary lookout, that she’ll be putting her son, Spencer, on lookout today. It seems Deanna is throwing the new constables and Rick’s gang a soiree at her house, tonight, and she wants them all to come, including Sasha.
Now, it’s Sasha’s turn to look spooked…
Meanwhile, the Alexandria Junior Leaguers are talking party menu. Mashed lima beans, cocoa powder, sweetener…it’s protein, and the one Junior Leaguer swears, “I would have eaten it, before all this.”
Junior League Carol beams, exclaims, “Sounds delicious!”
Carol excuses herself, seeing Rick, telling the other JL ladies that she needs to ask him for his help with the party. As they walk together, Rick and Carol agree that tonight would be the night to break into the armory, as everyone will be at the party.
Rick volunteers himself to back Carol up, but Carol points out that his absence would be noticed. Rick adds that Daryl is out, as they are watching every move he makes, these days. That leaves Carol flying Han Solo on this mission. Carol smiles and says that the good thing about this place is that, “I can be invisible again.”
Meanwhile, as Daryl and Aaron make their way through the woods, Daryl hears the soft nicker of a horse.
Aaron says he has been trying to get the horse, named “Buttons” by a child in Alexandria, for months, to bring him inside the safety of the walls, but the horse would spook whenever Aaron or Eric would try to approach it.
Daryl watches the horse a moment, then reaches for Aaron’s rope. “Have you done this before?” asks Aaron.
Daryl replies that his group did, before, with horses that hadn’t been out for such a long time. “The longer they’re out, the more they become who they really are,” Daryl tells him.
Daryl begins to approach Buttons cautiously, talking softly to the horse.
“Yeah, you used to be somebody’s, huh? Now you’re just yours.“ Daryl almost gets close enough to put the rope over the horse’s neck, but the horse gets spooked by the telltale hiss of…
…walkers, coming to ruin another beautiful moment between the living.
Instead of enjoying a loving moment with a fellow equine survivor, Daryl must employ his invaluable “crossbow upside the walker’s head technique” as Buttons rears up, then gallops away.
Go, Aaron!(I am really loving Aaron, and Eric, more and more, especially after this episode.)
“I was talking to my new horse, and youfucking interrupted our conversation, you undead prick!”
Take that, Cockblocker Walkers! After killing all the walkers, Daryl and Aaron set off after Buttons.
Back in town, JL Carol is following Olivia into the storeroom. Olivia expresses amazement at JLCarol’s revelation that applesauce can be used in lieu of eggs in a cookie recipe. Surely, Alexandria must have some yard chickens, somewhere, but eggs are probably still in short supply. Carol asks Olivia if she can keep the applesauce thing between them, as it’s the “secret” of these cookies. Ha! So much for sharing & caring between community citizens…
At Olivia’s surprise, JL Carollaughs, saying that a girl’s gotta leave herself some secrets…
Olivia assures Carol that her applesauce secret “will die with me.”(Oooo, just got a bad foreboding feeling for Olivia and the other “not quite battle-savvy” citizens of Alexandria.) Olivia breaks it to JL Carol that the “chocolate’s gonna be a problem.” She can only give JL Carol a quarter of a bar…JL Carol assures Olivia that she’ll “make it work.”
Just then, Tobin comes in, tells Olivia he and his workmate have to make a “withdrawl”from the gun lending library, as “the boss lady” wants them to check a segment of the wall before the party. Olivia invites Carol to take what she needs, and follows the men to the back of the storeroom, where the armory is.
Carol helps herself to an entire bar of chocolate from the freezer, then follows the others to the back. As she stands at the window, Tobin asks her if she’s afraid of guns…JL Carol delivers another riveting performance as she says that she carried a handgun while with the group, but says, with a coy little laugh, that she knows nothing about the bigger guns, like the one Tobin is now holding, before her.
Tobin smiles at Carol, introduces himself, and offers to teach Carol to shoot, any time. Better safe than sorry.
JL Carol beams at Tobin, and thanks him for the kind offer.
As everyone files out of the storeroom, we see that Carol has opened the window’s latch.
Meanwhile, as they make their way through the woods, Aaron asks Daryl if he ever rode…Aaron’s talking about horses, but Daryl replies that he used to ride bikes. Aaron jokes that he’s assuming that Daryl isn’t talking about 10-speeds…
Aaron tells Daryl that they are both viewed as outsiders by the residents of Alexandria. Aaron says that he and Eric, being gay, have had to endure countless well-meaning but highly ignorant remarks from otherwise nice people.
Aaron tells Daryl that people are afraid of what they don’t know, so Daryl should let the others in Alexandria get to know him a little better. “You should come to Deanna’s party tonight,” Aaron encourages Daryl.
Daryl tells Aaron that he doesn’t have anything to prove. He tells Aaron that he’s met a lot of bad people, out here, and has seen, experienced a lot of bad things, and those people “weren’t afraid of nothin’.” Aaron walks behind Daryl, considering this. “Oh, yeah they were,” he replies.
And then, it’s party time. Carol, Carl, and Rick, holding Judith, file into Deanna’s home.
It is truly surreal to see people holding glasses of wine, milling and mingling, a table stocked with assorted beverages and brightly colored plastic party cups. Deanna spies them across the room, delighted. She makes her way across the party to greet them.
Junior League Carol puts on her party face.
Rick Grimes’ party face is more smoldery than sunny.
Abraham and Rosita come next…Rosita’s body language immediately pronounces the party as L-A-M-E.
Abraham looks around doubtfully, wonders aloud if he can do this. “There’s beer,” points out Rosita, and Abraham immediately says, “I’ll try,” and heads over to the beverage selection. Rosita follows suit, enjoying a silent laugh at her big, crazy, flame-haired bf.
Deanna presents her prize constable, Rick, to her husband, Reg, builder of the wall.
Reg tells Rick that he watched all the tapes of the interviews, and he heard what 14 people said about how Ricksaved them, kept them alive, together for this long, out there…
Rick asks Reg, diplomatically, didn’t he, Reg, build that wall out there? Reg says he did, with lots of help, and while that is an achievement, compared to keeping 14 people alive, safe, and together, in these times, well…
Reg says to Rick, “I think you have me beat.” (It really is just one big pissing contest with dudes, isn’t it?)
Rick smiles, diplomatically, employing his invaluable “smiling, nodding, and politicking” maneuver from times past…you know he’s thinking, “Yeah, motherfucker, it’s pretty much no contest.” Deanna laughingly strokes her hubby’s ego, pronounces it“a tie.”
Reg graciously offers Rick a drink, and Rick, after a moment’s hesitation, and some good ol’ fashioned peer pressure from Reg, accepts. The men clink glasses and drink…
…when the McBeatyfamily makes their entrance to the party.
Rick sees Jessie and her family make their entrance…
…and he takes a drink…
…all the while clocking Jessie with hungry eyes.
Meanwhile, Daryl and Aaron find Buttons, penned in with a group of walkers. They must act fast.
Daryl spears a walker’s head and rushes in. Aaron follows suit…
…but Aaron gets tripped up by a grabby walker.
Aaron chops the walker’s hand away, and Daryl comes forward and stomps the walker’s head.
Daryl grabs another walkers and smashes its head into the other smashed walker.
Aaron returns the favor by blowing another walker’s head away when it comes up on Daryl. Daryl thanks Aaron, and they turn to save Buttons, but, tragically, they are too late…
Poor Buttons. 😦
Before the men can act, the walkers surround the horse and savagely attack it as it whinnies helplessly.
Poor Aaron and Daryl must watch as poor Buttons gets taken down.
Daryl prepares to go in, and after a moment, Aaron follows him. It is the code with Daryl and his people that they will go in, and battle walkers, even if just to ease a poor animal’s suffering, as opposed to Alexandrian code, as we will see, which seems to be, pretty much, “Save yourselves!”
Daryl rekills the last walker feeding on the disembowled horse, which is horribly still alive.
He turns away, tells Aaron to“go ahead.”
Aaron shoots Buttons in the head, ending the poor animal’s misery.
Aaron says, miserably, “He always ran away.” Daryl looks on a moment, then says, “You were trying to help him.” Daryl turns away, and Aaron turns to follow him out of the penned area, back to the forest.
#RIPButtons ❤
Later, it’s nightfall, and the party’s in full swing. Noah, however, is looking pretty uncomfortable, trying to blend into the wall.
Glenn and Maggie approach Noah, and Glenn asks him if everything’s ok. Noah says yeah, this just isn’t really his thing, and he tells them he’s gonna head out.
“No, no, no, you’re not bailing!” jokes Glenn. “We’re in this together!” Maggie tells Noah that he’s with them. “You’re here with family, now,” she tells Noah. He smiles and agrees to stay.
Meanwhile, there is an adorably shy party lurker outside, dressed up in a collared shirt (under his leather vest, of course), hiding in the shadows. What a perfect moment to sneak out of the party with a bottle of something, and a pack of smokes, and see that beautiful man, standing there…it would be like, “Hey, let’s go drink some of this, and smoke some of these, and shoot the shit under the moonlight…later for this party!”
Daryl turns to leave, and Aaron comes out and sees Daryl walking away, calls to him.
“Why aren’t you at the party?” Daryl asks Aaron.
Aaron pretty much says that he was never planning on going…boyfriend with broken ankle = perfect out.
Daryl asks, with his usual bluntness, “Why the hell’d you tell me to go, then?”
Aaron replies that he suggested that Daryl try to go, and Daryl did, so it’s a “thought that counts type of thing.” Daryl’s like, “Yeah, ok,” and prepares to walk away, but Aaron calls him back, invites him to stay for dinner.
Daryl considers Aaron’s offer, looking extra cute, like a feral cat that won’t let you come near it. “C’mon, man…it’s some serious spaghetti,” Aaron says, and that seems to do the trick. When is the last time anybody in the gang had spaghetti dinner?
Meanwhile, Rick and Carol try to act natural at the party. They watch Olivia arrive, and that means the storeroom and armory are unguarded at the moment. Rick once again offers to back Carol up, but once again, she tells him to stay put, because, you know…Rick watches her leave, says, “That’s right, you’re invisible.” They are such co-conspirators these days…am kind of totally loving it, even though they are enabling each other’s crazy big-time.
As Carol leaves, Jessie does the socially correct thing and introduces Rick to her husband, Dr. Petey McBeaty. The men exchange a boisterous handshake.
Petey McBeaty’s like, “So, did I mention that I’m a doctor?”
Rick Grimes is like, “So, did I mention that I’ll be sticking it to your wife soon enough?”
Dr. Petey McB is all like, “Ha ha, you’re quite the card, constable…now, does anyone else need to get totally wasted right now? Let me fill yours up there, buddy, and I’ll stay at the bar and do a couple of shots, while everyone around pretends not to notice, and then I’ll fill up both our glasses nice and high, and I’ll be right back atcha…ok, then,” and Petey McBeaty heads off, but not before being a total dick to his wife, who is trying, once again, to save Dr. P from himself, and who, once again, cannot… and, of course, Rick Grimes notices all of this.
As her D-bag husband walks away, Jessie turns to Rick, arms crossed in front of her, asks, “So, you having fun?”They do look pretty adorable being all awkward and shy with each other.
After some stops and starts in the conversation, Rick being so primal and new at this and all, Jessie points out that there’s a pretty “great view.” Rick is slow on the uptake with this playful statement, so Jessie points his attention to his people, across the party. “Take a look,” she says.
Rick first looks at Jessie, who really is quite lovely to look at, and then his attention is pulled away, finally, to…
…the sweet peeps, finally able to relax and share a laugh with each other. It really is a beautiful sight.
Rick then sees Carl joking and laughing with Rowan and Mikey like real teenage boys are supposed to.
Jessie says something really interesting to Rick…basically that while many good things were lost in the turn, a lot of bullshit went with them, as well.
Jessie says, basically, that “we all lost something, but we all got something back, in return.” Rick looks at her as she says this…seems like some truth of this is resonating with him. Really resonating, like new love and shit.
Just then, Jessie’s son Sam comes running up, and God help him, he says there’s no more cookies…
And Rick, feeling expansive and buzzed and wanting to impress Jessie and make a good impression on her kid, kneels down and says that he is a “good friend” with the cookie maker, and that he’ll try to get her to make Sam a batch of cookies all his own…unknowingly setting a super-creepy series of events into motion with that statement.
Sam then notices that Rick doesn’t have “a stamp” on his hand…Rick of course says yes, I want one, lay it on me, your mom’s watching and shit, and I want to look like the complete opposite of your D-bag dad, who is probably pounding whiskey at the bar and pontificating loudly and aggressively about some shit nobody cares about.
Ok, is it just me or does that stamp look just like the “A” in Terminus train car “A”? (Just saying, probably a homage to past craziness, not suggesting it is alluding to the ETTCT or anything like that…remember the good old days, when all we were speculating about the possibility of potential future Terminans, while getting our asses majorly kicked by everyone, and everything else, on this show? Ah, good times, good times.)
“See, now you’re officially one of us!”
Sam runs off, and Jessie tries to rein him in, to no avail, while Rick stares, completely and utterly captivated by her.
Jessie does the proper thing, at that moment, and excuses herself, and as she walks away, they both have smiles on their faces.
When watching this, my WD buddy and I turned to each other and said, “Rick never looked at Michonne that way,” and it’s true, and I know it, and we all know it, and I say good for you, RickGrimes…you are looking a little relieved, and sweaty, because you just successfully flirted with someone you really like, and we approve. We have your back. Good job, bud…you did it!
Meanwhile, Sasha has been stone-cold busted trying to ring and run at the party by Deanna’s son, Spencer. That’s how he identifies himself, as Deanna’s son. Three words, Spencer: Major turn-off.
Deanna may have had visions and hopes for Sasha and Spencer hitting it off, but while he seems kind of cute, kind of clever, kind of fun, it’s like the complete opposite of the chemistry that Rick and Jessie are sharing…
…and the complete opposite of the total and unexpected love that Sasha shared with Bob. Sorry Spencer, your cocktail party quips about Mrs. Neidermeyer and her incessant talk about wanting a pasta maker isn’t going to cut it with this woman. Sasha excuses herself, with a pained look, and hurries off.
Speaking of pained looks, back at Aaron and Eric’s dinner table, Daryl is shoveling spaghetti into his mouth, slurping the noodles noisily…
…as Aaron and Eric struggle to keep straight faces, trying not to laugh.
Daryl slurps up the last of the noodles on his plate…
…and, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, thanks Aaron and Eric for dinner. Poor guy…where was he going to learn proper table manners, being raised by a drunk mom (who then became a dead mom), a drunk abusive dad, and a shitty older brother? Aaron and Eric, who are being very sweet, seem to know this, on some level.
Eric then turns to Daryl, and asks him, when out on his “travels,” if he came across a store with a pasta maker, that would be great, because Mrs. Neidermeyer will not stop talking about wanting one, even though they have “crates of dried pasta” in Alexandria…
Daryl listens politely, drinking his wine, looking blankly at Eric. It is clear that what Eric is saying doesn’t register, and Eric looks questioningly at Aaron, who looks back at him significantly.
Eric guesses, “You haven’t asked him yet,” and Aaron gives a small shake of his head. Nope. Not yet.
Daryl looks at Aaron. “Ask me what?”
In reply, Aaron brings Daryl to the garage, which is stocked with tools, a motorcycle frame, and many, many parts. Aaron explains that the frame and the tools were there already, that whoever lived here, before, must have built bikes.
Daryl comments that there are a lot of parts here for just one bike…Aaron says that he started collecting parts when he was out on recruiting runs.
Aaron continues, telling Daryl that while he, Aaron, always wanted to teach himself how to work on, and build, the motorcycle, he has a feeling that Daryl already knows how to do this.
“And you’re going to need a bike,” Aaron tells him. Daryl looks at Aaron questioningly, and Aaron tells Daryl that he told Deanna not to give Daryl a job because he, Aaron, had a job for him…
“I want you to be the other recruiter for Alexandria,” says Aaron. Aaron tells Daryl that he doesn’t want Eric out there, risking his life, any longer. “Oh, so you want me to risk mine?” asks Daryl. “Yeah,” replies Aaron, “because you know what you’re doing.” Aaron continues, tells Daryl that while Daryl is really good out there, and needs to be out there, sometimes, as does Aaron, Daryl doesn’t belong out there. Despite the awkwardness of letting new people get to know him, Aaron tells Daryl he belongs here, in Alexandria.
Aaron tells Daryl that another key part of him wanting Daryl to be a recruiter is that he knows that Daryl “can tell the difference between a good person and a bad person.”
Daryl takes this all in, then says, finally, that he doesn’t have anything else to do, so, ok…and after a moment, he gives Aaron this sweet look, and says, quietly, “Thanks.” (Daryl is totally my muse for this post…so many great shots of him in this episode!) ❤
Meanwhile, back at the party, Michonne is getting meta out on the veranda…
…as she studies the plastic cocktail sword in her hand.
Abraham comes up behind her, quips, “Packing a new kind of steel nowadays?” Michonne laughs, appreciating the wit, answers dryly, “Yeah…”
Sounding like a drunken oracle, Abraham muses, “You live by it, you die by it…you protect your posse by it. Pray to God you don’t have to use it again, pray to God you don’t get used to not using it again.”
Looking out into the night, Abraham muses, “It’s on your back, even when it’s off your back.” I really felt when watching this episode that it spoke to the experience of soldiers, who have come back from the unspeakable horrors of war, and the trouble they have trying to reinsert themselves into “normal” life in society.
Michonne turns to Abraham, asks him, “How much have you had to drink?” Abraham laughingly replies that he is a large man, and he’s had many beers to make up for that, and in doing so, has realized that things have worked out pretty damn well for him. He turns to Michonne, asks her, “What have you done?” Michonne thinks. “I put on this dress,” she offers. Abraham smiles at her. “Try again,” he says.
And here we have Carol, climbing through the window of the storeroom and armory to help herself to some of Alexandria’s gun surplus. I had a bad feeling the whole time with this plan, like Carol was going to get caught…
Before going into the armory, Carol opens the freezer and helps herself to another bar of chocolate…Carol, Carol, Carol…Olivia may not notice a few missing handguns, but I have a feeling she sure as hell will notice missing bars of chocolate!
And, of course, as Carol begins to load up her grinchbag full of handguns, a little voice behind her asks, “What are you doing?” Carol turns, and sees Alexandria’s version of Little Cindy-Lou Who:Sam, who is standing there, watching her. “Santy Claus, why are you taking our guns?”
Carol recovers herself quickly, asks Sam what he’s doing there. Sam replies that he was hoping she was making more cookies, but… Carol puts on a sunny smile, offers to make Sam a whole batch of cookies, just for him, but he can’t tell anybody he saw her there.
Sam replies that he has to tell his mom…he tells her everything.
Carol’s face loses its smile. “You can never tell anyone,” she says quietly. “Especially your mom.”
“Because if you do,” continues Creepy Carol, stepping towards Sam, who instinctively backs away a step, “One morning, you’ll wake up, and you won’t be in your bed.” “Where will I be?” asks Sam, stepping back another step, away from Creepy Carol, until he is pressed up against the wall, unable to back up any more.
“You’ll be outside the walls,” says Creepy Carol, looking regretfully down at the little boy. “Far, far away, tied to a tree…and you’ll scream, and scream, because you’ll be so afraid.”
“And no one will come to help, because no one will hear you…well, some thing will hear you. The monsters will come…the ones out there. And you won’t be able to run away when they come for you.”
“And they will tear you apart and eat you up all while you are still alive, all while you can still feel it. And then afterwards, no one will ever know what happened to you.”
“Or, you can promise never to tell anyone what you saw here, and then nothing will happen. And you’ll get cookies.” Creepy Carol’s eyebrows raise. “Lots of cookies.”
Creepy Carol smiles at the child before her, who is shaking with fright. “I know what I think you should do.” Damn, why you gotta be so creepy, Creepy Carol?
Poor Sam! His mom, Jessie, is going to wonder why Sam has suddenly started wetting the bed and has developed a serious, sudden aversion to cookies….
Meanwhile, at Deanna’s party, Rick Grimes is tanking the whiskey. I mean, when in Alexandria, right?
And like a moth to the flame, here comes Jessie, holding Judith.
Rick looks at Jessie, says that Carl and Judith, they are why he’s still here. “I get what you been telling me…here, now’s not so bad.” Judith begins to fuss, and Jesse asks him if he wants his baby back. He smiles, says he does.
As she hands the baby over, Jessie’s eyes meet Rick’s. They are both feeling it.
As he takes the baby from her, Rick sneaks a kiss on Jessie’s cheek.
Jessie hesitates a moment, processing this…
…and then smiles at Rick.
She liked it, Rick Grimes! Grimes in, McBeaty OUT!
Damn, Rick Grimes…you’s a mad player!
Sasha, meanwhile, is not having as much fun at the party as Rick Grimes…at Deanna’s behest, she tries to mingle, but she starts to bug out at the cocktail party gossip and chatter going on all around her.
As the Alexandria a-holes snipe, snark, and simper about a whole lot of nothing and nonsense…
…Sasha starts to have flashback moments of the gang, with Bob and Tyreese, at Gabriel’s church.
And as the Alexandrian party guests nosh on the party spread, Sasha imagines the Terminans eating chunks of meat from Bob’s leg…
…and poor Tyreese’s dead body being covered with a sheet.
Some nice lady approaches Sasha, asks her what her favorite meal is…the nice lady wants to cook one for each of the new arrivals, and she is worried that she’ll cook something Sasha will hate…
Sasha can’t take it any more…she yells at the woman, “You’re worried? That’s what you’re worried about??” As the party guests gape and stare, Sasha hurries off. Well, those guests certainly have something to talk about, now, don’t they?
The next morning, Deanna meets Sasha at the gate, tries to ask Sasha, what is it? Sasha tells her, “All this…it isn’t real.”
Deanna calls bullshit on Sasha and lets her out the gate with a box of bullets and her gun.
And as Michonne hangs up her katana, for now…
…Carol tries to hand out her ill-gotten handguns. Daryl takes a pass…he tells Carol and Rick if the shit goes down, they won’t need these. He tells them, “I’m good.” He’s going to try it here. Carol’s all looking at him, like, “Hey, buddy, I threatened a child for these!”
After a moment’s hesitation, Rick takes a gun.
As Rick, Daryl and Carol are let back into the gates, Rick sees Jessie walking with her husband, McBeaty. Jessie flashes Rick her scarlet “A” on her hand…
…and Rick flashes his scarlet letter back to her. He watches McBeaty put a protective arm around his wife as they walk away…
…and we see a glimpse of our favorite madman, Rick Smash! He no likey seeing another man’s arm around his woman…
…and we see Rick Smash!’s hand reach for the gun he took from Carol. (I think this is more a symbolic gesture, in this moment…another moment, soon, perhaps, Rick Smash!)
We see Rick walking past Morgan Street.(I am so hoping Daryl and Aaron find Morgan out there and recruit him!)
Rick Smash! hears a familiar sound, beyond the wall. He rushes forward, and Rick and a walker on the other side of the wall share a Romeo and Juliet“but for these walls, we could touch, kiss” moment.
One thing’s for sure…shit’s gettin’ cray in Alexandria!
Masterful performances by all, especially my muse, Norman Reedus, as Daryl, and Ross Marquand, as Aaron…but I’m giving this week’s Deadie to:
Buttons ❤
Enjoy the playlist, darlings. Tomorrow, I begin to tackle Episode 514, “Spend.”Wish me luck with that one!
(All images used in this post are screen caps from AMC’s The Walking Dead unless otherwise specified.)
Well, well, well, my TWD obsessed darlings, it seems there’s a new constable in the walled, sustainable town of Alexandria, and he’s bringing the clean-shaven manliness along with the muscle and the menace…the beard is gone, but the wildness lurks beneath the chiseled surface.
And that’s the way we like it.
There are those who mourn the beard, yes. I do understand. But remember, darlings, the man makes the beard. The beard does not make the man.
Just think of all those urban scenesters rocking hipster beards across the world at this very moment. They look pretty cool drinking their PBR’s and shit, but many of them couldn’t change a tire if their life depended on it…maybe with some time, a few more PBR’s, and much discussion, bickering, and cigarette breaks, a group of three or four of them could put their combined brains and brawn together and figure it out.
Of course, that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about our favorite Deputy of Id, Rick Smash! Has the primal manbeast that we have all grown to love so well gone down the drain with the lather and the whiskers?
Oh, hell no.
The beard may be gone, yes, but Rick Smash! remains. Don’t worry, darlings. He’s still there.
Rick Smash! has merely gone under the radar, gone rogue. He is showing the outside world his more socially adept manifestation, Rick-In-Charge (aka. Constable Grimes) but smoldering and simmering under the clean lines of his demigod jawline, Rick Smash! is crouched and waiting. He needs to be, and he knows it.
Shit’s coming, and if my hunches (and many others’) are correct, Alexandria’s impressive walls will not be able to protect them much longer from what lurks on the outside.
In The Walking Dead’s Season 5, Episode 12, “Remember,” there’s a game of seven card stud being played by two powerful leaders of two very different communities for the highest of stakes: the survival and continuance of their respective tribes, their chosen “families.”
In theory, the two tribes, one led by Rick Grimes, and the other led by Deanna Monroe, leader of Alexandria (played by Tovah Feldshuh, wielding her usual mastery and grace), can combine and continue, stronger than ever.
It’s a good theory, but there are many variables to consider, and there are many, many questions that have yet to be answered. Until all the cards in each player’s respective hands are revealed, we do not yet know what each player’s motives, intentions, and ultimate goals really are with this arrangement, of Alexandria taking in Rick and his gang.
We know what Rick and his gang need from Alexandria:food, shelter, a safe and secure place for Rick’s children to live, and hopefully, grow up.
But, we still don’t quite know what Deanna Monroe’s true motives in taking Rick’s group in really are, at this point. We can only guess.
As Deanna tells Rick, in their initial interview, it has been a long while since Alexandria took in anybody new to their sheltered, sustainable community, which has served, thus far, to be one of the more powerful barriers we have seen yet in TWD.
Since the walker epidemic’s inception, Alexandria, with its impressive walls, has pretty effectively shut out the horrors of the outside world and encased its inhabitants in a protective bubble.
These days, the citizens of Alexandria seem to be suffering more from boredom and restlessness than anything else.
But, as this month’s full moon in Virgo reminds us, change is inevitable, and the reality bomb seems like it’s about to drop on Alexandria.
Nobody stays safe for too long these days, especially when they most surely have some pretty choice digs for the taking.
Deanna Monroe seems to know this all too well, and she has sent Aaron and Eric out, at real risk to their lives, to act as the Fabulously Gay Ambassadors of Alexandria.
Aaron and Eric’s mission: To scour the surrounding area for potential future citizens, survivors who know how to negotiate the savagery of the world outside the walls, but who still embody the ideals of community and humanity that Alexandria has been able to maintain, at least at a surface level, up to this point.
It is a tall order, and if Aaron and Eric actually do find such a group, they are then charged with the task of approaching the group, selling the group the idea of coming back to the community of Alexandria and “auditioning” for membership, and then transporting the group back to the walled community for taped interview with Deanna and tryouts.
It is a big risk, a big gamble, a bold play made by a woman who, by her own admission, would have been a professional poker player had she not become a congresswoman. It’s a risk big enough to be viewed, perhaps, as a last ditch effort, an act of sheer desperation.
Why else would Deanna Monroe make such a play, to let strangers who are well versed in the ways of the savagery of the world outside, into the heart, and underbelly, of her community, at potential risk, and harm, to her and her people? The risk is huge, so the stakes must be very high, indeed.
I have my guesses, as do many. What do you think is coming?
In the first dealing of seven card stud, it’s two cards down and one card up…we see the initial upcard only, at first, its ranking displayed openly. We can only guess at the cards facing down, and how each player’s hand will unfold as the game progresses.
It’s a test of each player’s skill, and will, as the first bets are placed, and then the bluffing, reading, mind-messing, and maneuvering begins. Ultimately, the game becomes a “two down, four up, one down,” ending in a “showdown,” where each player makes the best five-card poker hand out of the seven cards he/she has been dealt.
Until the time comes for the final “showdown,“ when all will be revealed, this game of poker being played between Rick Grimes and Deanna Monroe is a taut back-and-forth between two leaders, and their chosen families, who are, in some ways very different, and in some ways, very much alike…the biggest similarity, of course, is that all of these people, sheltered or savage, are fighting for survival in a brutal, post-apocalyptic world.
In TWD’s Episode 512,director Greg Nicotero and the rest of Kirkman’s Army deal us viewers another expertly crafted, game-changing episode that delivers the thrills, chills, surrealism, and iconic images that have become the norm in Season 5, searing themselves upon our collective psyches, social media, and upon pop-culture in general as now-classic TWD moments.
And eye candy.There was lots of eye candy served up in this episode. Thank you, Andrew Lincoln and Greg Nicotero.Me, and my married lady friends, thank you very, very much.
#RickPorn ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
Anyhow, regarding Deanna Monroe’s true motives for taking in Rick and the gang, if the many clues, Easter Eggs, and speculations are correct, Kirkman, Gimple, Nicotero, and the rest of Kirkman’s Army are about to get majorly TWD Comic Series on our asses
As I have said before, TWD’s Season 5is all about bringing it. It’s time to sac up or pack up, people, because Kirkman, Gimple, and Nicotero have been waiting a long time for this moment to arrive.
Four and a half seasons, to be exact.
They have been candy-assing us for long enough.They. Are. Done. With. That.
The time for tough love is now, and now is the time for tough love. We must prepare ourselves, my WDO darlings.
Remember the drill we have discussed in previous posts.Plan, and implement, your coping methodology. Stock the fridge, replenish your personal pharmacopeia, secure your Daryl Partner.
(For more on Daryl Partners, refer to my Season 4 mid-season prepost, “What Happens After?” in the archives.)
Start your own grass-roots Walking Dead support group. Take long walks, outside, and listen to the sounds of the world around you. Hug your children, your partner, your friends, your pets, a lot. Keep lots of chocolate on hand for when you need a serotonin boost.
Listen to music. Do your yoga. Take time for yourself if you need to go have a good cry. You must take good care of yourself and your #TWDFamily around you, because I really feel like we are about to get our asses kicked.
Seriously, people, I am not fucking around here. Kirkman loves nothing more than to slap us up like the little bitches we are, and I think he and his army are about to get jiggy with it…just saying.
If I’m correct, Kirkman’s Army is about to throw down The Iron Maidenon our asses.
Maybe I’m Chicken Fucking Little and the sky isn’t really about to fall on our heads. Anybody who actually reads this tweaker-ass blog knows that I am prone to wild imaginings and am constantly casting out completely wrong theories.
At this point, it’s practically my trademark.
But, as Abraham Ford said, to Tara, one night as they sat against a tree: I’m right, and I’m wrong.
Sometimes it goes one way, and sometimes it goes the other.
All I’m saying is, if the shit goes down, and the sky does fall on all our heads, and you find yourself shuffling around work, or home, or school, with a haunted, vacant look in your eyes from too little sleep, too many nightmares, and the latest TWD storyline mayhem and can’t-shake-them images (courtesy ofNicotero & Co.) seared into your broken heart and tormented brain, keep telling yourself, darlings, as real as it feels to us TWD fans, and as much as we love our sweet gang, it’s only a show.
Say it with me. It’s only a show. It isn’t real. It’s only a show.
And, if a beloved character does die, or have some other tragedy befall them on the show, remember that the actors who play them are alive, well, and will remain rich off royalties, guest appearances, and all the fantastic future opportunities that await them.
Playing a major character in a standalone pop culture phenomenon like The Walking Dead pretty much guarantees that any actor who has “suddenly” become available for other projects will be a hot ticket, indeed.
Life will indeed go on, and it really is all good, my TWD obsessed darlings.
I promise.
Of course, for all my brave talk, I am going to be freaking out just like everyone else if serious shit goes down. But, I will stick to my personal coping methodology.
I will breathe. I will watch Talking Dead and take comfort in Chris Hardwick’s calming manner and funny jokes. I will watch the actors who play the departed, beloved characters laugh and joke and talk about their upcoming projects as they sit on the TD couch.
I will lean on my Daryl Partner, and I will support her when she needs to lean on me. I will attend TWD support group, and I will talk about my feelings, and I will listen as others talk about theirs. We will laugh, we will cry. We will drink the coffee provided, and we will eat the donuts. And we will take comfort in our friends and family, in our #TWDFamily. ❤
And we will keep telling ourselves, It’s only a show. It isn’t real. It’s only a show.
And maybe, maybe one day, we will actually believe it.
_____________________________________________
The Walking Dead’s Episode 512 opens as the gang, along with Aaron and Eric, emerge from their vehicles and approach the gates of Alexandria. Aaron supports Eric as he limps gamely on his injured ankle, while Rick, holding Baby Judith, and the others cautiously approach the gate, which slowly, noisily begins to roll open for them.
As they approach, Carl looks back at one of the houses which stand outside the gates, and is surprised to see a figure in one of the windows, a girl, looking out at him.
Michonne passes, obscuring the window a moment, then when Carl does a double take, once he can see the window again, the figure of the girl is gone.
Carl stays back a moment, looking at the window, before turning and following the others. The perspective shifts, and we see Carl and the gang walking towards the opening gate from inside the house, looking out through the window.
A loud, clattering noise from the side startles the gang, and they whirl in unison, pointing weapons, and we hear the hiss of Daryl’s arrow spearing the offender, a possum who most likely toppled a metal trash can in search of a meal.
The gatekeeper, a young man, stands watching in silent disbelief as Daryl picks up the possum by the tail, then turns and announces, deadpan, “We brought dinner.”
Aaron quickly assures the gatekeeper that it’s ok, and bids the gang to come inside. The gang watches as the gates roll closed, and lock behind them.
The gatekeeper/guard immediately says, “Before we take this any further, I need you all to turn over your weapons.” At the gang’s looks, he continues, “If you stay, you handthem over.”
Rick steps forward and says, none too friendly, “We don’t know if we wanna stay.”
Man, Papi Grimes is so hot when he plays hardball!
Aaron turns to Nicholas, the gatekeeper, and quietly assures him that it’s ok. Papi Grimes chimes in, informs Nicholas, Aaron, and anybody else in Alexandria who is listening:
“If we wanted to use ’em, we wouldastarted already.“ Holding the baby in one arm while he says it just makes Papi Grimes look even more like a badass.
Aaron tells Nicholas to let them talk to Deanna. “Who’s Deanna?” demands Abraham, loudly (and thus, one of Chris Hardwick’s favorite TWD lines was uttered).
Aaron replies that Deanna is the one who can tell them anything they want to know about this place. Aaron turns to Rick, suggests, “Rick? Why don’t you go first?“
In response, Rick turns back towards his people, and seeing something beyond the gate’s bars, prompts, “Sasha.”
Sasha turns, sees, takes aim…
…and with one perfectly aimed shot, splatters an approaching walker’s brains all over the pavement. The walker slumps to the ground, dead for good. (Awesome walker cameo here, played by Shaun Of The Dead’s NickFrost <3) As the gates roll closed, Rick turns back to Aaron, and Nicholas, who, by their disbelieving stares, have received the unspoken message: Don’t even think about fucking with us.
As he saunters away, towards his interview with Deanna, Rick says, sarcastically, “It’s a good thing we’re here.”
After the opening credits, we see a shot of Rick, looking around an airy, spacious office with high ceilings and art on the walls. Sunlight pours through the tall windows, which are framed with fine white curtains.
There are many bookshelves in the office, filled with books, and the mantlepiece holds candles, knicknacks, pictures, and other items of interest. There is even a flat screen tv mounted to the wall.
It looks warm, and inviting, and very well used, like an actual, working office of some esteemed, titled individual from days past.
As Rick takes this in, a woman comes quietly into the office behind him, regards him for the briefest of seconds before grinning and introducing herself.
“Hello. I’m Deanna Monroe.”
Rick turns to face Deanna. “Rick Grimes,” he offers, before turning away again, looking once more at the window, the books, the room. I found this interesting, how he chose to play it like this, to turn away , instead to continuing to face, assess Deanna. I guessed maybe he was trying to make himself appear casually indifferent, harder to read, for Deanna Monroe.
Deanna proves herself a worthy match to this tactic by asking Rick, in the next breath, “You mind if I film this?” This gets Rick’s attention, and he quickly turns back to face her.
“What?”
Deanna repeats the question, a little more slowly and with a little more emphasis. “Do you mind if I film our talk?”
Rick, who has recovered himself quickly, says, indifferently, “Go ahead.” He turns back to the window as Deanna walks over to turn on the camera. Rick peers out the window, at the tall walls and the white steeple of a church. “Why film this?” he asks.
“We’re all about transparency here,” Deanna replies easily. She motions with her head, invites Rick to sit down, “Please.”
The next shot is aimed at the vantage point of the chair, which Rick has not yet sat down in. We see his legs, his worn black pants, and we hear Deanna’s voice, a trifle tinny…we know that we are seeing through the lens of her camera, and hearing her voice through the recording microphone. After a moment’s hesitation, Rick sits down, a trifle awkwardly, into the soft living-room style chair.
I guess it has been a long time since Rick has actually gotten to sit in an actual chair…maybe the last time was in “Claimed,” before the Downstairs Thug Boys found the house and Rick had to escape them, undetected, and intercept Michonne and Carl before they walked into danger? Can’t remember an actual house he was in since that time...always has been the ground or a floor these days.
“How long have you been out there?” Deanna begins the interview. “Since the beginning,” Rick replies.
“How did you all find each other?” Deanna continues. “Did you all know each other be-…” Rick cuts her off, “We didn’t know each other before.” His voice has a touch of annoyance, as does his manner, as he eases himself slowly, hesitantly, into the chair.
Rather than relaxing into the chair, Rick sits perched on the edge of it, taking a moment more to look off to the side, at something in the room…
…before turning to face Deanna Monroe.
At this point in the watching, I wondered two things…I wondered, first, if this scene was crafted by Nicotero to be reminiscent of one of my fave movies of all time, Sex, Lies, and Videotape.
The way Deanna asks Rick if he minds if she films the interview immediately reminded me of how the James Spader character asked in S, L and V, and the shots through the vantage point of the camera hearken back to some of the most riveting imagery of that incredible film.
If so, bravo, Greg Nicotero. It makes me love you, and TWD, even more. Sex, Lies, andVideotape is one of the great ones, and enough homage cannot be paid to that visionary, sexy, disturbing, timeless film.
Second, I also couldn’t help but wonder if Deanna Monroe, like the rest of us, was already crushing hard on Rick Grimes. I mean, man.Like seriously…literally.Man! ❤ ❤
Sister’s playing it cool on the outside, but I bet she’s all like, “Dayummmm!” on the inside. I mean, come on. Look at him!
Deanna tells Rick that she used to be a “congressperson,” before the turn. “Ohio, 15thDistrict,” she tells him, with a small smile and a nod.
Deanna motions to Rick, with her head, her eyebrows lifted. “You?”
Rick replies, “I don’t think it matters anymore.” Deanna is quick to disagree. “Oh, I know it does,” she counters.
Rick ignores the question. “What is this place?” he asks. You can hear the smile behind Deanna’s voice. “It’s the ‘start of sustainability,’“ she replies. “That’s what the brochures we found say.”
“This was a planned community,” Deanna continues. “With its own solar grid, cisterns, eco-based sewage filtration…starting in the low $800,000’s.” With this, Deanna laughs, adding, “If there is such a thing! And they sold them all.“
Rick does not share her laugh, shifts a little in his chair and looks away, asking, “How did you end up here?” Deanna explains that as she and her family tried to get back to Ohio from D.C., so she could help her district manage the crisis, the Army stopped them on a back road and directed them here. The Army was supposed to come later. Deanna looks at Rick with a small shake of her head.
“They didn’t,” she says, softly.
But, Deanna continues, looking around the room, there were supplies here, and they made the best of it. “You put up the wall?” asks Rick. Deanna replies that there was a huge shopping mall in the process of being built nearby, and her husband, Reg, is a professor of architecture.
“And,” Deanna says, leaning forward, “who he was mattered, quite a bit.“ Reg, along with their sons, put up the first plates of the wall. After a time, more people arrived, they had help, and from there, they built a community.
Rick sits, taking this all in. He cocks his head at Deanna, asks, incredulously, “You’ve been behind these walls this entire time?”
Deanna graciously does not answer this question directly, but in not answering it, she answers it:Yes.
As they face each other across the table, Deanna mirrors Rick’s posture by sitting forward on the couch, leaning forward, arms resting on the thighs. She tells Rick that they (Alexandria) need people who have been outside. She tells him that his group is the first group in a long time that they have even considered bringing inside their walls.
“You should keep your gates closed,” Rick tells Deanna bluntly, quietly.
“Why?” she whispers, mirroring his soft tone.
Rick takes a moment before answering.
“Because it’s all about survival now,” he replies, in the same soft tone, with a strong hint of truth, and menace that carries through the softly spoken message. “At any cost.”
Rick continues, “People out there are always looking for an angle, looking to play on your weakness,”
Looking directly at Deanna, Rick tells her,“They measure you by what they can take from you.”
“By how they can use you, to live.”
Rick cocks his head at Deanna, says,”So, bringing people in, to a place like this, now…”
Deanna interrupts him, asks:
“Are you telling me not to bring your people in?”
Deanna blinks, once, then asks, with raised eyebrows and pursed lips, “Or, are you already looking after this place?”
Rick looks at Deanna with a new respect, or regard. He says nothing, shifts back and forth in the chair, comes back to stillness, watches Deanna.
When we hear Deanna’s voice again, it is through the camera, recording. “Aaron says I can trust you.”
Rick’s reply is immediate. “Aaron doesn’t know me. I’ve killed people…“ Rick looks down, shaking his head. “I don’t even know how many, by now.”
“But I know why they’re all dead.They’re dead so my family,those people out there, can be alive.“
“So I can be alive, for them.”
Sitting across from Rick, matching his posture, looking into his face, Deanna says:
“Sounds like I’d want to be part of your family.” Amen to that, Mrs. Sister!
Deanna continues, addressing Rick by name, telling him that northern Virginia was effectively evacuated, millions of people, gone. For a long time, there’s hardly been anyone here, living or dead, but still, “We’ve lost people,” Deanna says, simply.
She looks down, then at her hands. “And, uh, I’ve done things.”
Rick looks into her face, as they sit across from one another. “What have you done?” he asks her.
Deanna tells Rick that she exiled three people, who “didn’t work out…and we both know that’s as good as killing them.”
(Not so fast, there, Deanna Monroe…I have a sneaking feeling that at least one, if not all, of your exiles have managed to survive, and are planning a return visit, soon, if they haven’t called upon the hallowed steel gates of Alexandria already…and if that isn’t the reason for your sending Aaron and Eric out to scour the surrounding countryside for hardy and seasoned warriors who have managed, thus far, to survive the savagery of the outside world…you may need some muscle, some soldiers for hire, to give yourself and your community a fighting chance at surviving the war that may be coming for you, sooner than later.)
At this, Rick stands, walks over to the window, hands on hips, looking out. “What do you want from us?” he asks.
Deanna stands, walks over to the window, faces Rick.
“These families,” she begins, peering out the window, then facing Rick,“these families should be able to raise their children in a safe environment. Your son, your daughter, should have a place to grow up.”
Deanna takes a step toward Rick. “What do I want? I want you to help us survive. I know you can help us do that.”
“How?” asks Rick, hoarsely. “I am exceptionally good at reading people,” replies Deanna. “If I didn’t win re-election, I was going to become a professional poker player.”
Rick looks away, laughs. “I’m not kidding,” Deanna tells him, in a loud whisper.
Deanna looks down at her watch. “Rick,” she says, “it’s 3:37pm.You’re skeptical...youhavea right to be. But it’s time to decide…if you’re the one doing the deciding.”
(Man, she’s good! She’s def not kidding around about being a master poker player. I am thinking,in the brains division, Deanna Monroe would be a major contender in Top Mama Tapout.)
With this, Deanna Monroe steps back, interlaces her fingers behind her back, and waits. Rick says nothing, looks down and sets his watch to the correct time.
We, and Deanna Monroe, can tell how long he’s been wanting to find out the correct time, to set his watch to it.
Rick looks down at his watch. “I was a sheriff,” he says, simply.
“Yeah,” Deanna agrees, softly. “I knew it was something like that.”
In the next sequence, it’s outside, and Deanna is explaining the procedure of turning over the weapons to Rick’s group.
“They’re still your guns,” she tells the group, as they begin to load their weapons onto the waiting cart.
Deanna tells them they can check out their guns at any time when they go outside the walls…
…but while they are within Alexandria’s walls, their guns will be “stored for safety.” The gang exchanges looks, unsure about this. Abraham looks to Rick, who gives a small nod, but who looks ill at ease with the whole setup as well.
The following sequence is hilarious, played perfectly by Melissa McBride…
Carol steps forward to the cart, and giving a little smile to the awaiting cart girl, she begins to unload her arsenal onto the weapons cart. It is truly comical to see this tiny woman try to shrug off the huge assault rifle she has strapped across her.
With some difficulty, and a shoulder that is probably still tender, Carol finally manages to lift the gun off and place it on the cart.
Carol’s whole manner during this is like, “Who, little ol’ me, hefting around this big gun? Why, I barely know how to use it…whoops, easy, stay, big fella…there, that oughta do it. There you go…”
As the cart girl backs away, pulling her fully loaded cart with her, she jokes, “Shoulda brought another bin.”
New Carol gives a big grin at the girl as she wheels their guns away, outwardly in response to the joke, but inwardly, is like, “Yeah, you shoulda.”
Once the girl is gone, the smile is too, and Rick steps forward, his face reflecting what they all seem to be feeling right about now…
Rick and his gang aren’t feeling it, having their guns taken away.
Aaron takes Rick to see their new digs, which are pretty damn impressive.
Rick and Carl look at the two huge houses being offered to their group. “Both of them?” marvels Rick. “At your disposal,” Aaron replies grandly.
Aaron, who is sporting a pretty damn impressive bruise on the lower corner of his mouth and chin, courtesy of Rick Smash!, tells them that Deanna asked the other residents of the community to hang back and give Rick and his gang some space to get used to their new digs and settle in.
“If you need anything, call me,” Aaron tells them. At their confused looks, Aaron looks down and laughs at himself, explains awkwardly that of course he doesn’t have a phone… “I’m four houses down,” he tells Rick and Carl, pointing the way towards his residence.
Rick and Carl approach the door to one of the houses, and cautiously step in, in the “clearing” manner they have become so accustomed to. The house has no walkers, of course, but it does have plenty of space, and furniture, some decorations on the walls, empty picture frames stacked up. There are even throw pillows on the couch.
Carl goes to the kitchen, stands in front of the sink a moment before turning it on…
Running water. Carl looks over at his dad in disbelief.
And speaking of running water, and things that are pretty damn impressive…
As the thick layers of Rick Grime wash down the shower drain, we see our man is rocking some serious 7-11 feet.
Once the shot pans up from the Jiffy toenails, the view begins to get better and better….
Oh, yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ about.
Once the shower part of the program is done, we get to Act II…The Shave Sequence.
Rick wipes away the steam from the mirror and takes in the grizzled state of his appearance.
It’s probably the first time he has really looked at himself in a mirror in a long, long time.
#RIPRicksBeard
Many of the TWD crew grew out, then shaved, their beards in an act of shaving solidarity with Andrew Lincoln/Rick Grimes. Totes adorbs!
Mmmmm hmmmm…
Sweet Baby Jesus, that is a beautiful man. ❤
By this time in the watching, I, and many of my married lady friends, went a little “Mental AWOL” on our marriage vows. But, the #RickPorn was just beginning, because then this happens…
Rick is finishing up his fine, fine shave when there is an unexpected knock on the door…
Watching this, my WD buddy and I were both getting all territorial, like,“Ok, who is this bitch?”
Can’t hate a sister for being at the right place at the right time, I suppose. The look on her face, here, is pretty awesome. I mean, can you blame her?
“Ummm, ok, you are definitely not the gentleman I was expecting, and p.s.thank you, God!“
Jessie manages to keep her composure, explains that she works in the pantry, and Deanna sent her to deliver some supplies to Rick and his gang. Rick thanks her (in more waysthan one, unbeknownst to him), and she has the quick wits to offer her services as a hair stylist to him. Jessie isn’t stupid, I’ll give her that.
As Jessie cuts Rick’s hair, she tells him that she has two sons, the eldest, Rowan, being about his son’s age. She offers for the boys to hang soon, if that’s ok with Rick, and…?
Rick answers her unspoken question, that it’s just him. (Nice fishing, Jessie, you thirsty B.) Rick quickly tells her that that sounds great, getting the boys together, and then Jessie starts in with a whole lot of hair stroking, gratuitous touching, telling Rick that she’s sorry (about his loss, but no, she’s really not).
Rick tells Jessie that he thought things like electricity, running water, haircuts, were things that he would never see again. Jessie jokes that come on, haircuts were never going away. (Come on, unhappily married ladies in the post-apocalypse have to have some angle for being able to paw on hot widowers!)
Jessie lays on some more gratuitous touching, placing her hands on Rick’s back (causing him to wince, slightly) and telling him it’s ok if he’s not really feeling alright with all this, yet. At this point, me and my WD buddy were all like, “Back off, bitch! That’s Michonne’s man!“
Jessie hands Rick a hand mirror to inspect the finished product. Andrew Lincoln plays this entire episode so beautifully…so much said without words, just facial expression, as Rick processes so much feeling and information, on so many levels, in Episode 512.
Meanwhile, in Deanna’s office…
Daryl is leaned over, fiddling with some polished stones, or dice, or something on Deanna’s desk. We hear Deanna’s voice, through the recorder, “You’re welcome to sit, Daryl. I won’t bite.“
Daryl, still holding the dead possum by the tail, demurs, “Yeah, I’malright.” He paces, looking around, throwing attitude. It’s like he’s in the principal’s office. Deanna asks, “Daryl? Do you want to be here?“ Daryl stops a moment, regards her. “Boy and the baby. They deserve a roof…I guess.”Daryl bounces a bit on his toes as he turns and continues pacing, looking around.
Later, Daryl continues his acting out against Alexandria: Vanilla Dream by cleaning his possum right on the porch of one of their assigned houses, tossing the guts right onto the treated wood slats.
Rick, holding Baby Judith, and Carl are wandering around the porch. Carol comes out and joins them. Nobody gives Daryl and the possum a second glance…that’s not what’s unnerving them about their current surroundings. It’s probably the closest thing to normal for them, now. Carl wants to go check out the house next door, and Rick tells him it’s ok, just make sure to keep it quick
Carl sets off, and Rick and Carol exchange a look.
It is the first, spontaneous convening of what I have come to think of as Episode 512’s“Porch Council” where Rick, Daryl, and Carol come together and share doubts, hunches, information, and make plans regarding Alexandria.
The look Rick and Carol exchange says it all. They both feel it…something’s weird. There’s something going on that isn’t being said, for all the comforts and hospitality being offered by Deanna Monroe and her community.
Carol leaves the porch and follows Carl to the house next door. As Carl looks around the downstairs, he marvels, “These are like mansions.” Carol goes over to a window, peers out the horizontal blinds.
“And they’re just giving them away,” Carol muses, doubtfully.
After a moment, Carol turns to go. She asks Carl if he’s coming, and he tells her he will catch up with her in a little bit. Carol goes outside, and she meets up with Rick, and Daryl, who are walking in the narrow yard space between the two houses.
Porch Council reconvenes…
Carol weighs in first, “They’re right next to each other, but…” Rick nods in agreement. “They took our weapons, now they’re splitting us up.” He looks at Daryl, who agrees, “Yup.”“Yeah,” echoes Rick. They stand in silence a moment, digesting all this information.
As Carol grins benignly at a curious passerby, Rick and Daryl try to look casual…just a neighborly yard chat, here. Looking away, Rick says that they will all be sleeping in the same house, tonight.
Meanwhile, in the other house, Carl is poking around downstairs when he hears a creaking noise, above. He makes his way cautiously up the stairs, then draws his knife as he approaches a closed door. Slowly, knife drawn, Carl reaches out and opens the door…
Carl opens the door to an empty, bright, vaulted attic room that looks as if it has been used as a hangout room. There are pads and pens, markers, makeshift pillow setups for sitting on the floor, against the wall. It looks like a teenager’s secret hangout space.
Carl picks up a comic, “WolfFight,”and starts reading.
Later, the gang is getting ready to bed down for the night. They are all camping out downstairs, in the living room, and it becomes apparent that some in this gang are really trying to figure out what to do with themselves in all this quiet..
As Carol sketches in a notepad, Maggie takes a deep whiff of the clean linens…she has probably really missed that smell, and the feel of being clean and comfortable.
Meanwhile, Eugene seems to be feeling Rosita out, while checking her out, again, as he sets his bed next to hers. And, again, Rosita does not acknowledge his existence.Dream on, Dream Weaver!
Rick sets Baby Judith down in her crib, and Daryl is being so sweet, watching over the baby. Carl reads his comic book.
Sasha sits, looking out the window, not talking, while Abraham sits in the corner, sneaking mournful looks over Rosita’s way. Poor wounded soldiers.
Michonne, however, has no problem knowing what to do with herself. Coming into the room, smiling, girly, so fresh and so clean-clean, she laughs and asks the others how long she was in there. Rick guesses, (probably after checking his watch), “Twenty minutes.”
I love seeing this side of Michonne, all laughing and girly and cute.
I love this pic…she’s all like, “I could NOT stop brushing.” And then, as she focuses on Rick, she sees something’s different about him…
Look at how ghostly this pic came out…the moment she sees the clean shave.(Damn,Richonne…I was rooting for you, hard.) I got a crazy pic like this before, of Michonne in the Terry and Mike sequence…it’s like the Ghost of Hot Girly Michonnemakes her appearance in these posts…bring it, Ghost of Hot Girly Michonne! Bring it, and I will keep taking pics. ❤
Awwww…look at that girl! She’s checking it all out, and she says, “I’ve never…I’ve never seen your face…like that, before,”in a way that is way more adorable than anything, ever.
In reply, Rick, rubbing his face, mumbles something about his thinking the exact same thing, before, and after, the epic shave, as he starts to walk past her. He was looking all shaven and beautiful, but I kind of didn’t like the way he was acting to Michonne in the moment, so I didn’t take a picture of it.
I swear, if Rick hooks up with that dumb Jessie girl and hurts Michonne’s feelings, I am going to be pissed. It would be tragically disappointing, and it may negatively affect my crush on him, if even for just a little while.
It would suck, like when one of your favorite guy friends, or favorite guys, in general, hooks up with some dumb girl you can’t stand. Ugh, please, just say no to that shit, Rick Grimes.The haircut wasn’t that great. Michonne could do a way better job, and she’d probably be really good at shaving, too.
I don’t hate Jessie, and I would never begrudge a young woman (raising two sons in the post-apocalypse with an asshole, possibly abusive husband) her hot, unexpected crush and a mild flirtation with her son’s friend’s dad…but…
Bitch needs to recognize that Richonne don’t got any part of “Jessie” in it.
(Now, because this post is super duper late as fuck, I watched Episode 513 last night, as did pretty much all of you, and I now know that Rick Smash!has it bad for Jessie, giving her the hungry eyes at Deanna’s party, and fantasizing about killing her pud husband and shit. I knew it was in the works the moment that chick came to the door, so there, I know. We all know. There is no Richonne, at least in the romantic sense. I am resigned. Annoyed as hell, but resigned. I’ll get over it. Meh.)
Anyhow, Rick leans in, and Michonne quietly says to him that she understands why they are playing it safe, but…she has a good feeling about this place.
(Yeah, man, I would too, you know? It’s vanilla postapocalyptic suburbia, a glass castle, but it’s got a wall, and houses, and it’s stocked as anything. It’s like,hey, the whole setup is rife withbullshit, but I get to brush my teeth here, and take a shower, and eat food that isn’t possum and acorns, and sleep more than two hours at a time, and sit on the couch and read comic books. I have a really, really great feeling about this place...I fucking love this place!)
Rick glances around, before looking back at her, says, “Well, I hope you’re right.” I wonder if he thinks they are using parabolic mikes and listening to them…I bet he does.
Michonne’s face gets even more serious. “Yeah, me too,” she says, thinking.
Man, there’s always a catch in this cruel, cockblocking zombie apocalypse. It’s exhausting, it truly is.
Suddenly, there is a knock on the door. The gang startles a bit, and Rick goes to the door, opens it, and it is Deanna Monroe, “checking in” on how everyone is doing. Deanna’s face, upon seeing Rick’s clean shaven one, registers her shock.
“Wow. I didn’t know what was under there!”
Rick Grimes is clearly uncomfortable with all this praise and commentary about his facial superiority.
Deanna starts to apologize for interrupting, and then she sees the whole gang, together, camping in the living room. “Oh, my,” she says, with a smile in her voice.
Deanna looks at Rick, smiling. “Staying together,”she says, wonderingly. “Smart.”
“Nobody said we couldn’t,” Rick replies.
“You said you were family,“ says Deanna to Rick. “That’s what you said.”
Deanna looks around at the gang, remarks, “It’s absolutely amazing to me how people with completely different backgrounds and nothing in common can become that…”
“… don’t you think?”
Rick changes the subject, mentions to Deanna that he heard she gave everyone jobs. She agrees, saying that’s “part of this place,” then laughs, joking that it looks like “the communists won after all.”
Rick gives a small, polite laugh at this, then says:
“You didn’t give me one.”
“I have,” says Deanna, smiling up at Rick. “I just haven’t told you yet.”
“Same with Michonne,” Deanna adds.
Deanna then says she’s “closing in on something for Sasha.”
“And, I’m just trying to figure Mr. Dixon out, but I will.“ Daryl looks away at this, crouched at the window, knife out and at the ready. He’s not settling down into this suburban limbo without a fight.
Deanna turns for one last look at Rick. “You look good,” she says, before walking out the door.
That night, as the others lay sleeping across the living room floor, Rick lay awake with his eyes open. He gets up, covers Carl’s sleeping form, and makes his way to the kitchen. He silently opens the knife drawer and pulls out a large chopping knife. He looks at the knife a moment, tests the blade, before bringing it close to his side. It seems the knife will be beside him, in easy reach, when he goes to lie back down in the living room.
In the next scene, we see Michonne in the frame of Deanna’s recording camera. She has gone to the bookshelf and selected a volume, then seats herself in the interview chair.
“If this is how you’re saying it is, then this is what we’ve wanted,” says Michonne. You can see her katana leaned up against the chair, and she holds the book she has selected, probably to take for future reading. Michonne seems like she is a well-read, well-versed individual, on many subjects.
“We’re ready for this,” asserts Michonne. We hear Deanna’s voice through the camera’s mic, “All of you?” Michonne looks away a moment, shifts in the chair, then composes herself back to stillness, facing the camera.
“All of us,” she asserts.
Meanwhile, the gang sets off to explore their new neighborhood.
Rick prompts Daryl, “They said explore…let’s explore.” Daryl takes a pass. He’ll stay put.
Rick looks over the upscale neighborhood, where one Alexandria resident is seen walking a dog. Rick tells Daryl,”Lori and me…we used to drive through neighborhoods like this, thinking, ‘One day…'”
“Well, here we are,” says Daryl, succinct as ever.
As soon as he steps out into the road, Rick starts to get freaked when he doesn’t see his children around, anywhere.
Rick be running and bugging, looking for his kids.
Mid wack-attack, Rick crashes some big weird metal thing in a driveway.
Jessie runs up, concerned, asks Rick if he’s ok…he asks her if she’s seen Carl and Judith, as he can’t find them.
Jessie has an idea where they might be, and she brings Rick to an elder couple’s home, where Carl and Judith are, sure enough, getting exclaimed over by the couple (who had five children, and twelve grandchildren, before...ugh, awful to think about that scope of loss).
Jessie tells Rick that it’s been awhile since there’s been a baby in these parts, and that Judith is probably going to have to deal with some pinched cheeks. Rick is majorly rattled, and Jessie assures him that it’s ok, she gets it.
“Look, I’m sorry I broke…whateverthat was I broke,“ Rick apologizes. Jessie tells Rick it was an an owl she and the boys were working on…she tells him that she had been having trouble getting the eyes right, and at Rick’s blank, “Oh, right, the eyes,“ she playfully teases him for not getting a good look at it.
Rick sheepishly admits, “I was in the middle of losing my mind.”(Ok, you two, I get it. You like each other. I am completely annoyed, but I get it.)
Before he turns to go, Jessie asks Rick if Carl can come over to their house, now, as Rowan really wants to meet him, to hang. Rick agrees, and so Carl goes over to Rowan’s house.
As Rowan brings Carl up to his room, he tells him that they are there almost every day after school, and invites Carl to come over, any time. Carl marvels that they have school, and Rowan explains to him that it’s just in a garage, and the little kids go in the mornings, while older kids go in the afternoons.
“Probably you too, right?” Rowan asks Carl. “Probably,” Carl agrees.
In Rowan’s room, two teens, a boy and a girl, are hanging out. Rowan introduces Carl to “Mikey” and “Enid.”
While Mikey gets up to greet Carl, Enid doesn’t look up from what she’s reading. “Hi,” she says, not looking at Carl.
Rowan goes over and puts a hand on Enid’s shoulder. Must be her self-appointed boyfriend…she does have the prime spot on Rowan’s bed. As Carl shyly sneaks a look over at Enid, Rowan explains that Enid’s from the “outside” too, that she came to Alexandria just a couple of months ago.
Carl pulls out the “Wolf Fight” comic from his pocket, asks Mikey and Rowan if it is theirs.
Rowan apologizes, says he didn’t know “they” got that house, and Mikey admits that they used to hang up in the attic room and listen to music. The comic is actually Enid’s, and she quickly snatches it from Carl’s hand and puts it next to her on the bed, then continues reading. Carl watches her a moment, fascinated, take this all in, then looks away.
Rowan, being a good host, offers different activities they can do…they can play video games, or Mikey’s house has a pool table (and a strict dad, but Mikey is quick to say that his dad’s at work at the moment). They turn to Carl, but he is having trouble processing all this…normalcy.
Poor Carl’s like, “Um…”
Enid looks up at Carl, seemingly identifying with his shellshock, as she has experienced the horrors of the world outside the walls, herself. She must know how weird it feels to be planted into this surreal suburban reality after experiencing what she and Carl have, outside.
Rowan is quick to offer that they don’t have to do anything, that Carl doesn’t have to even “talk, if you don’t want to.” Rowan then says that it took Enid three weeks before she said anything. Enid looks back down at her book, tells Carl to, “Pull ittogether, sport.” Carl recovers himself, puts on a small smile, and suggests that they play video games.
In the next scene, Carl and Judith are in Deanna’s office, sitting in the interview chair, being recorded as Carl “talks” with Deanna.
Looking around, Carl says that this is the kind of place that his mom wanted for them. It made me think of Lori, and how much she would have loved finding Alexandria, and settling there with her family. So sad. 😦
“I’m sorry you lost her,” Deanna says. Carl looks down, and he says, “I didn’t just lose her…I killed her.”
Carl looks up at Deanna. “It had to beme.”(I am sorry to bust in Carl’s sad, sad moment here, but that baby is such a smoosh…so freakin’ adorable!)
Later, Carl is lying in his bed, and Rick comes into the room, asks how Rowan’s house was. Carl asks Rick, point blank, what he, Rick, thinks of this place.
Rick sits on the edge of the bed, diplomatically says that the place “seems nice.” He is being a good dad, and a hot dad, despite his super annoying fascination with Jessie.
Carl agrees, saying he likes it here, and the people seem super nice…but they’re weak. Carl tells his dad that he doesn’t want them to get weak like these people are.
Rick nods, and looks away, processing this. Seems like he is having his own version of the same thoughts his son is having.
Later, that night, Michonne awakes to see Rick standing at the window, looking out. After a moment, she stands up, goes over to the window.
It was hard for me go get exactly how their conversation went down, after repeated playbacks, but the general feeling I got from it was that, if all is as good and orderly and democratic around here as Deanna Monroe is saying, then why are the both of them up, unable to sleep, in that moment? Michonne doesn’t have a reply. Rick tells her he’s going to take a walk, puts his hand on her shoulder, and leaves her there, thinking.
It’s a crazy full moon out that night.
As Rick walks down the darkened, empty streets, a voice carries to him from one of the front porches. “You’re Rick,” says the man’s voice. “Yeah,” Rick replies.
The man on the porch doesn not introduce himself, says instead, “My wife cut your hair.” Rick pauses a moment, then agrees, “Yeah.” An uncomfortable silence follows, then the man says, a trife belligerently, “Welcome to Alexandria.” Rick continues on his way, as the man takes a long draw off his cigarette. My WD buddy’s sister texted her, as we watched this scene, “They may as well name that husband guy ‘WifeyMcBeaty!‘”Ha ha ha!Spousal abuse is no laughing matter, but that nickname sure is…and ol’ Wifey McBeaty seems like a reala-hole.
Later, Rick lay sleeping…then:
In the next sequence, it’s back to the interview chair in Deanna Monroe’s office, where we all meet: Junior League Carol.
Junior League Carol recounts, for Deanna Monroe and her rolling camera, her life before the turn: “I did laundry, gardened…always had dinner on the table for Ed when he came home…”Junior League Carol looks away here, with a sad smile, blinking back fake tears, says, “I miss that big,stupid, wonderful man every day.”Wow.
Even more wow is when Junior League Carol goes on to say that she didn’t really have much to contribute to the group, so she just kind of became their den mother, and they were “nice enough” to protect her. Ha!Rambo Carol pretty much singlehandedly sprung the gang from Terminus. (I wonder how good of a poker-playing people reader Deanna Monroe actually is…is she buying JLCarol’s line, here?)
We hear Deanna Monroe’s voice, through the camera, ask, (a trifle doubtfully, perhaps),“Where do you think you’ll fit in?”
Junior League Carol acts perplexed by this question, looks down, brow knitted, makes some hems, haws and even kind of squeaks a little, “Hmmm?!” before saying, brightly, “Well, I’d like to be involved in the community…do you have anything like a JuniorLeague?“
Junior League Carol beams at the camera. “I’m a real people person.”
Later, it gets even more surreal…
Daryl sits at his usual spot on the front porch, tinkering with his crossbow…something pinches his thumb, and he winces, sucks the bleed a moment before getting back to the task at hand.
Junior League Carol steps out in her new uniform of uniformity. “Time to punch the clock and make the casseroles,” she mock announces, modeling her button-down-cardigan-pants ensemble for Daryl to comment on.
Daryl’s look says it all.
Carol explains that one of her duties with her newly assigned job is to make meals for those who cannot: elders, overwhelmed moms, those who can’t cook. “I get to meet a lot of our neighbors that way,” Carol adds. She’s a woman on a mission…she wants to figure these people out.
Daryl snorts a laugh, goes back to his crossbow. “Alright,” he replies, doubtfully.
Carol narrows her eyes at Daryl, asks him if he’s taken a shower yet. “Mmmhmmm,” he replies, which of course means he totally hasn’t.
Carol tells Daryl to take a shower, and she’ll wash his vest…they need to keep up appearances, even him. Daryl replies, “Hell, I ain’t startin’ now.”
As she marches off to her call of duty, Carol informs Daryl that she’s going to “hose you down in your sleep.”
Daryl calls after her, “You look ridiculous!”
Ha! Caryl.
Meanwhile, back at Deanna’s office:
Glenn, earnest, says to Deanna, as the camera records, “We need to make this work.”
“Why?” Deanna’s voice asks. Glenn pauses a moment, looks back at Deanna, the camera.
“We were almost out there too long.”
Meanwhile, Beardless Rick (as Kevin Smith referred to the clean shaven Rick Grimeson Talking Dead) seems to have checked out his weapons from Alexandria’s Gun Lending Library and is going on a walkabout outside the hallowed gates.
Rick looks like a hot badass.
Damn, are those bracings on the outside of the fence? I thought they were on the inside…that fence may hold off walkers, but a living enemy could pull down those bracings, or use them to scramble up and over the wall. Major design flaw, Reg.
Carl, meanwhile, is inside the walls, and the house, trying to figure out what the hell to do with himself…a movement outside the window catches his eye, and he spies:
Enid, giving the sneaky look around, then beginning to climb up the fence…she looks like she’s pretty much a pro at it, by now…it’s pretty apparent that she’s done it before, many times.
Damn, and then she gets to the top, and uses one of Reg’s patented “outside the wall” bracings to slide or shimmy down the other side. Reg, your fence may have bought you and your people about two years’ worth of protection, but I think your insurance policy with Castles Made Of Sand Home and Life Insurance is about to expire, soon…shit’s pretty bunk, I’m sorry to say.Props for trying, though, Reg, and for getting away with it this long. You bought your peeps some major time, truly.
Carl’s like, “I love her.”
Meanwhile, speaking of bunk-ass shit…
Meet Deanna and Reg’s budussy son, Aidan.
Aidan initally appears nice enough, and cute enough, at first. He’s friendly, he guesses their names, introduces Nicholas (who was pulling “gate duty,” before).
Glenn asks him, “You’re Deanna’s son?”
Aidan answers this in the affirmative: “That’s right.”
Then, it’s time to get down to business. “I hear you have experience making supply runs.” Glenn remarks to Aidan that he’s seen their pantry, that they seem to do prettywell. This puffs Aidan up, and he’s very proud to announce that he had some training, “ROTC.Was nearing lieutenant when this shit blew in.”
Nicholas looks over at Aidan, with this statement, with the look of someone who’s heard this like a million times, before, but who knows better than to roll his eyes. Noah speaks up, says his dad was in ROTC. Aidan is perceptive enough to ask, “He didn’t make it?”
Noah looks down, shakes his head, “Nah.”
Aidan looks sorrowful, expresses as much to Noah, but it’s more like, “Wow, that would really suck, I can’t imagine that“ than someone who really knows what loss feels like in this day and age.
Aidan takes a moment more (a true politician’s son), and then gets back to business with a comment, “I’m sorry a lot these days,” and then, it’s chop, chop, kids, because Aidan and his second, Nicholas, are gonna “show them the ropes” and the “terrain” outside the walls. They are going to make a “dry run,” so Aidan and Nicholas can “see how you do.”
Wow, that is super fucking laughable, Aidan. And, btw, that Walmart-issueknife strapped to your belt is totally making your Members Only jacket look really fucking suburban gangsta,right there, Deanna’s son.
Aidan tries some “sac” comment on Tara, which she only mocks slightly, and when Glenn asks about weapons, Aidan says that they picked out “some sweet-ass biscuits for today.”
Oooooo…awesome.
Glenn and Tara manage to keep straight faces as they follow Aidan and Nicholas, along with Noah, out beyond the walls.
Meanwhile, Enid, who could probably show Aidan a thing or two, is making her way through the woods…
…with Carl following close behind.
Enid hears a clanging noise in the distance, and bolts through the woods. Carl tries to go after her, but loses her quickly.
Meanwhile, in another part of the woods, Rick sees a barn in the near distance, hears the clatter of something being crashed inside. Then, making his cameo appearance…
Clanger Banger Walker ambles out of the barn, ready to fuck some shit up.
Another amazing variation of the now-iconic “Rick Grimes Pointing The Gun” pose…
Rick decides that it’s not worth it, and he heads to the abandoned house where he stashed the gun in the plastic blender, but when Rick looks in the blender…
The gun is gone…who took Rick’s gun?
Rick sits back, trying to figure this out. Whoever took it must have watched as he stashed it, unless some person just happened to look inside an old, useless blender in a trash heap and find it…so not likely. Rick’s pissed, you can tell. He stands, unsheaths his knife, thinking...and then, he sees that he’s not alone. Carl has joined him, and Rick has no time to ask questions, because they have company:
“Hey, we were calling you back there towait up for us!“
Rick and Carl are ready 2 rumble…
Carl rekills the lady walker.
Later,Clanger Banger.
Carl, too bad Enid isn’t around to see this…you’s a walker-killa pimp!
Oh, no, Rick, look out forGrabby Walker!
CarlFace Walker Killa sez give it up here, Big Poppa…I got this.
Buh bye, Grabby Walker. Later, on TD, Chris Hardwick and guests speculated on whether whoever stole Rick’s gun also planted the walker there as a grabby, bitey booby trap…but how would you make the walker stay put? “Stay, Grabby Walker, you stay! Good boy, Grabby…stay!”
Meanwhile, in another part of the woods, Aidan is informing Glenn, Tara, and Noah that they have been increasing their radius outside the walls, mile by mile, when going on runs. Nicholas adds, proudly, that they’ve gotten up to 53 miles away from Alexandria at this point.
Aidan adds that they break up into two groups once they step outside the vehicle…if shit hits, the one group fires a flare, and the other group runs to join them.
“Good system,” Noah comments. “It is,” replies Aidan, who is now fully in Near Lieutenant mode. He goes on to inform them that they are “standing here” because they lost four people last month. Glenn asks what happened.
Aidan replies that they were on a run, “roamers” appeared, and the ones who were lost “didn’t follow the system.”
Nicholas adds that they were “good people,” and Aidan agrees…they were good people, they were just “scared.”
Aidan turns and addresses Glenn, Tara, and Noah. “Look,I can be a hardass…I know I’m a douchebag.“ (Yes, Aidan, you know that, and so does everybody else.)
But, Aidan says, “Somebody needs to ‘call the ball’ around here, and that somebody is me. If you are a part of this crew, you do exactly as I say.”
Glenn, Noah, and Tara say nothing in response to this, then Tara says, simply, “I’m sorry you lost your people.”
Aidan says, “Yeah, but we got ours.” He and Nicholas exchange knowing looks, smiles. Nicholas explains that they managed to “snag one of the deadheads” who got their people, and they strung it up.
Glenn asks, horrified, “What? Why?”
Nicholas explains that now, they have a little “pregame ritual, to remind us what we’re up against.”
But, when they get to the spot where, supposedly, they had a walker strung up, all they find is this:
D’oh! Walker’s gone, just a bloody chain with flies buzzing around it.
Aidan starts freaking out, “Son of a bitch! Help me find it.” Nicholas observes that the blood is still fresh, so it hasn’t been too long since the roamer got free. Great sleuthing, dude.
Nicholas proves himself to be even more of a dumbass by whistling loudly through his finger and thumb, trying to attract back the walker. Starting to see how those four people got killed on that run…
Tara whirls and shushes them, and Glenn rushes up to Nicholas, “Hey…hey! It’s gone, leave it!” But the Douchebag Duo refuses.”It took down one of our friends!” Aidan says. “It’s nearby…we’re not letting it go.”
As Bugs Bunny would say, “Whatta coupla maroons!”
Nicholas whistles loudly, again, and this time, Houdini Walker comes to the sound of the dinner bell…
Noah raises his pistol, but Nicholas waves him down, and Aidan is actually trying to chain the walker’s rotting hands behind its rotting back, again. Totally stupid.
Pure idiocy, Alexandria-style.
Houdini Walker proves itself wiley, snappy, and slippery, figuring out to whirl around and come close to chomping Aidan in the face (that would have been awesome), and Tara is good enough to come to Aidan’s rescue.
Houdini Walker’s rotting skin tears away from its back as Tara tries to grab it back, away from Aidan, and the walker comes dangerously close to chomping her face, when Glenn sinks his knife into the walker’s skull, rekilling it for good.
RIP Houdini Walker.
“What the hell?!” yells Aidan. (In France, they would call him a “douche baguette.”)
“Yeah, what the hell??” counters Tara.
Glenn is apeshit. “You almost got her killed!”
Aidan yells like a shrill little schoolboy, “I told you all to stay back! I told you all to listen to every damn thing I said…I told you that.“ Glenn bows up on Aidan, and I really am loving how Noah has Glenn’s back in this moment. Noah’s alright.
The next shot shows them walking through the gates, Glenn walking ahead, furious.
Well, that went well…
Aidan calls out from behind, “You three need new gigs…you’re not ready for runs yet.” Glenn replies, “Pretty sure you have that backwards.“
Aidan charges up behind Glenn, reaches out and stops him, “Hey…hey! Look, we got a way of doing things out there.” “You tied up walkers!“ exclaims Glenn, still incredulous at the sheer risk and stupidity of such a mindset. “He killed out friend!” Aidan yells. No, Aidan, you fucking killed your friend.
Aidan steps back, says, with a laugh, that he’s not having this conversation. When they are out on runs, they do everything Aidan says. Glenn replies that’s great, then they’ll be as screwed as Aidan’s last group…oooo, burn, Aidan!
Daryl steps up, with a little smile...this is more like it!
Aidan steps up to Glenn. “Say that again,” he says, softly.
Glenn doesn’t, and Tara tries to tell Aidan to back off. Instead, Aidan shoves Glenn.
Total budussy.
Noah chimes in, tries to tell them each to step back. Instead, Aidan shoves Glenn again.
Glenn does not rise to the bait, but he doesn’t back down, either. He says softly, “No one’s impressed, man. Walk away.” From behind, we hear Deanna’s voice yell, “Aidan!” Oh, Aidan, your mommy’s calling you…she’s trying to save your ass.
“What is going on?” demands Deanna.
Aidan replies that “this guy has a problem with the way we do things here.” He turns to his mother. “Why’d you let these people in?”
From behind Aidan, Glenn answers, “Because we actually know what we’re doing out there.” Aidan whirls and swings at Glenn, who ducks it, and comes back with one good punch that drops Aidan to the ground. Nicholas tries to jump in, and is immediately tackled by Daryl.
Before Daryl can unleash some pent-up frustration on Nicholas, Rick grabs him from behind, “Do not do this now,” he tells Daryl, quietly.
Aidan jumps up, ready for more, and Michonne immediately steps up to him.
“You wanna end up on your ass again?” Michonne asks him. (Watching this, I was all like, “Yes, please, I want him to end up on his ass again! Do it, do it!”)
Unfortunately, Aidan backs off, and Deanna announces, loudly, that she wants everyone to hear this…Rick and his people are now a part of this community, as equals. She turns to her shitty son.
“Understood?”Aidan raises his eyebrows, says quietly, “Understood.”
Deanna orders everyone to turn in their weapons, turns to Aidan and Nicholas and tells them that she wants to talk to the both of them in her office. She then turns to Rick, tells him she has her job for him...she wants him to be the town’s constable.
“That’s what you were,” says Deanna. “That’s what you are.”
Deanna then turns to Michonne. “You too,” she says to her. She looks at Rick and Michonne. “Do you accept?” Rick says he will.
Michonne accepts as well, “Yeah, I’m in.”
Daryl, pissed, grabs up his crossbow and stalks off. Awww. sorry, Daryl, but Michonne did a lot better with the interview part of the Alexandria audition!
Deanna turns and quietly thanks Glenn. “For what?“ asks Glenn. “For knocking him on his ass,” replies Deanna. Glenn nods, and walks away, and Maggie smiles at Deanna before following him.
Deanna Monroe has laid down her full hand in the final showdown of this round of seven card stud. Whatever her full motivation is, it seems she knows that Rick and his gang are her best shot at the long-term survival of her community. It’s a big play, a big risk, by a woman who has weighed the odds, and made her decision.
Carl looks over at Enid, who is watching him. They regard each other for a moment, and then Carl asks her, “You don’t like me, do you?” Enid says nothing, turns and walks away.
In the final sequence, we see the footage of Rick’s initial interview with Deanna Monroe. We hear his voice, which becomes a voice over for the next images, when we get our first glimpse of Constable Grimes in his new uniform:
Ladies and gentlemen, meet Constable Grimes. ❤
Rick:You should keep your gates closed.
Deanna:Why?
Rick: Because it’s all about survival, now. At any cost. People are always looking for an angle, looking to play on your weakness…they measure you by what they can take from you, by how they can use you to live.
When Rick comes out to the porch, Daryl is there. Rick asks Daryl if they’re ok, and Darylsays they are.
Daryl jokes, “You’re a cop again?” and Rick replies that he’s trying it out. Carol steps outside, and the Porch Council has convened, again.
Carol says that if they get comfortable here, they will get weak. Rick says that Carl said the very same thing, but they won’t get weak…that’s not in them, any more. Rick looks out into the night, says that if they, the Alexandrians, can’t make it…
“We’ll take this place.”
Hey, Deanna, he can’t say he didn’t warn you!
Sorry so late, darlings…mommy/wifey thing called in some major time and attention these past couple of weeks. Getting to work on Episode 513, “Forget,” which of course will probably be another 11,000 or so words…we have lots to talk about with that one!
Enjoy the playlist, darlings. Next post up asap. ❤
Playlist:
Heart, “Barracuda” (for Deanna Monroe…I think I do see some sharp barracuda teeth gleaming in that lovely smile of yours, Deanna)
Band of Horses, “Our Swords”
Courtney Barnett,“Avant Gardner” (for Junior League Carol)
In The Walking Dead’s Season 5, Episode 10, “Them,” we, the viewers, along with our righteous gang, are finally getting that chance we’ve been waiting for, to slow down, take a long, ragged breath, and process, for a moment, everything that has happened, thus far, in the relatively short period of time since the prison community was struck down, first by a highly lethal virus, then, by a madman and his army…and so on.
Our gang has suffered so much loss in this brief space of time. Maggie, at this point, has lost her entire family, She, and Daryl, are reeling over Beth’s senseless murder at the hands of Dawn Lerner, after a hostage trade negotiation at Grady Memorial went horribly awry.
Sasha has lost, in rapid, horrifying succession, first, her sweet boyfriend, Bob, and most recently, her beloved brother, Tyreese.
Noah has just discovered that his mother, twin brothers, and entire community have been brutally murdered by an unknown enemy. He, too, has lost his entire family at this point.
Abraham, having lost his entire family, before, when they ran away from him in terror and were attacked by walkers, has suffered another blow: Eugene Porter’s confession that he had been lying, the whole time, about having the key to a cure for the walker epidemic. With Eugene’s confession came the crushing realization, for Abraham, Rosita, and many others of the group, that there may not be an end in sight to the horror and savagery that the world has become.
This hell that they are living, every day, may be all that there is.
Abraham had embraced Eugene’s lie readily, before, as it gave him a mission, and a reason to continue on. Now, Abraham seems to be grappling with the same doubts and uncertainties as everyone else. In Episode 510, we see Abraham taking frequent pulls from a bottle of liquor he has found in a sweep of abandoned cars, and there is not much direct interaction between him and Rosita, at this point.
On top of everything else, poor Abraham may have lost the love of his hot, sexy girlfriend (I truly hope this is not the case, Abraham, my man, but if so, maybe she’s still up for a fwbscenario now and again on those cold postapocalyptic nights…here’s hoping, bud!).
Carol is sure to be feeling the loss of Tyreese keenly, as he, and she, shared, just between them, the terrible knowledge and grief of Lizzie’s downward spiral into insanity, and then, Mika and Lizzie’s tragic deaths back at the pecan grove.
And now, Carol is watching, and feeling,Daryl pull away from her, and the group. While Carol seems to be keeping herself open and available for him, and reaching out, letting Daryl know she’s there, Carol also knows that she needs to keep giving him the time and space he needs, right now, to process the loss of Beth, and work through his grief.
I personally think it must suck for Carol, deep down inside, to see how hard Daryl is grieving for Beth, on some level, as it confirms that he had deep feelings for the beautiful young girl.
And, like I said, if Daryl and Beth had been together longer, just the two of them, well, we all probably agree that something would have happened, sooner than later.
In my personal estimation, judging from how things were progressing, from the span of Season 4’s“After,” to “Still,” and then, finally, “Alone,” the making out would have happened more on the soonerscale.
Remember, in “Alone,” when Beth asked Daryl what made him change his mind about the goodness of people, and he fixed her with that sweet love look, at the kitchen table?
He was all like:
And she was all like:
(Sorry for the reflections, it was back before I knew how to do a screenshot.)
But, reflections aside, those archival shots from “Alone,” to me, are photographic proof of:
Daryl is good at holding his cards close to his chest, but he’s not good at lying. Daryl doesn’t lie. If he can’t be honest, he’ll keep silent. He won’t say it.
Daryl showed his love for Beth, clearly, in actions more than words, back in Season 4, and later, in the first part ofSeason 5, Daryl shows his love for Carol in actions, and in words (because that’s how the grown women do…you gotta show them in actions and in words, none of this “one or the other” business. Grown women need to see you got all the skills.)
In “Consumed,” Daryl clearly, and honestly, communicates his love, and his intention (“I’m trying”) to Carol, and when we saw that episode, it showed us how far Daryl has come in owning and expressing his heartfelt emotions.
This is something he hasn’t been able to do before, and I find it very beautiful and endearing to see this sweetness blossoming in Daryl. It’s such a crazy-ass thing that it took an apocalypse, and the gathering of fine people who came into his life because of it, for Daryl to get to the point where he could open up and be who he really is.
And, I said, before, if I were Carol, and I saw how bad the object of my singular love and affection was pining for someone else, well, that personally would really suck for me. But, it’s honest, and that’s how Daryl does it, and to be with Daryl would mean that New Carol would have to roll with that.
New Carol, being the champion that she is, seems to know all that, and she seems to be able to not take it too personally, or too hard, when Daryl rebuffs her, pushes her away, and goes off, alone, which is often, in Episode 510.
Carol knows Daryl pretty well by now, and she knows that this is what he needs to do, and how he needs to do it, and hopefully, when he is done, he will be ready and happy to come, fully and ready to party naked, back toCaryl.
And, with this, I am raising my coffee in a toast: To Caryl!
Moving on, now, to other characters…
Tara has been remarkably resilient, and adaptable, since we first met her back in the middle of Season 4.Tara has also had to come to grips with the loss of her entire family: her sister, her niece, her father, and her new girlfriend, Alicia. Tara, who fell prey to the Governor’s lies, has also had to come to grips with her own naivete, guilt, and self-doubt for playing a part in the destruction and massacre of the prison.
Tara has made her apologies, and her peace, with Maggie, and the others in the group, and, as she is funny, solid in a crisis, and a good friend, Tara seems like she may play a key role in helping the others heal their wounds and open back up to each other.
The gang is having a hard time finding the balance between nursing their private wounds and keeping open and communicative with the good folks around them, who are also hurting, exhausted, hungry, thirsty…demoralized.
And speaking of social retardation… Eugene Porter and Father Gabriel, the Oddball Outsiders, have lost a good degree of standing within the group with their respective revelations.
Eugene, of course, was forced to come clean and confess to lying about having the walker cure,and basically using Abraham, Rosita (and a number of fine men and women who died in the cause of getting Eugene to Washington, D.C.) as bodyguards, and protectors.
While the zeal of having a mission, and something to believe in, was certainly a positive thing for Abraham, and others, that geeky shoe was bound to drop sooner or later…and now, here we are, and it will be interesting to see how the story of Eugene Porter unfolds at this point in the TWD storyline, and what role he will ultimately end up playing in the group.
And Gabriel...well,Gabriel finally confessed his big sin to someone other than God, and tearfully unburdened himself to the gang, back at his cursed church, about how, in the beginning of the turn, he kept the church doors locked when his frightened parishioners came to the church, seeking refuge there, and did not let them into the church.
(Something about it being too late, or too early. Not a good time, apparently. Come back during business hours, which are posted on the door…yes, thatdoor, the one you are pounding on.)
Despite his congregation’s desperate cries and pleas, Gabriel still refused to let them in, and so the helpless families were swarmed and savagely attacked by walkers, who were attracted to the noise of the families’ cries, pleas to be let inside the church.
And, as the poor men, women, and children of his congregation were torn apart by walkers, Gabriel cowered within the safety of the church’s walls, alone, listening to the horror and the savagery as it happened.
Gabriel, once a spiritual leader, is struggling mightily with his self-hatred, self-condemnation, and his loss of faith in God right about now, and this theme, losing faith in God, resounds with other characters, especially Maggie, in Episode 510.
Glenn, who has always been such a source of positivity, strength, and reason, for the others, has seemingly lost his faith, and his will, as well, after watching so many people he loved and cared for die tragically, needlessly, horribly.
His driving force, his love for Maggie and concern for the others in the group, spurs him onward, but as we saw in last week’s episode, “What Happened and What’s Going On,” Glenn is struggling within himself, wondering aloud to Rick if anything matters, anymore.
Each member of the gang is struggling with their own version of Glenn’s question: Does anything matter, anymore? What can someone truly put his/her faith, intention, and energy into striving for, in this world, as it is now? What is the point in trying to build anything good, or lasting, when it can all be torn away, brutally destroyed, in the blink of an eye?
Nowadays, even the very concept of having hope, or a dream, or faith in anything good seems to be ripped away before the hope, or the dream, can even materialize. The promise of building a lasting home at the prison was snuffed out by one man’s obsessive desire for vengeance.
The offered promise of a Sanctuary turned out to be a trap, and a place of unspeakable evil and brutality. Eugene’s promise of a cure was nothing but a lie concocted by a weak, insecure young man (and his egregious mullet) to buy himself some time, protection, and a ride toD.C.
Carol and Tyreese’s hope of settling in at a quiet, cozy farm house nestled in a pecan grove, and enjoying a quiet respite, with Mika, Lizzie, and Judith, ended suddenly and tragically, with the deaths of the two young sisters.
The brief hope, and promise, of finding Beth, and getting her and Carol back, alive and safe, ended in Beth’s violent and senseless murder.
And most recently, the promise of a potential new home for the gang, in Noah’s family’s walled, secure neighborhood outside of Richmond, resulted in the gang’s discovery of the grisly aftermath of the massacre of an entire peaceful community, including Noah’s mother and little twin brothers, and ending in the heartbreak of Tyreese’s painful, agonizing death.
Hershel. Lilly. Megan. Mika. Lizzie. Bob. Beth. Noah’s mother, and little brothers. And now, Tyreese.Not long ago, they were alive. They were loved. They were family.
And now, they are gone. All of them. And our sweet gang, both as individuals and as a collective, must find a reason, deep within themselves, to carry on, despite carrying the heavy burden of so much grief, and so much loss.
The opening shot of Episode 510, “Them,” shows a pair of eyes, closed, crying…the shot pans out, and we see, of course, that it is Maggie, sitting against a tree, crying quietly.
Her eyes and face are swollen, as if she has been crying, on and off, for a long time.
Maggie’s much needed cry is then rudely interrupted by Tangled Up In Blue Walker, who comes hissing and pawing at her, but gets entangled, and stuck, in the hanging vines of the tree. Maggie gets up, annoyed, like, “Can’t a girl have a moment to herself?”
Maggie easily rekills Tangled Up In Blue Walker with one quick thrust of her knife into its decaying skull…
…and then sinks miserably back down against the tree to resume her cry, with the dead walker’s body draped, unnoticed, in the vines behind her.
Meanwhile…
We see a tanned, muscled arm digging deep in the mud...for water, it seems.
…no water, but we see the digging has yielded a tasty morsel…
Eat the worm, Daryl Dixon!
Daryl eats the wriggling earthworm so matter-of-factly, without registering any distaste or disgust while doing so, that it seems like something he’s done many times before, and that somehow makes him even hotter, and even more beautiful, and endearing, if that is even possible…
…especially when the shot pans out, and he’s sitting like a little boy, having his own little worm picnic. I have thought about Daryl as a boy so many times (the boy whose mom died drunk, and passed out, in thehouse fire, leaving him to be raised by a drunk dad and a sadistic older brother) and it makes the mom in me, and the woman in me, feel so much love and hurt in my heart for him. ❤
Sasha, meanwhile, walks along a creek bed, which has run dry. She crouches, and digs a moment, but there is no water to be had, here.
Sasha sees the bodies of many frogs, belly up, along the dried creek bed. Would frogs just lie back, and give up the ghost, as a creek dried up, or would they hop away? I don’t know much about frogs, but it’s not the first time I have wondered if all this decay and pestilence in the post-apocalyptic world is poisoning the water, air, soil, food supply.
Alarmed, Sasha angrily kicks the dirt, partially burying the frog.
Looking up, Sasha sees Daryl and Maggie approach, look down at her from the top of the bank. Sasha wordlessly shakes her head. No water here.
Daryl turns away, crossbow over his shoulder, while Maggie looks down at Sasha, standing in the dried creek bed littered with dead frogs, a moment more. No words are exchanged between any of them. Maggie then turns away, and follows Daryl. After a moment, Sasha heads up the bank, after them.
As they head back to the group, who sits, waiting, in the road, Sasha signs, “Oh, shit.” Not one of the three found any water to bring back.
The sun beats down on them…
…as they trudge back to the group, empty water bottles hanging from their bags, belts. “How much longer we got?” Maggie asks. “About 60 miles,” replies Sasha. Maggie gives a small shake of her head, says grimly, “I wasn’t talking about that.”
After the opening credits, we see a brief shot of the front end of a truck, stopping. We hear Abraham’s voice saying that the truck’s run dry, like the other one. Rick’s reply is immediate, “So, we walk.”We see legs, boots coming out of the truck, and the rays of the hot sun beating down.
As they walk, Daryl turns back to look at a small group of walkers that are shuffling slowly behind their group, maybe 50 yards back.
Rick, holding Judith, turns to regard the potential threat. “We’re not at our strongest,” he says. “We’ll get them when it’s best, high ground, something like that.”
Turning back around, Rick adds, “They’re not going anywhere.”
Rick turns to Daryl. “It’s been threeweeks since Atlanta…I know you lost something back there.” (Besides feeling the exquisite pain of this moment, I just need say that, in my opinion, there cannot be too many scenes like this one, of beautiful men holding babies and talking about feelings.)
Daryl does not reply. Judith give a little whimper, and Daryl looks down at her. “She’shungry,” he says.
Rick pulls Judith up a little closer to him. “She’s ok,” he says, looking forward. His voice falters just a moment as he asserts, “She’s gonna be ok.” (Exquisite pain, watching this…exquisite pain.)
“We gotta find water, food,” Daryl says.
Looking like a beautiful Moses, Rick looks up at a couple of clouds forming, and says that it’s gonna rain, sooner or later.
Daryl hands the crossbow to Rick, tells him that he’s going to take a run. Carol is close behind, seems like she may have heard the men’s earlier exchange.
As Daryl turns to leave, Rick chides, gently, “Don’t be too long.” Seems that Daryl takes a lot of opportunities to dip out, these days, going off for long stretches of time. Carol speaks up. “I’ll go with you.” Daryl replies, “Nah, hey, I got it.” Ouch, my heart for you, Carol!😦
Not to be deterred, New Carol shakes her head, and starts after him. “You gonna stop me?” she asks, wryly. Daryl turns to her, pauses, waits for her. Not so fast, Daryl Dixon!
Carl catches up to Maggie and gives her a gift, a music box he found while looking for water. He tells her it doesn’t work, but he thought she would like it.
As Maggie opens the box, it is easy to imagine that the little blond ballerina inside would remind her of Beth. This sweet gesture brings a small, rare smile to Maggie’s face…
…and she turns and thanks Carl.
Some of my WDO buddies still hate on Carl, but I really love him. He is becoming such a sweetie, and has really had to roll with some hard times. Can’t hate the little man for having his tween tool moments back in the day(and ps, he really didn’t mean to kill Dale. That shit was a total accident).
As Carl walks ahead, Maggie turns to see Gabriel, behind her, pulling at his priest’s collar. Seeing her look, Gabriel jokes that he used to call the collars the modern-day incarnations of the hot, itchy “hair shirts” that priests, in times before, were forced to wear as an act of atonement. Besides the unspoken sentiment that there wouldn’t be a shirt hairy enough for Gabriel to wear to “atone” for his horrible betrayal of his own parishioners…
…Maggie tells Gabriel, without looking at him, that she knows what hair shirts are, that her “daddy” was religious.
Staring ahead, Maggie adds, “I used to be.”
Gabriel begins to offer to Maggie his services as a spiritual counselor, if she ever wants to talk about her father, or Beth, and Maggie interrupts him, with as much politeness as she can manage, “Please stop.”
Gabriel continues, in his automatic priest-mode, “Whenever you’re ready, I’m here.”
Staring straight ahead, Maggie replies, “You never even met them.” Gabriel replies, “I know you’re in pain.”
Maggie whirls on Gabriel. “You don’t know shit,”she tells him. “You had a job…you were there to save your flock, right? But you didn’t…you hid. Don’t act like that didn’t happen.” And with that, Maggie stalks off.
Some ways down the road, the gang trudges along, while the walkers behind them have gained in number, and are gaining on them, only about 20 yards away, and their telltale hiss and slaver are audible in the background.
Sasha looks back at the walkers, then at Michonne, tells Michonne, “We can take them.” Michonne sides with her future bf and replies that, “Rick’s right…we barely have anything left. No use in spending it all now.”
Sasha, however, is not so easily deterred. She’s in pain, she’s pissed, and she’s spoiling for a fight. “I can take them,” she insists.
Michonne knows all too well what is going on, here. “Your brother was pissed too, after what he lost, “ she tells Sasha. “It made him stupid.” Sasha whirls on Michonne. “We are not the same,” Sasha says. “We never were.”
Michonne looks at Sasha, not unkindly. “But, it’s still the same,” she says to the young woman. “It just is.” Sasha has no reply to this, just turns and walks away from Michonne.
Meanwhile, out on another water run, Carol asks Daryl if he’s found anything…he says everything’s too dry. Carol suggests they start heading back, and Daryl is quick to suggest that Carol go on, without him.
Carol looks at Daryl. “I think she saved my life,” she says, referring, of course, to Beth. “She saved your life too, right?”
Daryl does not reply. Carol walks over and hands him a knife, sheathed in a blond leather casing.
“It’s hers,”Carol says simply. Daryl takes the knife, looks at it a moment, still says nothing.
“You’re not dead,” says Carol, softly, mirroring Daryl’s words to her, some time ago, back to him. “I know you…you have to let yourself feel it.”
Carol reaches out and gently, tenderly smooths Daryl’s hair back…
…then kisses him on the forehead, stand back, looking at him. “You will,” she says, laying a gentle hand on Daryl’s shoulder.
Some TWD fans posted disappointment at this motherly, rather than loverly, show of love on Carol’s part, but I think it’s exactly what Daryl needed in the moment…pure, supportive, unconditional love, to take the time he needs to grieve Beth’s death. Super awesomeness, New Carol-style.
Meanwhile…
Rick looks down at the steep drop from the bridge…here is the gang’s opportunity to take care of the walker herd that’s been tailing them all day. The gang is in formation, lined up on either side of the bridge.
Rick wordlessly nods to Abraham, the others, as he walks towards the walker herd.
Abraham nods back. They are ready.
Rick and the gang face the herd of walkers.
As the first walker approaches Rick, Rick sidesteps, stumbling a moment, then sends the walker flying down the steep embankment of the bridge, using the walker’s forward momentum to propel it downward, without using too much of his own energy, aikido-style.
Using this same technique, Abraham sends two more flying down the steep drop.
Glenn and Michonne both use the technique successfully. It seems to be working…
…until Sasha breaks formation, striding up to her walker and spearing it in the head with her knife.
Rick assesses the situation immediately, tells the gang to stay in line, and flank Sasha. They must fight now, as the walkers are coming more quickly and aggressively, responding to Sasha’s escalation. Abraham grumbles that the plan is “dicked” as he and Maggie unsheath their knives and prepare to go to battle.
Michonne grabs Sasha’s arm, tells her to stop, to go, as Sasha is not thinking clearly, and is a danger to herself and others.
Rick and the others, so weak already, must go to battle with the oncoming walkers.
Rick narrowly escapes getting bitten by a walker…thankfully, Daryl is there to pull the walker off.
Michonne pushes Sasha away and quickly beheads the last of the attacking walkers, then points down at Sasha. “I told you to STOP,” Michonne tells her angrily.
Winded, Sasha seems to grasp how nearly she cost herself, and the others, their lives with her anger and recklessness. She stands, however, and faces Michonne with a look of pure attitude, before stalking off, sheathing her knife.
Later, down the road, Carl sees some abandoned looking cars in the distance. As the gang approaches the vehicles, Maggie looks in the windows of one car, checks inside, finds nothing useful, but sees the keys in the ignition. Maggie takes the keys and goes around to the trunk, opens it, and makes a horrible discovery…
…inside the trunk of the car, a woman walker is gagged, with hands and feet bound. As with so many walkers we encounter on TWD, we will never know the full story of Hostage Walker, but we know it is another violent and horrible end to a person’s life. On Talking Dead, later, guests Lauren Cohan, Seth Gilliam, and Robin LordTaylor speculated on how Hostage Walker may have reminded Maggie of Beth, as Beth was abducted in a car, as well.
Maggie regards Hostage Walker for a moment, before closing the trunk on the whole situation, without bothering to rekill the walker.
As she turns to go, Maggie hears the walker moving inside the car trunk, thumping against the confines of the closed, dark space. Maggie returns to the trunk, but cannot get it open. The keys are stuck. Maggie pulls out her pistol, ready to blast the lock of the trunk.
Glenn steps up, reaches a hand out to Maggie, and stops her from shooting the lock. When Maggie tells him about the walker in the trunk, Glenn steps forward, manages to get the trunk open, and rekills the walker with a knife to its head. He then turns to Maggie, and gently says, “Let’s go.”
Daryl, of course, has taken this opportunity to once again go off by himself and “take a sweep” of the woods, but has found nothing but a ravaged deer carcass and a dead body against a tree. When he comes back, the gang is sitting at the roadside, resting. No food, no water to be had, but Abraham did find a bottle of liquor, which he cracks open andstarts taking pulls from.
Abraham sniffs the bottle, then takes a drink. “It’s not going to help,” Tara remarks to the others. “He knows that,”Rosita replies. Eugene adds that Abraham is a grown man, but he, Eugene, cannot imagine how things could get any worse. Eugene, Eugene, Eugene, haven’t you watched enough movies in your once-sedentary life to know that whenever you say something like that, something terrible happens?
Like, I don’t know…wild dogs, for instance?
Luckily, Sasha is there to take the dogs out, sniper-style.
Wordlessly, Rick takes a long stick, breaks it over his thigh...looks like tonight’s dinner entree is…
…wild dog meat. (My WD buddy texted me, How are they going to feed that to the baby? I truly didn’t know, but figured that maybe Rick could chew it up a bit and then feed it to Judith, so it would be easier to eat, Emperor penguin-style. Rick Grimes could even pull off making that look sexy…hey, at this point, whatever it takes, you know?)
Noah, freaked, is not eating, and is looking over at one of the dog’s collars, which reads, “Duke.”
Sasha steps up with some more wood for the fire, and Noah tells her that her brother, Tyreese, tried to help him. Sasha looks down at Noah, who then looks up at her, says, “I don’t know if I’m going to make it.”
Sasha looks grimly down at the young man. “Then you won’t,“ she says, her face immovable. Noah looks down at these harsh words.
Sasha softens a bit, tells Noah, “Don’t think, just eat.“
Meanwhile, as the gang sits around, eating, Gabriel pulls his ragged priest’s collar off his shirt…
…and throws it into the fire. Without watching the collar burn, Gabriel takes another bite of meat, stares off, chewing. Maggie watches this, taking it in.
Later, Glenn is trying to get Maggie to take a drink of water. She refuses. “Ok,” Glenn relents, on the water, anyway. “Why don’t you just talk to me?”
(Later, my WD buddy and I talked about how we were glad that Glenn was making himself available to offer support, counsel, and comfort to Maggie, even though he was going through his own doubts, and darkness.)
Maggie tells Glenn that she never thought Beth was alive, that after seeing their father, Hershel, get killed, she just…didn’t, or couldn’t, think about Beth being alive. Learning that Beth was alive, and then thinking she was going to see Beth, be reunited with her sister, and then seeing Beth, dead, in Daryl’s arms, the same day…Maggie confesses to Glenn that she doesn’t know if she can fight the darkness, any more.
Glenn tells her she can, that they must keep fighting it, that that’s who she is, who they are. He urges Maggie to drink, and she does, taking a tiny sip from the water bottle.
Abraham walks alongside Sasha, offers her a drink from his bottle. She refuses, saying that it’s gonna make things worse.
“The way you’re going, you’re what’s gonna make things worse,” retorts Abraham. Sasha looks down, digesting this. “Hey,” says Abraham. Sasha looks back up at him. “You’re among friends,” he says to her.
Sasha shoots him one of her looks. “We’re not friends,” she snaps, and walks ahead. Abraham thinks a moment, then shrugs, unconcerned, and takes another pull from the bottle.
Glenn, meanwhile, tries to offer his water bottle to Daryl, who refuses it, even at Glenn’s insistence.
“We can make it,” Glenn reminds Daryl. “But we can only make it together.”
Daryl hangs back, tells Abraham to tell the others he went looking for water. Abraham says nothing, takes another pull from his bottle.
In the woods, Daryl sees a barn in the distance.
He sits against a tree, looking at the barn.
Pulling out a stash of battered cigarettes and a lighter, Daryl lights one up. Poor guy’s eyes are swollen, and he looks like he’s really in a bad way.
After taking a couple of long drags off the cigarette, Daryl takes the lit end and presses it into his hand, burning himself.
It’s the type of thing you could imagine Daryl doing to himself at a young age, ritualistic cutting or burning, a behavior which most often starts in the tween or teen years.
The searing pain seems to bring Daryl a much-needed release…
…as Daryl’s tears finally start to flow. Overhead, there is a rumble of thunder, suggesting the dry spell is about to break. It is a recurring theme in classical poetry, and prose, that tears, and rain, symbolize rebirth, and renewal.
When Daryl gets back to the gang, Rick hands him a note that was left for them, along with an offering of many bottles of water, in the road…
“From A Friend”
As thirsty as they are, it would be so tempting to take the risk and drink the offered water, but Rick tells the group that they can’t risk it, as they do not know who the water is from, or what their intentions are.
Eugene steps forward and grabs a bottle, saying he’ll be “quality assurance,” and is about to drink, when:
Abraham steps quickly forward and slaps the bottle right out of Eugene’s hand, sending the water flying. Eugene looks like he is about to cry, and Rick tells him, gently, that they can’t take the risk.
In that moment, the group begins to feel drops of water falling on them…it’s raining!
Gabriel tearfully looks to the heavens and apologizes to the Lord, presumably for his loss of faith, burning the collar.
At a loud clap of thunder, Rick stands and looks to the horizon, sees…
A dark storm cloud is coming. Daryl shouts to Rick that there’s a barn nearby, and the gang all runs to take shelter there.
The gang goes through the ritual of “clearing” the barn of any walkers, or living foes…
Maggie sees a bible on top of a stack of books…
…before opening a door to a side room and discovering the reanimated, cobwebby remains of I Died In A Barn Walker.
It is unclear exactly how I Died In A Barn Walker originally died…hunger, lack of water, illness, exposure, walker bite? Maggie rekills the walker with a single spear of her knife to the walker’s skull, then remarks to Carol that the woman had a gun, which is shown, leaning up against the wall of the room. “She could have shot herself,” Maggie wonders aloud. Carol muses that, “Some people can’t give up,” and looking sideways at Maggie, adding, significantly, “Like us,” before walking away, leaving the young woman to process this.
Later, the gang tries to get some much-needed rest in the barn, with the sound of the rain pouring outside.
Huddled around a small fire, Rick looks over at this sleeping son. “He’s gonna be ok,” Carol assures him, adding that Carl, being young, will be able to bounce back sooner than any of the adults will.
Rick says that he used to feel sorry for kids who have to grow up in these times, as they will never get to experience what it feels like to have a protected, happy, carefree childhood. But, Rick says now, he wonders if he got it wrong.
Rick wonders if kids growing up in these times actually have it easier, as “growing up is getting used to the world.” Daryl listens to this, in the darkness. Even before the turn, as a child, Daryl had a hellish world that he had to grow up in, to “get used to.”
Michonne speaks up. “This isn’t the world,” she says, simply. “This isn’t it.”Glenn looks back, into the other room, where Maggie is lying down. “It might be,” he says, quietly.
Michonne counters, “That’s giving up.” Glenn counters that that’s just being realistic. Rick says that until they see otherwise, this, what they are living, is the world they must survive in.
Rick then tells the group that when he was a kid, and he asked his grandfather if he ever killed any Germans in the war, his grandfather wouldn’t answer, telling young Rick that such topics were “grown-up stuff.”
When young Rick then asked his grandfather if any Germans ever tried to kill him, his grandfather got real quiet, then told his grandson that he was already “dead, as soon as he stepped into enemy territory.”
Rick’s grandfather told him that every morning, when he awoke, and had to prepare himself to go back into battle, he would tell himself, “Rest In Peace, now get up and go to war.”
Years later, after pretending he was dead, every day of his tour in the war, Rick’s grandfather made it back home, alive.
“That’s the trick of it, I think,” Rick tells the others. “We do what we need to do, and then, we get to live.”
Rick continues, saying that no matter what they find in D.C., they will be ok, because “This is how we survive. We tell ourselves that ‘We are the walking dead.'”
Daryl and Glenn exchange looks, then Daryl asserts, softly, “We ain’t them.”
Rick tries to echo his agreement, that they are not them, the walkers…(“Dude, it was a metaphor! I was just getting a little caught up in the moment…awww, c’mon dude, that’s not what I meant! Come back!“)
Daryl, however, has had enough of this conversation, and he stands up, collects his things, and turns to leave, but not before turning back to Rick and the others, and saying, once more, “We ain’t them,” before walking out of the room.
Poor Rick, but hey, buddy, you tried…and I (among many others in the TWD family, I am sure) was cheering this epic speech as it was being delivered.
Personally, it made me think of all those years ago, back in 2004, when I bought the first two issues of TheWalking Dead comic series (which had just come out, and was sending shockwaves, and geekgasms, throughout the entire comic book community).
The clerk at the comic book store told me, “And the name, ‘The Walking Dead,’ you don’t know if it applies to the zombies or the living human survivors.”
Ah, memories! 🙂
Meanwhile, Daryl stalks off into another room, sees the chain barring a main set of doors has come a little loose, and the winds from the storm are blowing the doors open and closed against the chain, giving little glimpses of the raging storm outside.
Daryl puts down his crossbow and goes over to fix the chain, and sees, outside, coming fast towards the swinging doors of the barn:
A horde of walkers!Ahhgh!
Daryl cries out in alarm, hurriedly tightens the chain, and then presses his back against the doors, and the press of hissing, snarling walkers trying to push through.
Maggie sees Daryl, runs to help…
And one by one, all the gang runs to help hold the doors steady against the crush of walkers. It is a terrifying, amazing scene, capturing the mayhem of another life and death moment in WD.
As the gang works together, despite their individual pain, beliefs, differences with each other, to do whatever it takes, in this moment, to survive together, Rick and Daryl exchange a long, significant look as they push against the walkers with all their might. I like to think they were like, “Dude, I’m sorry for the weirdness back there…I didn’t mean it! I love you, man!”
The next shot, it’s morning…
As Maggie opens her eyes, it seems she may be thinking (along with theviewers), “Was that all a dream, last night?”
Maggie looks into Baby Judith’s sweet face. The baby is awake, but seems to know to let her dad sleep a little longer…Rick, once again, is looking like the hottest single dad ever, sleeping, holding his baby girl.
Maggie stands up, looks around at the others, sleeping in the barn. She then sees Daryl,who is sitting awake, against the far wall. It seems like he has stayed up, keeping watch as the others slept.
Maggie goes over and sits down next to Daryl. She gently urges him to get some sleep, tells him, “You can rest now.”
They look over towards Sasha’s sleeping form, and Daryl says, of Tyreese, “He was tough.”
Looking over at Maggie, Daryl adds, “She was tough, too. She didn’t know it, but she was.” This brings a smile to Maggie’s face, and they share a moment, remembering Beth.
Daryl then hands Maggie the music box, saying, simply, “The gear box had some grit in it.” It is easy to imagine Daryl, keeping watch, cleaning and fixing the music box while the others slept. How we love thee, Daryl Dixon! ❤
Maggie thanks Daryl, smiling sweetly at him, and then gets up, music box in hand, and goes over to wake up Sasha. “C’mon,” she whispers, and Sasha gets up to follow Maggie, as Daryl prepares to get some sleep.
As Maggie and Sasha step outside, they are greeted by an incredible sight. All around the barn, tall pines are felled by the fearsome storm of the night before, spearing and pinning the walker herd helpless, but miraculously missing the barn, which would have been crushed under the huge old trees.
As the girls look around in wonderment, it seems that Maggie may be rethinking her faith in God…the recent events certainly make a strong case for some benevolent, divine intervention.
It’s the dawn of a new day.
Sasha and Maggie sit down, take in the beauty of the sunrise. “Why are we here?” asks Sasha. “For this,” Maggie replies. It sounds like the answer her father, Hershel, would have given. ❤
Sasha and Maggie, the PSOAM’s (Post Apocalyptic Sisters On A Mission), look out at the sunrise. Sasha begins talking, says that Noah had told her that he didn’t think we could make it. “That’s how I feel,” Sasha confesses to Maggie. Maggie tells her that she, Sasha, is going to make it. “We both will,” says Maggie. “That’s the hard part.”
Maggie then reaches into her bag, and pulls out the music box. “Daryl fixed it,” she tells Sasha, but when Maggie tries to wind it up…nothing. The music box stays silent, the tiny ballerina doesn’t move.
Maggie stares down at the dead music box, pans, “You gotta be kidding me.” The PSOAM’s share a laugh at the absurdity of it all…
…as some well-kempt, preppy dude comes onto the scene, interrupting their giggle moment. “Um, hello, excuse me…”
The PSOAM’s ain’t playing. They immediately leap up to their feet, weapons drawn. The stranger cautiously approaches, hands up, introduces himself as “Aaron,” says he is a “friend.”Aaron tells the girls that he would like to talk to the leader of the group…Rick, right?
Maggie starts to ask, “How-?” and Sasha cuts in, asks, “Why?” Aaron smiles, says he has some “good news.”
Who the hell is this guy? And how does he know Rick’s name?
And suddenly, the music box kicks on, starting to play its bright, tinkly music as the tiny ballerina twirls around and around.
Well, darlings, if God is indeed having a hand in all this, one thing is clear…God has a really crazy sense of humor!
Deadies this week go to our three walking wounded soldiers: Maggie (Lauren Cohan), Daryl (Norman Reedus), and Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green).
Playlist:
Lightning Bolt, “Ride The Sky”
Bob Dylan, “Blowin’ In The Wind”
Phantogram, “Turning Into Stone”
City and Colour, “Sleeping Sickness”
Georgiana Starlington, “Dry As A Bone” (currently not available on Spotify, but great track if you can find it…I’ll keep checking in to get it directly to readers if and when I can…perfect for this episode)
Tori Amos, “God”
Aaliyah ft. Missy Elliot, “Best Friend” ( for the PSOAM‘s, Maggie and Sasha)
On Saturday, as I was cleaning up the dishes from Saturday Second Breakfast, I got a text from my WD buddy: Dude, I’m so worried we are gonna lose Carol.
Upon reading these words, I felt my breakfast twist into a hard lump inside my stomach…it was like a ball of hot pain, a sick, sick feeling…I texted my WD buddy: I just got a sick feeling in my stomach, reading this.
She texted back: I can’t stop thinking about it.
Try as I might, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, either. While I was riding the high of such an incredible episode as last week’s “Consumed,” I couldn’t shake the horrible, nagging feeling that it had pretty much all the elements of a Carol Swan Song to it, and that the possibility was real that we may lose Carol, or Beth, or other beloved characters, come the mid-season finale of Season 5.
Now, I don’t know what’s coming, people. I merely abide by the Law of Kirkman: We cannot control the Mind of Kirkman…Kirkman does as Kirkman wants, and Kirkman can, and will, play with our emotions. It’s nothing personal…it’s how he do.
I can only speculate…and ruminate (for hours, days)…and obsess. I, like you all, am merely a puppet on Kirkman’s strings. Kirkman is the Puppet Master, and we are his puppets, and Gimple, Nicotero, and the WD cast and crew are like Kirkman’s Army, with each general, officer, technical wizard and soldier carefully chosen, trained, and armed to kick our TWD loving asses in a way that we will never, ever forget, no matter how long we live on this earth.
I, like you, can only do so much to try to prepare for the inevitable, the point where we start to lose people in our core group as The Walking Dead’s Season5, and the storyline beyond Season 5, progress.
My personal survival methodology includes (but is not limited to) the following: spending 8-12 + hours writing each week’s insane tweaker blog post; keeping my pharmacopeia of coping mechanisms stocked, cocked, and ready (within arm’s reach, whenever possible); and establishing a loyal, true, and similarly Walking Dead Obsessed friend to be my Daryl Partner (my WD buddy, of course…she solemnly swore to be my Daryl Partner, and I solemnly swore to be hers, and so we are bonded for life).
(For more on Daryl Partners, please refer to my Season 4, mid-season prepost, “What Happens ‘After?'”, which can be found in the archives section, February 2014.)
One other thing I know is that Sonequa Martin-Green, who plays Sasha, is pregnant, 8months along at the time of this writing. I first discovered this on Instagram, when Lauren Cohan posted a picture of Sonequa Martin-Green holding up a onesie that said something like, “Zombies, please…my Mommy’s got this!”
Doesn’t exactly look great for Sasha’s longevity prospects as a character on The Walking Dead, unless they are able to work around it, and she gives birth during the filming break, and is ready to get back to work ASAP…they did such a good job hiding her pregnancy during Season 5 so far, who knows? It seems that with the TWD cast and crew, anything’s possible!
(BTW, Sonequa Martin-Green was one of the guests on Talking Dead after the airing of “Crossed,” looking very glowing and happy, beautiful and healthy, so whatever happens to Sasha with the mid-season finale, I think this beautiful mom-to-be is going to be just fine with the outcome!)
Norman Reedus said in an interview that he had to go off and have a good cry for about an hour before he was able to film the mid-season finale…sounds pretty intense. We are going to lose at least one, or more people in the mid-season finale, so I would recommend that you get yourself a Daryl Partner, get some coping mechanisms ready, and keep reminding yourself that while the shit may go down on our favorite show, and while we may lose some beloved characters as the storyline progresses, we all must remember that this is a show. It’s not real, as much as some of us out there say they wish it were. I am not one of them. I enjoy warmth, and creature comforts, and being alive, thanks.
So, while our show does feel so real to us WD obsessed fans (because we love it, and our gang, so much), and while some of our beloved characters may get killed off, the actors who play them will remain alive, well, and rich off the royalties that The Walking Dead will generate for the rest of their lives…and I say amen, and hallelujah, to that!
______________________________________________
“Crossed”
(All images used in this post are screen caps from AMC’s The Walking Dead, unless otherwise specified.)
To me, watching “Crossed” was like watching a beloved football team go in to play one of the biggest games of the season, the one with the highest stakes, and watching them lose it all, with one big epic fail after another…bad calls, false starts, fumbles, interceptions, dropping balls in the end zone, and in the end, a missed field goal to seal the win for the opposing team. A crushing defeat, really hard to watch.
I can’t be mad at them, our team, our gang, for losing this round. They have been through so much, all on little to no sleep, food, or respite or any kind…they got, like, one night’s rest in a creepy priest’s cursed church after hacking the enemy camp to bits on the altar. Imean, damn. But, while I can’t be mad, I also can’t get my heart into recapping the whole mess, play by play, and reliving it all over again.
I just…cannot. Besides, it’s Thanksgiving week in this part of the world, and the kids are off of school all week, and we are travelling to visit family. So due to time constraints, and due to the fact that there are just some things I cannot bring myself to do, I am going to get right to the heart of the matter, here. I am going to center this post around Three Burning Questions, and Two Statements that are searing a hole in my heart after watching, “Crossed.”
(P.S. Of course, I said all this, and then recapped the shit out of “Crossed” anyway…apparently,it’s a compulsion.)
Burning Question #1: Why does anyone question Rick Grimes anymore?
The man had a diagram, people. He had a plan.“At sundown, we fire a shot into the air…get two of them out on patrol. Then, once it’s dark enough that the rooftop spotter won’t see us, we go…cut the locks to one of the stairways, take it to the fifth floor,,,I open the door, Daryl takes one of the guards out…”
At Tyrese’s question, “How?”Rick has a ready answer. “He slits his throat. This is all about us doing this quiet, keeping the upper hand…from there, we fan out, knives and silenced weapons. We need to be fast.”
Rick continues, marking the diagram he has scratched with chalk into the ground, assigning Tyrese, Sasha, Daryl to their areas, while he, Rick, takes out Dawn Lerner.
Rick adds, “If they’re smart, they’ll give up,” as the gang will outnumber them then, five on three, six on three, once Beth gets a gun.
Noah adds that their numbers would go up to 12 on3 once the wards got wind of what was going down. They want out, and as Noah says, with confidence, “They will help.”
Um, sounds good to me!
Tyrese, however, has doubts. “That’s best case scenario…what’s worst case? All it takes is one of those cops going down the hall at the wrong time, then it’s not quiet…all hands on deck…you’re talking about a lot of bullets flying around.”
Sasha, who is in the throes of grief, and who couldn’t really give a fuck, says, “If that’s what it takes…”
Tyrese disagrees, says it isn’t, and proposes The Worst Plan B, Ever…if the gang gets two of Dawn Lerner’s cops, then the gang can wrangle an even trade, the two cops for Beth and Carol, “theirs for ours.”
Oh, yeah, that always works, especially in these times… Did Terminus teach you nothing,people? People are super fucked up now, and they don’t play by the rules…the only rule that seems to apply, in these dire times, is kill or be killed.
In these times, the ones that have the upper hand, and the element of surprise, win the battle. And a battle is all it takes, in this scenario: get rid of the threat, get your people, get a working vehicle, and get the fuck out of Atlanta, grab up Michonne and the kids at the church, then go north, and find the rest of the crew.
Rick, however, is being a good leader, and a hot leader, as always, and deferring to his people, giving props and recognition where they are due.
He acknowledges that while Tyrese’s plan could work, his plan, with the element of surprise, and eliminating most of the threat, will work.
Rick Grimes was a deputy, and he’s done this before, professionally, before any of this zombie apocalypse shit started going down, and he, Rick Grimes, is a huge reason why many of them are still alive, this day, standing around and making this plan...just sayin’!
And this is Beth and Carol we are talking about…the stakes are too high to fuck this one up. Rick owes Carol big time, and these are Daryl’s special ladies. Do we really want to leave it all up to the generosity of Dawn Lerner and her Douchesquad,their willingness to negotiate a trade?
And, are we really naive enough to think that Dawn and her Douchesquad are going to just let the gang go, to let them drive off with Beth (their prize virginal blond ward, who happens tobe Dawn’s pet nemesis) and Carol without as much as a post-apocalyptic police chase through the decaying city of Atlanta?
They have cars, they know the terrain like the back of their hands, and they could give chase, shoot out the tires of the gang’s getaway truck, injure or kill peeps in a bloody shootout. Any of these dire scenarios would certainly attract walkers to the scene and incite a real and added threat to an already cagey situation.
So. the way I see it, Tyrese’sPlan B is not the better plan, as it has way more sketchy variables than the chance of a stray cop in a hallway where he/she isn’t supposed to be. Rick Grimes’ plan of slitting some throats and taking out some crooked cops on the DL, then overtaking the hospital, is the way better plan, overall.
But, then Daryl speaks up…and sides with Tyrese.
“Nah, it’ll work, too,” Daryl says of Tyrese’sPlan B, to Rick’s shock and stupefaction (and mine, quite frankly).
Daryl maintains that if they take two of Dawn’s cops away, then what does she have? He thinks Tyrese’s plan will work.
Rick’s look says it all, and the bottom of my stomach fell out at this. Right from the start, it sounded like The Worst Plan B, Ever. And, as it turns out, it was The. Worst. Plan B. Ever.
Et tu, Daryl?
Even Tyrese looks over at Rick, like, “Uh oh…”
Rick in Charge seems to be thinking, “Well, if that’s the way it’s gonna be…I was gonna ask you if you wanted to be blood brothers, Daryl Dixon, but now, fuck that.“
Operation Plan B: Epic Fail all goes down like this:
At first, it was all going pretty well. Shepherd and Lamson, the two officers of Dawn Lerner’s Douchesquad assigned to investigate the gunshot, come speeding up in one of the Grady Memorialmobiles to some industrial looking building…at the sound of another gunshot, they find Noah, who is acting as bait, making a show of trying to limp away, but they swerve the car around, lightly clipping him and knocking him to the ground.
As Lamson, the dude cop, zip ties Noah’s hands behind him, he gently tells Noah to tell him if the zip tie’s too tight, then looks around, asks where the “rotters” are that Noah was shooting at. A whistle sings out, and the cops look up and find themselves surrounded, at gunpoint, by Rick, Daryl, Tyrese, and Sasha.
Looking majorly fine, Deputy Rick Grimes talks the cops down, telling them weapons down, hands up, “we don’t want to hurt you.”
After a moment, Lamson says “Ok,” puts his hands up, and soon, both cops are kneeling. Rick tells them, softly, that they need to talk…offers them water, food if they need it.
Lamson addresses Rick, “Mind if I ask you something?”
“The way you talk…the way you carry yourself...you a cop? Believe it or not, I was too…”
Lamson, Lamson, Lamson… you may be a glorified Grady Memorial Mall Cop…
…but Deputy Rick Grimes is a beautiful hero. No comparison, Lame-son.
Noah murmurs to Rick that Lamson looked out for him and the wards. “He’s one of the good ones,” Noah tells Rick.
It seems Lamson’s shameless cop-stroking buys the crooked cops a moment of distraction, because right at that moment…
…another GM CreepMobilecomes speeding up on the scene…
Daryl looking majorly fine firing at the GM CreepMobile…but not getting much done to stop that car.
Rick Blast! stands right in the car’s path, firing at it…unfortunately, the windows seem to be bulletproof, and the gang must scramble out of the way, take cover behind a dumpster.
Tyrese manages to shoot out a side window of the car, and an exchange of bullets ensues. The two captive cops manage to dive into the car, and their buddy, Officer Baldy, is firing back at Rick and the gang as the car speeds around a corner. The car almost gets away, but not before Sasha puts a well-aimed bullet into one of the car’s tires.
Yeah, Sasha, that’s what I’m talking about!
The gang chases the car around the corner of the building…they see the GM CreepMobile stopped in its tracks, a walker’s arm twisted up in the front wheel. Above them, spray painted on a water tower, is the message “Evac Here,” and a blasted out FEMA trailer is alongside it. On the ground, melted and seared into the asphalt, are the Napalm Walkers…
The Napalm Walkers are all that remain of the poor people who had not yet made it out of Atlanta before it was bombed, napalmed…
…and this is where they have been, reanimated, melted into the asphalt, stuck and snapping, the whole time since the bombing. Gruesomely goretastic genius from Crazy Uncle Greg Nicotero & Co.
As the others pursue Lamson and Shepherd, who are on the lam, Daryl stays back and sleuths out where Officer Baldy is hiding.
Hmmm. not in the stalled CreepMobile, not in the FEMA trailer…
Oooff!Officer Baldy tackles Daryl…
…and it’s a close call for Daryl, a couple of times, as Officer Baldy tries to shove him into the snapping Naplam Walkers…
In a moment of goretastic ingenuity, Daryl grabs a walker’s skull like a bowling ball and smashes it against Officer Baldy’s head.
A click of a gun, and Officer Baldy looks up to see Rick Smash! holding a gun to his head…cue the Rick Smash! Bear McCreary theme music, dark and pulsing… Rick Smash! wants to SMASH!
Daryl knows that look…says “No smash, smash bad, Rick Smash!”
“Rick…three’s better than two.” (Damn, good point, Daryl, but I think I speak for all of us on Team Rick when I say, “Let Rick Smash! SMASH!“)
The gang brings the cops into a large room inside the industrial building, and Shepherd, the female cop, tries to tell them that their plan to trade would work if they had different cops to trade.
Shepherd, Lamson, and Officer Baldy are on Dawn Lerner’s shitlist, supposedly, as she knows that they want to replace her, Dawn Lerner, with Lamson, and have him be in charge. Shepherd suggests that they let the cops go, who will deal with Dawn Lerner themselves, and then will let their people go.
Lamson interrupts this, saying that they’re not going to do that…he proposes that Rick and the gang let him, Lamson, talk to Dawn, as he has known her for eight years, and knows how to talk to her. Lamson seems to be taking a page from Deputy Rick Grimes’ book of copspeak when he says, softly, reasonably, “Let me help you.”
A little later, after Tyrese and Sasha share a brother/sister moment among the Napalm Walkers…
…Lamson is cop-stroking Rick, hard, tells him that while Dawn Lerner says she won’t negotiate or compromise, she will, she always does. “Just know who you’re talking to.” (Good advice, Rick Grimes, straight from the devil’s mouth.)
My WD buddy is so cute, she sent me this email after rewatching this episode:
I just watched the episode again and I just want to reiterate how Rick Grimes would have known that cop was full of shit. He wouldn’t have trusted him like that. The writers did not do him justice with that. And they are wrong.
Ha! How cute is that? I replied:
I fully agree! But, they are tired, been through a lot, and that cop was Cop-Stroking Rick…been awhile since someone recognized, and the group wasn’t giving him the love he deserved, so he was susceptible to flattery!
(See what happens when you hold back the love, people? Don’t hold back the love! It messes your people up!)
Rick, who is love-starved in the moment, and who was not allowed to smash, earlier, isn’t thinking straight, so he even tells Lamson the full timetable, that they’re going to leave in about 10 minutes, offering him whatever he needs, before they go.
Rick even does Lamson a solid and thanks him, refers to him as “Sergeant Lamson,” telling Lamson, “You’re still a cop.” Lamson can’t bring himself to agree, saying, “Naw, the real ones are all gone.”
You are so wrong about that one, Lamson, and about many things...there is one real cop, a real hot cop, and his name is Deputy Rick Grimes. ❤
Lamson adds that his name is “Bob,” which sends Sasha’s head whirling around. Rick nods to her, and stands up to leave.
Which brings me to Burning Question #2: What the hell, Sasha?
Sasha, who is love-starved, and messed up, herself, is not her usual saavy sister self in the moment, and she plays into Lamson’s theatrics like a total rookie…like a Gabriel.
At his sighed, “Dammit,” she comes over to him, looks down questioningly. He tells her he’ll be ok, and she replies, “So will I.”
Uh, oh. Bonding with the enemy. Bad. Very bad.
Lamson, who knows he’s in at this point, lays it on thick about how he recognized one of the “rotters” out there, napalmed to the asphalt…a fellow officer, Tyler, who was on the team to evacuate survivors out of the hospital before the bombing, and who got assigned by Dawn Lerner at the last minute to drive the last van of survivors out of the city, replacing Lamson as the driver.
As Sasha pulls up a concrete block and sits beside Lamson, she practically cuts his zip ties and hands him her assault rifle. Sasha, girl, you’re killing me here.
Lamson tells Sasha that Dawn Lerner made the change because she wanted “someone she could really trust” to do the job, and Lamson says that seeing Tyler out there, stuck to the asphalt like “an endless joke,” made him realize that it could have been him, and feel helpless, because “there’s nothing I can do.”
Wah, wah,cry me a river of crocodile tears, Lame-son.
“Let me help you,” Sasha offers, and that line is a recurring one through this episode…there are people in these times who will say it to trick you, and people who will say it sincerely, in a real offer of help.
(All images used in this post are screen caps from AMC’s The Walking Dead, unless otherwise specified.)
The opening scene of The Walking Dead, Season 5, Episode 6, “Consumed” takes us back to Season 4’s“Indifference,” in the moments right after Rick banishes Carol from the prison community for her decision to preemptively kill Karen and David, who were sick with the Explodey Flu (which bore frightening similarities to Ebola hemorrhagic fever)in a misguided, one-woman effort of staunch the spread of the disease throughout the prison community. We see a close up of Carol’s shell-shocked face, as she starts the car, a parting gift that Rick has given her, and begins to drive off, alone.
While Carol does not look Rick’s way as she drives past him, Rick stands and watches her drive away, his hand working at his side, seemingly conflicted.
Set to the haunting “Bad Blood,” by Alison Mosshart & Erick Arjes, the sequence shows us the final banishment scene from Carol’s perspective. We see, for the first time, Carol’s isolation and anguish at being cast out of her community, and it is truly wrenching to watch. We WD fans have gotten so used to seeing Carol the way she is around others, fronting tough and rarely letting anybody see her cry, or lose her composure. But alone, in the car, when she gets far enough down the road, away from Rick, Carol pulls the car over and dissolves into tears.
While I was initally totally creeped out by Carol’s killing spree back in Season 4, it was clear to me, watching this scene, that she was really feeling the pain and regret of her actions.
Poor Carol!
Carol’s much-needed cry is soon rudely interrupted by Smack It Up Walker, who snarls, flails, and smacks its arm at the car window, trying to get to her. She screams at the walker to leave her alone, before peeling off down the road, leaving Smack It Up Walkerto lurch and weave crookedly down the road, in her dust.
Next, we see Carol pull up in front of a law office building that looks secure, windows intact.
After Carol clears the office and sets up camp inside, she beds down for the night on a couch in the office.
But Carol cannot get right to sleep, and we see her thinking, eyes open, processing in the darkness.
The next day, as Carol assembles a rain catcher out the window, she sees a black plume of smoke in the horizon…it is coming from the direction of the prison. After a moment’s hesitation, Carol rushes out of the office…
…and the final image, before the opening title sequence, shows Carol staring in openmouthed horror as the prison goes up in flames.
During the commercial break, my WD buddy and I topped off our mimosas with some more champagne and shared our thoughts on this opening. We agreed that neither of us really expected, as the viewer, to be taken back that far, to see firsthand, flashes of Carol’s experience and process. We also agreed that it was a fitting, powerful, and effective way to begin this episode.
I personally needed to see, and feel, things from Carol’s side…we all did, I think.. I love that this episode, “Consumed,” delves more deeply into both Carol and Daryl’s psyche…they both have developed their tough exteriors and their game faces, but it’s time for us to get a deeper insight into both of these two beloved and iconic characters.
In the next scene, it’s night. We see a lone woman walker on the side of the road. and at the sight of headlights approaching, the walker walks into the road, just as one of the black cars from Grady Memorialspeeds past, clipping the walker and sending her face down into the asphalt.
“Hey, watch where you’re going, asshole!”
We hear Carol’s voice, asking Daryl, “So it was just you and Beth, after?”
“Yeah,” replies Daryl.
“You saved her?” Carol asks him.
“She’s tough…she saved herself,” Daryl says. He continues, “We were out there for a while…we were cornered…she got out in front of me…and, I dunno, she’s gone.” Daryl tells Carol about how he saw a black car, with a cross painted in the back window, pull away at the moment of Beth’s disappearance. “Just like that one,” Carol says, referring to the black car they are currently following in Carol’s almost-getaway car, the one she found on the side of the road. Before they jumped in and began tailing the black car, Daryl quickly smashed the headlights of the Carol car, so they are hanging back, and travelling in darkness, and remaining undetected by the car from Grady Memorial as it speeds along the road.
As they talk, Daryl mows down the walker in the road, not slowing down, flattening the walker’s head into the asphalt.
Road Kill Walker, just another hit-and-run casualty.
Excellent to see you again, fine sir…
…with New Carol riding shotgun.
Daryl remarks that the others are going to wonder where they’re at, and the tank’s getting low…New Carol’s take on it is pretty awesome, in my opinion…she suggests they “end it quick, just run them off the road.” Daryl replies that they’ll be good for a bit, and New Carol replies that they can find out where Beth is, just “get it out of the driver.” Ha! In the end, they go with Daryl’s plan, but man, would I have loved to see New Carol’s method for “getting it out of” two members of Dawn Lerner’s Douchesquad.
(And, in retrospect, maybe they should have gone with New Carol’s idea…but then, they may not have run into Noah…and, love him or hate him at this point, I believe Noah is going to be a significant part of whatever comes down the line.)
Daryl, however, has a good take as well…the driver may not talk, and right now, they have the advantage, as the black car does not know they are being followed. Daryl suggests they see who these people are, see if they’re a group, scope it out, and figure out what they’ll need to do to get Beth back. Carol sees that the black car is going north, on I-85…
…towards Atlanta.
Daryl and Carol follow the black car into the city, and on a lonely street, the black car stops…and Daryl and Carol kill the engine, a block behind…and wait.
After a long moment, they see a figure emerge from the shotgun side. “There are two of them, ” Daryl says, and then, upon closer inspection, “Is that a cop?” The cop turns to look in their direction for a moment before disappearing down a side street.
As they watch, and wait, Carol and Daryl are surprised by an unexpected, and unwelcome, visitor…Lemme At ‘Em Walker.
The cop returns to the black car, after dragging a couple of bodies, seemingly, out of the road, clearing the black car’s way. He turns and looks over at Daryl and Carol’s car, as Lemme At ‘Em Walker paws and hisses as the car’s window…after a moment, the cop gets back into the black car, and it starts, makes a right turn down the side road. Daryl tries to start their car, but the tank’s out of gas..At the sound of more walkers approaching, Daryl says they need to get out of there and find a place to hole up…Carol tells him she knows a place just a couple of blocks away, that they can make it there.
Carol rolls down the car window and easily dispatches Lemme At ‘Em Walker.
At the office building’s rear entrance, Carol stands watch, rekilling walkers as they approach , as Daryl jimmies the lock of the back gate.
As Carol steps up to take care of “two more,” Daryl gets the lock open, and just in time…
…as the street begins to fill with a swarm of ATLStreet Walkers. Daryl and Carol duck behind the tall wooden door, closing it quickly before being seen by the savage, hissing swarm.
Once inside the building, Daryl takes a ring of keys from the dead janitor’s belt and opens the door to the office. He asks Carol, “You used to work here or somethin’?”
“Something…” Carol replies. As they move through the rooms, unlocking doors as they go from the janitor’s key ring, they come to a small room that has bunk beds, and a desk, with a large book resting on top of it…
Treating Survivors of Childhood Abuse
Daryl follows Carol into the room, shining the flashlight around, taking it all in. “What is this place?” he asks. “Temporary housing,” replies Carol.
Daryl looks down at the book, asks Carol, with a hitch in his voice, “You came here?”
“We didn’t stay,” replies Carol. As Daryl shucks off his crossbow, bag, and jacket (Yes! Take it off! Take it off!), Carol goes over the bunk beds, tells Daryl she’ll take the top bunk, as the bottom bunk seems “more your style.” As she moves over to the window, she tells Daryl to get some sleep, that she’ll take “first watch.” Daryl points out that the place is locked up pretty tight…
Carol, girl, if you really must keep this “hard to get” thing going, then you had better stay turned around and keep your eyes out that window, because if you did turn and take a look at what’s going on behind you, right now, you would not be able to resist it…I mean, damn.
Daryl looks at Carol’s back, says, “I’m good, then…” leaves it open, a little question at the end…(Me and my WD buddy were perched on the edge of our seats, gulping mimosas at this point…I mean, OMG, weren’t you just dying, watching this?)
Carol does turn, for a moment, sneaks a peek (right, Carol, what did I tell you? He’s putting it out there, so now all you gotta do is put one boot in front of the other, walk over to him, and get it, girl! You know you want to!)
After sneaking a peek, Carol’s voice falters a bit as she assures him she’s ok, she’ll take first watch, it’s fine.
“Suit yourself,” Daryl says
Goddamn, Carol, if that’s the way you’re going to be about it, then I, for one, am going to suit myself and take a nice long look at the view…and I’m not talking about whatever sad shit’s going on outside that window…
Mmmm hmmm…
…yep.
So, uh, how’s the view out that window, Carol?
Carol’s resolve begins to weaken…
Without taking her eyes off the window, Carol asks Daryl, “So…we get to start over?” echoing his words to her at the car, before…
Daryl says, softly, “Yeah,” and Carol finally turns, looks at him. “Did you?” she asks him, meaning, I think, did you start over, when you were with Beth? Daryl looks away for a moment, then replies…
“I’m tryin’.”
At this point in the watching, my WD buddy and I were freaking the fuck out (quietly, you know, so as not to wake the children), guzzling mimosas.to quench our suddenly parched throats…was it getting super hot in here, or what?
As Carol weighs all this, still at the window, Daryl says, “Just say what’s really on your mind.”
Carol tells Daryl that, “I don’t think we get to save people anymore.” After a moment, Daryl asks her, “Why are you here?”
Carol turns to Daryl, echoes his own words back to him, “I’m trying.”
Finally, Carol goes over to the bunk, lies down next to Daryl…
But before Daryl lies back and joins her, he has a question of his own…back at the car, if he hadn’t come, what would have happened? The unfinished question hangs in the air…would she have left?
Carol truthfully admits that she still doesn’t know…Daryl lies back next to her, and they each look up at the top bunk, not touching, not speaking...it’s like Pee Wee Herman said, “Everyone I know has a big ‘but’…”
Suddenly, a loud thud interrupts their reverie…Carol and Daryl jump up, grab their weapons, and stealth down the hallway…
…and what they find is heartbreaking…in one of the temporary housing units, a mother and child, both now walkers, bang and paw at the glass…Walkers Interruptus.
Daryl and Carol silently register the import of this awful sight. (Cried every time I watched this scene…this shit is why I drink, people.)
Carol automatically goes to the door, so used to having to be the one to take care of things like this, these days…Daryl stops her, tells her she doesn’t have to do this…
Carol turns and heads back to the little room with the bunk beds, looking beautiful as she processes all this, and finally falls into a troubled sleep.
The next morning, Carol awakes, sees smoke billowing outside the window. She goes to the window, and what she sees brings her to tears…
…Daryl has built a funeral pyre and is carrying the child’s shrouded body to the fire…
Carol comes and stands beside Daryl. They watch the bodies of the mother and child burn for a moment, then Carol turns to Daryl and says, “Thank you.”
So, while we WD fans didn’t quite get the Daryl/Carol night we were hoping for in the bottom bunk, we got something else…something a little more real, a little more gut-wrenching, a little more poignant and beautiful…to paraphrase a Tweet that one WD fan sent to Talking Dead, later, who knew that burning bodies could be such a romantic gesture? Daryl Dixon, such a beautiful, sweet, tough and tender man…how we love him!
Heart of gold, that one.
Later, Carol is having a flashback of she and Tyrese burying the bodies of Lizzy and Mika, as she and Daryl pack up their things. Daryl says that it looked like the black car was headed downtown, and that they should get high up in one of the tall buildings, get a good look around, see what they see. Carol agrees, saying that if they stay close to the buildings, stay quiet, and wait, it will be just a matter of time before they see something that will give them some more information, or a location.
Daryl and Carol keep close to the sides of the buildings, running quietly through the streets of Atlanta. Hug the shadows, Daryl and Carol!
Daryl sees a promising building that has a bridge walkway leading into it…between them and the building, however, is a street full of milling walkers.
Ever handy, ever resourceful, Daryl sets a legal pad on fire and tosses it out into the street…
As the walkers lurch over to the flame, Daryl and Carol sneak past them, into a parking garage, where Daryl easily takes down a stray walker. Otherwise, all clear…except, as Daryl and Carol slip through the door to the walkway bridge, we see a brief glimpse of a dark, quickly moving figure in the background of the parking garage.
Upon entering the walkway bridge, Daryl and Carol see a rather confounding sight…writhing, reanimated bodies shrouded in sleeping bags, and walkers pawing from inside zipped up tents…people who had been taking shelter in the walkway, camping in there, seemingly killed as they slept in their sleeping bags and tents..how did they die?.
Later, on Talking Dead, Chris Hardwick and guests CM Punk, Yvette Nicole Brown(who was armed with her own legal pad of copious, highlighted notes from her viewing of Episode 506,which I, and the entire TD audience, loved…the audience broke into applause every time she referred down to it…girl’s a WD tweaker on a level all her own…definitely my kind of woman!) and Tyler James Williams speculated on what happened to the people in the walkway, killing them and turning them into the Urban Camper Walkers. Yvette Nicole Brown’s guess mirrored my own thoughts, that maybe when Atlanta was bombed & napalmed, that maybe poisonous gases from the bombing killed the urban campers in their sleep.
As they rekill the Urban Camper Walkers, Daryl remarks, “Some days, I don’t know what to think.” For a man of few words, Daryl Dixon really has a knack for summing it all up in these crazy times.
Daryl and Carol make their way gingerly past the writhing tents, rekilling the walkers bound up in the sleeping bags as they cross to the other side of the walkway…they squeeze through the small opening of a set of double doors that have been chained and padlocked closed, but not all the way. Carol pushes the rifles through the opening, then squeezes through, followed by Daryl, whose larger frame makes it harder to get through the small opening. He jokes that it’s a good thing they skipped breakfast..
Daryl and Carol enter through another set of doors, and find themselves in a clean, upscale office, with modern paintings, water cooler, and large windows, overlooking what was once an impressive view of downtown Atlanta. As Carol and Daryl approach the window and take in the grim, blasted skyline, Carol asks, “How did we get here?” Daryl replies that he doesn’t know..they just did.
As Daryl and Carol look over the ruined city of Atlanta, Carol remarks that he never asked her what happened after she got up with Tyrese and the girls…Daryl replies that he knows what happened, as the girls aren’t here any longer.
“It was worse than that,” Carol says.
Daryl tells her that’s why they need to start over, “because we gotta,” to the way things were, before. “Yeah…” says Carol, doubtfully. So much has happened…can they really go back?
Daryl spots something, grabs the rifle with the scope, peers through, and sees:
A white van, with the telltale white cross painted on the rear windows…it looks abandoned, hanging halfway off an overpass.
Carol looks through the scope, says that it looks like the van has been there for a while…Daryl says that it’s a lead. Carol suggests they stock up before leaving the office. While Carol fills her canteen with water from the water cooler and takes a long drink, Daryl stops and looks at one of the abstract paintings on the wall, remarking that it must have “cost some rich prick a whole lot of money.”
As they look at the painting, Daryl says that it looks like “a dog sat in paint and wiped its ass all over the place.” “Really?” asks Carol. “I kind of like it.” Daryl looks at her to see if she’s joking then snorts. “Stop,” he says, as if she is. “I’m serious,” Carol retorts. “You don’t know me.” Daryl reaches down, collects his things. “Yep,” he says, walking out of the office, “You just keep telling yourself that.” Oh, snap!
As Carol squeezes back through the chained doors of the walkway bridge, she does as she did before and pushes her bag and assault rifle through first, but this time, as Daryl begins to squeeze himself through, Carol quickly says:
“Daryl, don’t!” Daryl looks up to see Noah, pointing Carol’s gun at them, holding them at gunpoint.
Noah orders Daryl to get up, and tells Daryl to lay down his crossbow. “You got some sac on you,” Daryl growls at him. Noah says that nobody has to get hurt, he just needs their weapons, so, “please lay down the crossbow.”
While Noah is apologetic, he is clear that he needs their weapons. “Sorry about this,” he says, “but you look tough..you’ll be alright.” And with that, Noah takes his knife and slices open the tents, releasing the trapped Urban Camper Walkers, and giving himself time to get out of there as Daryl and Carol fight them off.
They make quick work of the walkers, Carol capping one in the center of the forehead with her handgun, then aiming the next shot at Noah’s retreating form. As she fires, Daryl pushes her arm, skewing her shot so she misses. As they stride quickly across the parking lot, Daryl leading the way, Carol justifies herself, and her actions.
“We have three bullets…we’re in the middle of a city and he was stealing our weapons. Did you think I was gonna kill him? I was aiming for his leg…could that have killed him? Maybe, I don’t know, but he was stealing our weapons”
As Carol says this, Daryl does not respond, just strides quickly in front of her…they come to a door, which is locked. Daryl curses under his breath, reaching into his bag for something to jimmy the lock. “He’s just a damn kid,” he replies. Carol retorts that without weapons, they could die, Beth could die…as Daryl works the lock, he says, to this, “We’ll find more weapons.”
Carol stands there, behind Daryl as he pushes at the door. :”I don’t want you to die…I don’t want Beth to die…I don’t want anyone at the church to die, but I can’t stand around and watch it happen, either. I can’t…that’s why I left, I just had to be somewhere else.”
This is Daryl’s breaking point, and he whirls on Carol, tells her, “You ain’t somewhere else, you’re right here, tryin’!”
Daryl finally gets the door open, and Carol begins snatching up their belongings from the floor, saying that Daryl isn’t who he was before, and neither is she, and she doesn’t know if she believes in God anymore, or if she’s going to Hell, but if she is, then she damn sure is going to hold off on going there as long as she can.
As Carol reaches for Daryl’s bag, a book falls out of it, onto the floor…
Carol sees that Daryl slipped the book from the temporary housing into his bag, most certainly carrying the wounds of his own abusive childhood deep inside. Carol looks at Daryl, who picks up the book and shoves it at her before stalking off through the doorway. Carol hesitates a moment before following him. 😦 ❤
On the bridge, Carol and Daryl approach the white van, which has gone through the guard rail and is teetering precariously half on, half off the overpass. It is a fairly steep drop below, about three or four stories.
Behind them, a small group of walkers have seen them and are coming their way…they are still a ways off.
Daryl says “let’s get this done,” and quickly, and Carol volunteers to go in the van, as she’s lighter. In response, Daryl looks at her and hoists himself in the van…after a moment, Carol follows suit. In the front seat, they quickly sift through maps, papers, finding nothing that gives them a clue as to where the van came from.
On the shotgun side, Carol spies a large group of walkers approaching from her side as well…it looks like some trouble is coming fast, closing in on them from both directions.
Carol tells Daryl that they’ll have to fight through them, although they are seriously outnumbered, and without most of their weaponry (thanks to Noah, you little shit, you…while I do like Noah, and realize that pretty much all of our favorite characters have had their questionable moments, Noah’s stock with me definitely dropped a few points during this scene…but I have not given up on him.)
As they file out of the van and prepare to do battle with the rapidly growing horde of walkers, Daryl spies the initials “GMH” on a stretcher in the back of the van. Carol guesses it stands for “Grady Memorial Hospital,” and then, it’s time to stop talking, because there are a shit-ton of walkers to fight through…
Carol uses one of her last three bullets…
Daryl battles the bridge walkers, but there are too many and they are closing in…
Daryl and Carol get back in the van, the only place to get away from the horde of walkers…
They quickly get to the front seats, buckle themselves in…Daryl tells Carol to hold on…
Carol quickly buckles herself in, braces herself, frightened.
As Daryl and Carol brace themselves, they put their hands on each other’s, so sweet.
As the walkers swarm the van and paw at it…
The van topples over the edge…
…falling, flipping…
…landing hard.
Carol is incredulous.“We’re ok..” As they sit, recover, walkers begin to fall on top of the van in a gorish heap.
Gingerly, they emerge from the van…Daryl seems ok, but Carol’s shoulder is hurt pretty bad.
Daryl and Carol lean on each other as they help each other walk away from the totaled van and scattered walkers.
They stop to rest, and Carol is noticeably hurting, although she tries to play it off. Daryl blames himself, and Carol jokes, “We made good time down!”
Carol tells Daryl that there are only three blocks between them and Grady Memorial…Daryl agrees that they will find a place nearby, scope out the hospital, and see what they see. Carol asks him if he thinks they are really going to be able to find out what they need to know just by watching…Daryl tells her, “Well, it’s a place to start.”
Daryl and Carol set up a stake out in a nearby building that offers a clear view of Grady Memorial. Daryl scores both a machete and a bag with a cache of potato chips from an incapacitated walker…Daryl relieves the walker of his machete and chips, and rewards the walker with a rekill to the head with the machete. Thanks, dude. As they watch the hospital through the window, munching chips, Daryl turns to Carol, asks her about what she said before, about him not being like he was, before…he asks her what she means by that…”How was I?” he asks. (Cute! It’sShare Time.)
Carol replies, “It’s like you were a kid…now you’re a man.” Amen to that.
Daryl ups his hotness meter even further by turning the focus on Carol, now… “And what about you?”
Carol replies that she and Sophia stayed at the temporary housing shelter for a day and a half before she went running back to Ed….at home, she got beat up, life went on, and she just went through her days like that, praying for something to happen…“I didn’t do anything…not a damn thing.” Carol looks out the window as she talks, her voice carrying the anger that she feels towards herself for taking Ed’s abuse, and not taking a stand, not doing anything, for so long.
(Really explains a lot, why Carol has made some of the overly agro, questionable decisions she has…it’s like after not doing anything for so long, the Carol pendulum had to swing too far the other way, before coming to some sort of balance, in the middle.)
Carol continues her story, “Who I was, with him, she got burned away..and I was happy about that, I mean, not happy, but…and at the prison, I got to be who I always thought I should be, who I should have been…”
“And then, she got burned away…And now, it just consumes you.”
Daryl listens, looks down a moment, taps the tip of the machete into the windowsill…he then gives Carol this sweet, beautiful, look, and then says the perfect thing, “Hey…”Carol looks up at him. “We ain’t ashes.” Total tender manly perfection. <3<3
Oc course, after this amazing moment, there is a thud or slamming noise, startling them…there is always a fucking noise to interrupt Daryl and Carol’s beautiful sharing and caring sessions in this episode…damn you, cockblocking walker apocalypse!
As Daryl and Carol head down the hallway, they find a walker impaled to the wall, with one of Daryl’s arrows speared through its throat.
“Is that one of yours?” Carol asks. “Yeah,” Daryl replies.
Daryl does the walker a solid machete rekill, shutting it the hell up.
Suddenly, the sound of assault rifle shots pepper the silence…Daryl and Carol know who that’s coming from…they go to investigate, and are met by a woman walker…Carol would usually be able to handle this, and goes for the knife kill upside the walker woman’s head, but her shoulder injury makes it harder, and the walker ends up on top of Carol, who is unable to fight her off. Daryl slices the walker’s head with his machete, pulls Carol up, looks at her, concerned…Carol, barely able to speak, assures him she’s ok, to go. Daryl rushes down the hall in pursuit of Noah.
He finds Noah, trying to barricade a door that another walker is pushing its way through with a wooden bookcase. In one quick maneuver, Daryl strikes at Noah’s lower spine, toppling him with the bookcase on top of him. Noah, pinned under the bookcase, pleads for Daryl to help him, apologizing for taking their weapons, saying that he needed to defend himself.
“Please!” pleads Noah. “Why are you following us?” Daryl yells at him. Noah tries to say that he thought they were following him…”Bullshit,” replies Daryl.
As Noah struggles and pleads, pinned under the bookcase, and the walker paws through the crack in the door, Daryl finds a carton of cigarettes, pulls out a pack, taps the pack, uncaring, against the heel of his hand, and peels opens the pack, Carol watches this…
Daryl pulls a ‘grette out of the pack with his mouth…dude, I love a bad boy who has the art of smoking down to a sexy, natural science…
The money shot….Daryl lights up, then tells Noah that he helped him once before, and he’s done. “Have fun with hoss, there,” Daryl taunts Noah, stepping over him and walking towards the door to leave.
Carol, alarmed at Daryl’s callous, uncaring attitude, calls to Daryl, looks at him questioningly to help Noah…Daryl looks at her, angry, says, “You almost died because of him!” “But I didn’t,” Carol counters, her eyes soft and pleading. Daryl looks at Carol, Noah, says, “Nah,” and resumes walking towards the door. The walker gets free and falls on top of the bookcase, grabs at Noah…
It’s a harrowing, close call for Noah, who braces himself for the bite…
…when a perfectly aimed arrow to the head saves Noah, just in time.
Of course, Daryl won’t let the young man die, but it seems he thought about it, for a moment, before doing the right thing. A lesson, though, for both Noah, and Carol, whose pendulum seems to have found its middle ground. Daryl looks at her significantly as he draws on his smoke.
The next scene, Rambo Carol flashback…Carol in the poncho, in the woods, after killing Terminus…she sinks to her knees, shrugs off the bloody poncho, and uses it to wipe her face free of the dirt and walker blood she had smeared on it to camouflage herself, and mask her smell. She holsters her gun over her shoulder and walks off, leaving the black smoke plume of burning Terminus, rising above the treeline,and the sound of gunfire, in her wake.
The scene shifts back to the present, with Carol pulling the walker off the bookcase, and Carol and Daryl pulling the bookcase off Noah, who scrambles out from under it, thanking them. I tell you, I am impressed with Noah’s good manners, even when he was jacking Daryl and Carol’s weapons…he was definitely taught his “please and thank you’s.” Noah hurries to the window, looking out, saying that he has to go, that “they” will be coming, as they probably heard the gunshots…Daryl asks, “Who?” and Noah tells them, as he, panicked, turns to go, “The people from the hospital.”
Daryl grabs him, asks him if there was a blond girl there. Noah’s eyes widen “Beth? You know her?” Carol and Daryl’s reactions to hearing Beth’s name are answer enough…Noah tells them that Beth helped him escape, but she didn’t get out…they still have her.
Carol looks out the window, sees a white van with a cross painted on the back windshield cruising by, slowly…she tells them they’re here…Noah tells them they need to go, and in his haste to run away, stumbles on his hurt leg, and falls. As Daryl reaches down to help him up, Carol rushes ahead of them, out the doors, into the street…and gets hit, hard, by a wood-paneled station wagon speeding down the street. The station wagon stops, abruptly, and Carol’s body rolls off the front hood, onto the street, where she lay, unconscious, unresponsive.
Daryl, anguished, tries to run to her, but Noah holds him back, telling him that the hospital can help her, that they have the power, and the equipment, to help her, and if Daryl runs out there, now, he will have to fight them, kill them, and then she won’t be helped, and does he want that?
“We will get her back,” Noah tells Daryl. “We’ll get Beth back.” But, Noah tells Daryl, he needs to let them take Carol, now, to the hospital, so they can help her. It is the best chance Carol has to survive.
As they watch Carol get loaded onto a stretcher, and taken away in the station wagon to Grady Memorial, Daryl asks Noah what it will take…Noah replies that Grady Memorial has weapons, and numbers…Daryl replies, “So do we.”
The final scene shows Daryl, and Noah, sneaking past a large group of ATL StreetWalkers which have been diverted, once again, by Daryl, who has lobbed a flame into a dumpster, setting the contents in it on fire. As the walkers gather, hissing, around the flaming dumpster, Daryl and Noah sneak past them, and then, moments later, come bursting through a chain link fence in a truck that has surely been hotwired by Daryl.
The final fire of “Consumed,” the dumpster fire, set by Daryl.
Daryl and Noah drive away, heading back to get the others. Noah looks at Daryl, who is lost in his thoughts, his anguish. You know he is really hurting right now.
So, Season 5, Episode 6 ends as it begins, with Daryl driving, determined…but much has happened since that first scene, bringing much change, as the fires of transformation once again burned what was, away, consuming it, and leaving something new in its place.
A few final thoughts…first, I need to apologize if some of you got a premature notification that I had published my post on “Consumed,” the night of the episode, and were served with 385 words of my primary notes of my initial watching…in a total spaz maneuver, most probably due to my manic excitement over seeing Daryl and Carol’s insane chemistry and fire together, combined with my champagne buzz, I hit “Publish” instead of “Save Draft” during a commercial break…d’oh!
Next, I have some Deadies to award for Episode 506,“Consumed.” Of course, the first two go to our favorite FWB’s, Daryl and Carol, for walking so honestly and fearlessly through the fires of transformation, and the fires of chemistry, and the fires of love…I do not know what the future has in store for these two iconic characters, individually, or as a couple, but I can say that my love for each of them, and for them together, has deepened to a new level with this masterful episode. Daryl and Carol, I love you so hard. You are my total heroes right now.
Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride are such incredible actors…from the very first, their performances and portrayals of Daryl Dixon and Carol Peletier have catapulted these two iconic characters to cult status, both within the realm of WDfandom and beyond, into the pop culture stratosphere. Much love, mad props. ❤
Deadie #3 goes to Yvette Nicole Brown, WD superfan…girl, if I ever get a chance to meet you, one day, we will have hours and hours of glorious WD to talk about! (I am def going to find Yvette’s Twitter account, and follow her, as soon as I publish this post..)
And, finally, Deadie #4 goes to our young up-and-comer, Noah (played by the supremely talented Tyler James Williams). Noah didn’t make the best first impression with Daryl and Carol, jacking their weapons and all that, but he did have impeccable manners while doing it, Gentleman Bandit-style.I, for one, welcome him into the fold, as I feel he will have much to offer, and contribute. Welcomeaboard, young padawan. May the force be with you, and with Daryl, Carol, Beth, and Rick, and Team Eugene, and the entire gang, wherever they may be at this point in time. Amen.
So, much love, dear readers. Until nextweek, and enjoy the playlist:
Playlist:
Stone Temple Pilots, “Sex Type Thing”
Jucifer,“When She Goes Out” (Was wanting to include a chick-fronted rager for Carol on this playlist, and then Norman Reedus posted a clip of Jucifer on his Instagram account, playing live in front of their trademark wall of amps, sending forth their trademark wall of sound into the farthest reaches of the universe…And once again, I was like, “Thank U Norman Reedus!“)
The White Stripes, “Blue Orchid”
The xx, “Heart Skipped A Beat”
Young Prisms, “Friends For Now” (Initially, I saw that I had six songs on the playlist, and I added this spare, beautiful track from Young Prisms to round it up to Lucky7…it’s the Big Game,people, lots at stake here. I’m not taking any chances…Just get your ladies out of Grady Memorial Debt Castle,Daryl Dixon, and you can all figure out this whole love triangle thing later.)
barnfullawalkers 