**Spoilers**
How many walkers have you killed? How many people have you killed? Why? - these are the questions Rick asks newcomers to assess if they’re good enough to join his group.
Why do I bring this up? I’ll address that later.
This episode has Rick and company coming back to town and holding a meeting in the church. And what’s on the agenda? Certainly not a prayer and communion. More like, hey we have to go murder some peeps, ya’ll in?. After all, they can always come back and do confession time, except that, well… the priest is enlisted in this mercenary mission.
This season has done a great job of surprising us. For Rick and his group to come this far. This demonstrates just how ahead of his time Shane really was.
In all fairness, Rick’s group is doing what it has to to survive. This group, led by Negan, nearly killed Abe, Sasha and Daryl just awhile back. They are threatening Jesus’ people while holding one them hostage. Negan’s people need to be stopped because as we know in this apocalyptic world, if you let evil be they’ll only find you and take you out later.
And so they decide to attack Negan’s group and “kill them all” (for those who’ve seen Spartacus). However, before doing so, there’s a break up and a hook up.
Abe dumps Rosita. When she asks why, he replies “when I first met you, I thought you were the last woman… I was wrong.” Ouch.
Meanwhile, Carol is falling in love and kisses and Alexandrian. Her character was softer in this episode then before. She baked cookies, put a cookie on Sam’s grave, decided not to rat out what Morgan did during the invasion and didn’t want a pregnant Maggie going on the mission. She even woke up in the middle of the night to scribble her kill count into a note book. It wasn’t something she did lightly. It felt like it had taken an emotional toll on her.
Fast forward to the mission. A series of events lead them to the moment. And the killing begins with Maggie and Carol waiting at the road. It’s a blood bath with shot guns rattling off and bodies dropping.
But it’s the quiet moment, the moment when Glenn enters a room where two people sleep, that packs the punch. Knife in hand, he does the unthinkable and takes one of them out, knowing this will stay with him forever. Standing over the second body is Glenn’s friend (an Alexandrian) who pauses and Glenn, who is at a point of no return, further hurts his already damaged soul and makes the kill for his friend. This was a horrific moment for Glenn and it weighed heavy on this audience member.
With a group we have been following taken to murder, the sun rises, morning comes and as we settle in to ponder what we just witnessed, a survivor exits on a motorcycle. Daryl nabs him. Beside this man is a walkie talkie with a female voice coming through.
She says she has Maggie and Carol. And now the game has changed. They probably should have scouted the area a bit better. But that’s how it goes.
So next week with Carol and a pregnant Maggie kidnapped what is our group going to do? I can’t wait to find out.
Now back to the questions Rick asks potential newbies:
How many walkers have you killed? How many people have you killed? Why? -
The first question is easy. The two that follow, not so much. After what they just did, do we hear these questions from Rick again?
