As someone who doesn’t read the comics and didn’t read any spoilers, I had no idea what to expect. And when it ended my heart was racing and I was sicken.
What the heck just happened!! OMG!!
So Carl and Morgan had a side adventure with Carol nearly dying at the hands of a man she fought with on a previous episode. Morgan saved her even though she didn’t want to be saved.
Now, let’s get to the Rick section. With Maggie sick and on the verge of losing her baby, Rick, Abe, Sasha, Rosita and Eugene drive the trailer to find a hospital.
This proves difficult as the road leads to a detour of Negan’s men. They try another route and there’s another detour. This goes on all day and they are left with no other choice but to leave the trailer and carry Maggie through the woods. Eugene was left behind to drive the trailer, allowing the others to flee undetected.
However, the plan turned out to be a trap.
The group wanders into Negan’s group to find that Eugene was taken hostage along with the trailer.
A van opens and out comes their friends Daryl, Michonne and Glenn. The good guys are forced to their knees (including a sick Maggie).
And so it begins… The moment when you realize that they may have met someone worse than the Governor.
This scene is eerie like something out of a horror movie. Tension builds as Negan steps out and finally reveals himself. He speaks with a psychotic charm.
And you just know it won’t end well. The look on Rick’s face, the defeat, the fear. He wants to kill Negan, but he can’t. He’s feeling something he hasn’t felt in a long time… helplessness. He’s at Negan’s mercy and Negan doesn’t have mercy.
So now they work for Negan. Negan takes half of everything they own and will continue to do so forever, much like the group they met up and tried to help. One could understand why that other group paid Rick to kill Negan.
But before Rick’s group is free to work for Negan they must pay a price for the people they killed.
Negan says: “I do not appreciate you killing my men. Also, when I sent my people to kill your people for killing my people you killed more of my people. Not cool, not cool. You have no idea how not cool that {bleep} is.”
And so comes that moment that builds and builds until the viewer finds themself holding their breath. Negan holds a bat wrapped in wire designed to inflict damage. And someone is going to get a beating, a beating so bad they may not live theough it. It will be brutal and it won’t be swift.
But who? Who will pay the price?
Negan toys with the group and the audience. “inni minnie minie mo…” each member flinches, sheds tear, trembles except Abe, who’s prepared to die for the others. But the choice isn’t his. That honor belongs to Negan.
The bat points to person after person until he makes his choice. He bashes one of the group, but who? We still don’t know. The camera takes on the view of the victim. Blood pours down the frame. Another swing… fade to black.
And it ends…
We will have to wait until next season to see who died.
But there is a hint. It probably isn’t Rick or Carl because Negan says “Anybody moves, anybody says anything cut the boys other eye out and feed it to his father”.
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?
