Was anyone else bracing themselves for a bad followup to the relatively okay episode (loss-wise) last week on The Walking Dead? Just me? Okay. Alls the spoilers!!

Last week we lost an entire family: Jessie, Sam and Ron and that was totally okay by me. I didn’t foresee much good coming out of that with all the sturm and drang going on previously, what with Rick knocking off the abusive patriarch PorchDick last season. Plus it was messing with my Richonne vision.

We open to “More Than a Feeling” by Boston (NOT “Hooked on a Feeling”) and wow, looks pretty chill. We pan back to see a photograph (hey wait! How did they get photographs? I mean, I guess they had those pics that CleanMan was peddling to newcomers, but that seems odd. Do they have photograph processing joints there?) of an eye-bandaged Coral holding baby Judith and I found out later it’s been two months.

Rick is dressing and Michonne is there in a towel and robe? Whut?? She’s asking for toothpaste but he doesn’t have any, “someone’s been borrowing it for two weeks” and WHAT DOES THAT MEAN??? Coral says he doesn’t have any, and I don’t know what else he said because I was too busy staring at Rick and Michonne and trying to gauge their relashie. They slap hands goodbye and I STILL can’t tell. But I’m ‘cited!!

Daryl is making a supply run, but he needs some clarification: she wants pop? The drink not the medical? Now I’m trying to imagine what medical supply sounds like “pop”. That’s Canadian for “soda”, by the way! She so cutely and awkwardly explains that the pop isn’t for her, it’s for Tara, who’s been talking about it in her sleep and Denise thinks it would be a great going away present for Tara’s two week run. It’s so adorable, really, and Daryl even imitates her flappy hand movements. It’s a nice moment.

Eugene hands Daryl a map of the agricultural deposits ’round those parts, highlighting Sorghum as a critically under-rated grain and Reno suggested that means they’re gonna party like it’s 1899, woo hoo! He’s talking drought tolerance, enviable grain to stove ratios and sure. I just like the word; I don’t think I’ve ever had sorghum. On purpose, anyway

Off Rick and Daryl drive in a Chrysler 300, listening to more hokey music that is seriously putting Daryl in pain.

Rick says the law of averages means that they have to find food one day!

Michonne is standing watch when she sees Spencer acting shady and slinking off into the woods with a shovel. Kind of unrelated, but when I lived in Vancouver, my roommate told me the building a block over was a Rub & Tug but I didn’t believe it until I saw someone walk into their back entrance with the same look on their face.

Maggie is all over Enid and for the love of god, I just typed Beth. Pfftsdgdvs. She offers her ear and support to the girl, anyway, who accepts it with her usual charm and grace. *Grunt* *eye roll* *exaggerated sigh*

Is it weird that I want to see Maggie and Glenn make out or something? We still haven’t seen them in the same frame in ages and I’m not talking anything squishy, but some necking would be awesome. Just saying.

Unbelievably, Rich and Daryl actually find a Sorghum shed! But when they open it up, it’s actually a truck full of food and woo hoo! Rick figures he invoked the Law of Averages. They leave their car and drive off in the big truck, stopping at a gas station. Daryl’s spotted some pop in a cooler! They can’t budge it, though, so they put a chain around it and try dragging it open. No luck so far, but suddenly Rick is goosed from behind in an unfriendly manner by what appears to be a train robber with a lifetime supply of Pantene.

They hold guns on him, he says he’s running because he’s spotted a herd of walkers in the double digits shambling their way, he welcomes them to the new world and he hopes it’ll be good to them. Rick tries to three-question him, but Paul Rovia, aka Jesus, is on the run and Daryl is next to Rick mentally tugging on his sleeve “not THIS guy!!” Jesus runs off while Rick and Daryl argue about what kind of guy he is; Rick is intrigued by his cleanliness and grooming (as he should be, it apparently being a completely foreign concept to him) and wants to track him for a bit, see what he’s like.

They’re distracted by a series of loud bangs coming from the back of the building, it’s firecrackers and those Duke boys have done clean stole their truck full of food! Cue crazy-fast bluegrass music!

Jesus stole Rick’s keys in a reverse reach-around and drives off, with a “sorry!” dropping their bag out and hauling the pop cooler behind.

Spencer is walker-whispering in the woods, Michonne ruins it by slicing their melons off. Coral and Enid are out there now too, they find a plastic bag with a letter inside, but it got wet and is unreadable.

Rick and Daryl ran (in that heat!) and managed to catch up with the truck in the middle of the road, Daryl breaks open the cooler and liberates the orange Crush soda as requested for Denise. He tells Rick, who uses that as an example of why they should trust new people. That’s a little rich, coming from him, what with the beginning of the season Daryl having to be the one to say: new people are what will keep all of us alive. Anyway, they agree: not this guy. They don’t want this guy.

Coral and Enid have found what seems to be a very important walker, and for whatever reason, Coral doesn’t want to kill it. I have to apologize right now, I *may* have wondered a little bit, during the live watch, as to whether Coral was doing some…”teenaged boy trapped after the apocalypse with just one teenaged girl around that mostly sneers at him, when not rolling her eyes” kinda stuff. Looking back, that makes no sense, and I should really wash my brain out with soap, but it’s probably as OneEyeCharlie said: I watched too much Spotless. And yet, not nearly enough Spotless. I miss it so.

Rick gets the jump on Jesus, but our prettyboy has quite the self-defense skillset for a messiah, he takes out Rick AND Daryl, stopped only by guns. That’s kind of the history of war, right? It’s all fun and tussling, then someone brings out a gun and whoever has the biggest one with the loudest bang gets to keep the Chef Boyardee.

Jesus asks if they’re gonna shoot him over a truck? And I have to wonder how long this guy has been out here; they kill over bananas with too many spots out here. Not our gang, though, they tie him up on the side of the road, leaving the knots not too tight and taking the pop back.

This episode has a really strong slapstick-y feel, a la Dukes of Hazzard, but I’m seriously worried about Negan popping his melon in at any time. They seem to be taking an awfully long time to get that truck to safe harbour, and we all know Negan’s like a toddler with a basket of toys: MINE MINE MINE MINE!!!! even if we haven’t met him just yet.

As they drive off, Rick says “it still worked out. Today is still this day” and alls the foreshadowing. They hear banging…Jesus is on the roof and he’s trynna take the wheel! They do a fast stop and he flies off, I’m thinking he’s the Wile. E. Coyote of TWD. He’s led them near a line of trucks with walkers tied to them, which manage to break loose just at that time, Jesus actually saves Daryl’s life with his own gun, but pfft, we knew Daryl wasn’t in danger from the walker, just from Jesus pointing a gun at him.

Somehow in that tussle, the truck gets put in gear and off it rolls inexorably towards the water. Jesus slips out and gets a hard knock on the head in the process, which means our gang will try to take care of him because that’s what they DO. That’s also why they end up having entire truck’s worth of food end up in the bottom of the lake. The Law of Averages IS bs, Daryl.

Spencer tells Michonne to beat it, he’s got stuff to do, but she still wants to help. And we find out who this Very Special Walker is that Coral was trying to lead past Spencer and Michonne: it’s Deanna. Spencer wanted to find her to put her out of his misery. Gentle head stabbing later, it’s done and the diminutive Deanna is dunzo.

They bury her, and there’s a nice moment where Spencer says he doesn’t wanna go home blah blah and my family is all dead blah I don’t know my way blah blah and Michonne says “I’ve been out here chasing you all over these woods. You still have family” and it was really sweet.

Coral and Judith are having a cuddle on the porch when Michonne comes home; she wants to know what the Sam Hill was going on with Deanna out in the woods. He keeps Judith between them like a soft and lovely shield, and they argue about who should have killed Deanna. He thinks that it should have been someone who loved her, someone who’s family. He would do it for her. Hugs and awww, I’m not crying, you’re crying!!

Rick and Daryl bring Jesus to Denise and lock him in the basement with water and a note, but I bet our wee second-comer is a master escape artist, so I’ll wait and see.

It’s late now, Rick and Michonne are sitting on the couch, randomly chitchatting about their days, but I can’t even hear what they’re saying, all I’m listening to is their body language. COUPLE OR NO?? RICHONNE OR NO?? Ahhhhhhh and they hold hands, and there’s eye contact and KISSING!!!!!!! And more than kissing!! Giggling and sex and YAY!!!!! RICHONNE 4-EVA!!!!! I love how they’re equals in a way that Rick and Jessie never were, but ehhh pardon while I watch them makeout again.

And there’s a noise: Jesus IS an escape artist and there he is in their bedroom, whut? And we oot

This was such a weird episode, all slapstick-y and Dukes of Hazzard-ish, but it was really nice to see our gang relax a bit and get some (YAY!!), even if I didn’t getta see Glenn. I’m surprised they went two months without nary a whisper of Negan, but maybe they’re saving that storyline for after Jesus is firmly established. What did you guys think?