We’re back with The Walking Dead and allls the feels left over from last episode. Onward to spoilers!

Last week our intrepid band of walker-killers met the Hilltop gang who I would call Jesus and the Disciples but some people take their TWD shite super serious and I don’t want to offend. They settled an internal dispute between Gregory, a knife and Negan and ended up offering their services as mercenaries to wipe out all of Negan’s group, The Saviors, for half of Hilltop’s food. Without having any kind of clue how many people Negan has, or how much ammo, or really, any useful intel at all. AWESOME!

We open at happy music and Carol clearing out the shelves in the larder; arrowroot flour and canned sliced beets: MMMMM. She walks home through the woods and a particularly fetching walker with red hair, a negligee and half a face needs some head stabbing, Carol’s shirt is RUINT. She showers and changes into another momfit, back to the kitchen to bake cookies!

I feel like this would be me in the apocalypse, still trying to feed everyone and still in the kitchen. But maybe without all the head stabbing.

She walks around Alexandria handing out Tupperware containers full of pink cookies, the feel of the episode is so weird already. People stare after her in surprise; it’s like a Foo Fighters video. She gets to Tobin’s house and walks them in, though, and there’s an odd vibe there. He tries to demur; the kids are hungry, he doesn’t like beets and she stops him with a “will you just put it in your mouth, jerk?” He does, saying they’re the best beet and acorn cookie he’s ever had and she asks if he’s screwing with her and I AM UNCOMFORTABLE. The Carol x Daryl shippers all have their ears up now.

You know I am not really a Carol fan, right? The unsanctioned killing of Karen and David in the jail, the terrorization of Sam, she just does things her own way and doesn’t seek outside counsel enough. I mean, Rick seeks other’s opinion more than she does and he can barely string three words together at a time. HOWEVER. I have mad respect for her warrior skills, she is a threat physically and I LOVE that.

Sasha shouts that Rick et. al are back; Rick calls for Olivia so she can inventory all the food they bartered for from Hilltop and calls a fambly meeting at the church in an hour. Carol asks Rick what’s going on and he tells her they have to fight again. Whereas before she’s looked ready at times of war, now she seems tired, and clean and sad. Maybe that really wasn’t a disguise to fool the Alexandrians again.

Morgan sneaks up on her while she’s contemplating Sam’s headstone, he wants to know why she didn’t tell anyone that he kept a stray Wolf for training.

He tells her that’s on him, her not telling anyone kind of makes it on her too and she just wants him to shut up. I think she’s questioning her judgement and maybe doesn’t have the stomach for the tough decisions right now. Her freaking Sam out led to his entire family being wiped out, the loss of Carl’s eye, AND the loss of the future for Rick and Jessie. Now, I’m happy about a tiny bit of that, I like Richonne MUCH better, but it cannot be denied that her psychological attack on wee Sam led to all of that loss.

Rick is explaining the deal to the Alexandrians; they got a lot of food from Hilltop, but it isn’t free. He tells them about the psychotic Saviors, who almost killed Sasha, Abraham and Daryl (pfft, whatever, Daryl can handle himself, so can Sasha. And Abraham. Grudgingly) and how the Saviors would try to kill them and own them and they need to get in there and kill them all. It’s how they will feed themselves and how they will stay alive. But it has to be a group decision, that’s far too much blood to be on just one person’s hands.

Morgan asks first: can they do that? And maybe they should just go TALK to the Saviors, explain that they have to get in line to be killed? Not really sure how Morgan thinks that’s going to work; Alexandria giving up their safety and advantage. Rick tells them that ALL the Saviors have to die.

Rick throws it to the group; does anyone agree with Morgan to talk to the Saviors first? Noooooope. He says not everyone has to kill, but that everyone has to accept it (hard look at Morgan) if they want to stay. There was a lingering look on Tara (the actress is CLEARLY pregnant, by the way, which they left out of the plot for obvious reasons); she’s heard this “kill em ‘all” speech before, but from The Guv.

I don’t know, man. Killing an entire group of people, all of them, no redemption possible, no attack first, just the knowledge that they surely WILL be decimated afterwards, sooner or later, if they don’t. That’s a tough call and I don’t think I could make it.

Carol can’t sleep; so she works on her Kill List. Huh I really thought it would be more than 18. She looks hella upset and I wonder if our Carol is gonna be able to pull it together. A huge raid on another gang while one of their best fighters is mentally offline might not be awesome timing.

Maggie and Glenn are talking; she wants to go too to help. Again, middle of the night for first trimester for a new mom, just saying. Never happen. Glenn understands and supports her decision.

Carol wanders the streets smoking, happening to end up where? Oh my goodness, at Tobin’s house and guess who’s sitting on the porch, also unable to sleep? NO, GUESS!! He asks for a smoke and her affect is so off, calling him ahole and it reminds me of when a little boy at school liked me when I was 4. I knew that, because he hit me with a baseball bat. Carol is using her words as a 4-year-old’s baseball bat, and they’re having as much effect. He’s worried about the next day, not because he’s going to murder a bunch of people in their sleep, because she is.

He’s in awe of her ability to kill things, he says it’s because she’s a mom. I forgot Sophia was her one kiddo and died a really terrible death back at the farm. I cried for a solid half hour after that episode, Shane jumping around like a jackrabbit and Herschel crying with the hair falling over his face while Beth and Maggie held onto him. Damnit, now you made me tear up AGAIN, Tobin, thanks a LOT.

ANYWAY, she says she isn’t a mom, but he says she moms everyone while she stares at his mouth and asks if that’s how he sees her? They kiss and I can actually hear the Carol x Daryl shippers wave of grief rolling towards me.

Abraham is packing, rolling towards his lady fair Sasha and away from Rosita, who wants to know why he’s packing his stilettos for just the one night? Not the shoes, the knives, trust. He tells her he’s leaving her in the most brutal way possible “it happens. This is how I want it. Why are dingleberries brown?” and finishes her off with “when I first met you, I thought you were the last woman on earth. You’re not” and WOW. Abraham, you are a true motherdick ahole and I sincerely hope Sasha throws you out on your ass.

Rosita cries, but turns to see Eugene eating a beet/acorn cookie and waxing poetic about the fight they got in them. I like the “Virginia is For Lovers” shirt, but bad timing, bro!

Rick is trying to get information from the Hilltop guy that’s been to Negan’s compound, drawing out pics and trying to figure out where the armory is.

Tara comes to say goodbye to Denise and tell her she loves her for the first time (side note, I LOVE Merrit Wever as Denise, but there is zip zero chemistry between these two), Tara is heading out for the two-weeker right after the midnight murdering spree and she asks if Denise wants to come. Denise demurs, she’s the only doctor and they kiss goodbye. Tara is so pregnant.

Rick’s plan involves walking up with Gregory’s head, is it wrong if I suggest they just use Gregory’s…? They’re partypoopers and instead decide to go look in the woods for likely substitutes. Bummer. Rick takes this opportunity to brace jerk Gabriel about why he’s still wearing his priest’s collar; Gabriel says it’s still who he was, and it will be harder for them to see him in the dark.

Rosita doesn’t understand why they can’t tell on Morgan, she asks Carol why not?? Carol says they can’t because of Denise and WHAT DOES THAT MEAN???? SOMEONE TELL ME, WHAT ABOUT DENISE???

Carol’s smoking again and she stares at Maggie and worries.

Glenn and Heath are carefully stabbing walker’s under the chin; they’re thinking a little haircut might make it work? Heath asks how they’re gonna kill those people tonight, he’s never killed a person. Glenn hasn’t either and I spent far too long trying to figure out if that was possible. And I guess it is. He thinks killing should be harder than anything else and Amen. Is it wrong that I really hope Glenn doesn’t have to kill anyone?

Me and Glenn are walker-bait.

Rick is laying out the plan; recon, get in, get out if it doesn’t look good. He wants Jesus kept in the shadows so they don’t connect it to the Hilltop group: this is how we eat. Man.

Carol asks him why Maggie is there; he says Maggie’s guarding the perimeter, duh. But Carol doesn’t think Maggie should be there, and NOW I believe she’s a mom, second-guessing and trying to make decisions for people fully capable of making their own and the people that trust them. Or wait, maybe I’m thinking Mother-in-Law. Carol wants to stay with Maggie, but Rick says it’s a race to the armory and they need as many feets on the ground as possible. She’s staying with Maggie.

They’ve assembled several grey-haired heads on the side of the road; far right is Johnny Depp!

He looks like he cleaned up a little, yay! Anyway, the most likely head’s nose isn’t quite right, so Rick picks up the beheaded melon by the hair and starts punching it. I mean

Me and the Hilltop guy are completely grossed out; Rick’s all “whut?”

He creates a scenario where the Hilltop guy got into a fight, that’s why his nose is all gross and dude’s hand is bandaged.

Hilltop guy is Eddie, yay! I love it when they give names like that! However, I don’t trust Eddie. He looked awfully shifty during the planning sessions. He approaches the compound with the walker’s head in a bag; they wanna see full brutal, bruh!

He pulls out the decoy (but still a head!) while the two guards stare him down. They accept it, finally,and Skinny Pockmarked Guard has some ventriloquist fun with “Gregory’s” head before going to get the Hilltop guy, ’cause it looks like Eddie learned.

I have to call some serious bullshit that a guard stuck on the nightshift has enough stroke to pull a hostage out of captivity AND accept a trophy head. I mean. What kind of dictatorship is this??

The gang is in and now the killing. There is so much, I won’t go into it, but I may have cried a little bit when Glenn did his very first kills, and I think he did too.

Heath can’t do it. Even Rick found it hard, I mean, they don’t know these people. They’ve never been personally threatened by them, so they’re murdering them in their sleep based on a possible future threat and it’s BRUTAL emotionally. I may be just a baby.

On the wall above one such murdered person is a collection of polaroids; trophies of Negan’s kills with his baseball bat Lucille. This is why they’re doing this, I know, I know. Aaron sums it up for us nicely while killing a much larger dude: “if it wasn’t you, it would have been us.”

Tara is trying to confess to Gabriel, she says she lied to her girlfriend, telling her she loved her so she didn’t have to talk about the fact that she had done something like this before: with the Guv as above.

One of the Saviors is up for a pee and manages to hit the alarm before dying and our gang’s timeline speeds WAY up. Jesus has to go in; he directs Andy to send the recovered Hilltop guy back to make sure their end of the bargain is held up.

Heath and Glenn make it to the armory, yay! They kill several people through the door to do so, opening it to find one guy alive enough to be killed by Jesus, who says “So this is the next world.”

 

Gabriel finds an old man gutshot in the weeds, holding a gun on him and spouting verse while killing him. WEIRD.

The group is outside now and that was too easy, wasn’t it? Not enough people? Hozier plays and I love the song! Everyone hugs but I’m tense, even with the great music. Morgan is welding..what? A Jail? That would make sense to old walker-bait me, but I bet not to anyone else.

Michonne is troubled; she didn’t see any obvious signs of leadership or Negan; out rolls Daryl’s motorbike! Daryl is ALL over him, but the Savior’s radio starts squawking: a woman telling them to lower their weapons or Maggie and Carol will get it. Whut?? Glenn looks like he wants to cry, Rick looks like he wants to punch someone in the face. Hard. And we oot.

So what did you think? Are Carol and Maggie in serious danger? Was this Negan’s whole group or just a tiny bit? It didn’t seem like there were enough people in there, what with them keeping the entire countryside terrified and all. Don’t know man. See you next week!