The Walking Thread

[Content Note: Spoilers are lurching around undeadly herein. Descriptions of violence.]

screen cap from The Walking Dead of Daryl, Glenn, and Michonne standing in the woods; Glenn looks stricken
Glenn's face speaks for all our faces.

In the final moments of last week's episode, Carol's boyfriend Tobin found a note left by Carol, saying she's gone and asking that no one comes looking for her. I wrote at the time: "Tobin takes the note to Optimus Grimes. I'm sure he'll definitely respect her request to leave her the hell alone."

If you think that Optimus Grimes respected Carol's request to leave her the hell alone, I have some definitely totally 100% effective anti-zombie repellent spray that I would like to sell you!

In fact, this entire episode was basically about not respecting people's boundaries or choices. Optimus Grimes and Morgan decide to go after Carol. Daryl wants to go murder D-Bag Dwight to avenge Doctor Zoey, even if risking his own life puts the rest of his pals at risk, and he doesn't want anyone to stop him, but Glenn and Michonne and Rosita Espinosa go after him anyway.

It's basically just a cool reminder that Grimes Gang is comprised of a lot of people who make good decisions and have profound respect for each other's safety and agency.

Anyway! The episode opens with everyone getting ready for another lovely day in Aarontown. (Well, technically, it opens with a scene of an idling car on a road with a bullet-shattered windshield and dripping blood on the ground. Because teasing us with violence is necessary, since this isn't the most violent show on television or anything. What a shocker!) All the scenes of Grimes Gangs' lives are super, as usual, but the best is obviously Optimus Grimes and Michonne in bed together (NOOOOO!).

Michonne grabs an apple from the nightstand, because you know how people keep apples on their nightstands so they can eat drippy, sticky fruit in bed, and then takes a bite and hands it to Optimus Grimes, like some kind of Eve.

Michonne expresses concerns about LIFE IN THE ZOMBIEPOCALYPSE, and Optimus Grimes gives her an apple-eating grin and says, "The world's ours and we know how to take it." Good grief.

Shortly thereafter, Optimus Grimes and Morgan take off after Carol, Daryl speeds off to do some murderin', and Glenn, Michonne, and Rosita Espinosa take off after Daryl.

Meanwhile, on the road, Carol passes a pick-up truck full of Saviors, who shoot out her tire. She gets out of the car, and there's a tense standoff until Carol shoots them with a gun she had concealed in her sleeve. Whooooooops you messed with the wrong lady who left her community because she said she didn't want to have to murder anyone anymore!

(How did Carol ever calculate that she would be less likely to have to kill people out on her own than if she'd just told Grimes Gang she preferred not to be on the Murder Team anymore? Even with as IMPOSSIBLY UNREASONABLE AND BAD AT LEADERSHIP IN EVERY CONCEIVABLE WAY Optimus Grimes is, I still feel like he would have agreed to that! "Sure, your cookies are pretty good. Kitchen duty it is!")

The scene ends with a surviving Savior charging at Carol with a knife. Did she make it?! OH NOES!

Cut to Optimus Grimes and Morgan stumbling upon the remains of Carol's fight with the Saviors. There's no sign of Carol, so they follow a trail of blood into a field. On their trek, they have a classic Walking Dead conversation about hard decisions and murder and how the zombiepocalypse totally changes you, man.

Something something a guy looking for a horse. Optimus Grimes shoots at him, but Morgan bumps him so he misses. Morgan tells Optimus Grimes about the W-Head he had captured at Aarontown, and gives some dreadful monologue about how everything comes full circle, because if he hadn't saved the W-Head, then the W-Head wouldn't have saved Doctor Zoey when they got overrun by zombies, and then Doctor Zoey wouldn't have been around to save Pirate Carl.

Which is a pretty terrific story, if you ignore the part where Doctor Zoey never would have been overrun by zombies with the W-Head, if the W-Head hadn't taken her hostage, which he was only around to do because Morgan didn't kill him.

Anyway. Morgan tells Optimus Grimes he'll find Carol on his own, and don't come looking for him if he doesn't return. Which is a pretty amazing thing to tell someone who's out looking for a person who asked no one to look for her! Optimus Grimes hands Morgan a gun and goes home.

Meanwhile, Glenn and Michonne and Rosita Espinosa catch up with Daryl in the woods, near the site where D-Bag Dwight killed Doctor Zoey. Glenn tries to talk Daryl out of his revenge murder, but Daryl is all NOPE! Rosita Espinosa, who was there when Doctor Zoey was killed, joins Daryl on his quest. Glenn and Michonne decide to turn back and go home, because apparently the whole point of this adventure was to politely ask Daryl to reconsider and then shrug when he totally predictably said no.

But whooooooooops Glenn and Michonne are captured by D-Bag Dwight and the Saviors.

Back at Aarontown, Maggie asks Enid to cut her hair, because "I have to keep going and I don't want anything getting in my way." Suddenly she doubles over in pain and collapses to the floor, grabbing her abdomen and screaming. PREGNANCY PERIL! Too bad Glenn was fucking around the woods and just got himself captured!

Speaking of which: Daryl and Rosita Espinosa creep up on the clearing where the Saviors are holding Glenn and Michonne, who are bound and gagged. They make eye contact, and Glenn and Michonne try to "mmph! mmph!" a warning through their gags, but it's too late: D-Bag Dwight has snuck up behind Daryl and has a gun pointed at him. He shoots, and blood squirts all over the lens, obscuring our view of what happened.

This fucking show.

Next week: More of this garbage.

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