In ‘The Walking Dead’ recap, Rick makes a move to get more guns, Negan gives Sasha a choice and Gregory comes face to face with mortality…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
If you look back through history to any of the many wars that have been waged between different factions, the reasons two sides decide to fight may be simple but how they get there is never quite as easy.
On many levels, the frustration some fans of ‘The Walking Dead’ have been feeling during the second half of season 7 is understandable. Ever since Negan cuckolded Rick Grimes in the opening episode of the season, the Alexandrians, the people from the Hilltop and the Kingdom have all been serving the Saviors and watching a group of people groveling to an evil overlord can get a little tedious at times.
Add to that, Rick’s mission to launch an uprising against the Saviors has also dragged on for several episodes without so much as a shot fired between the two factions.
It appears that will all come to an end with the season finale next week as Rick and the other communities will finally band together in an effort to take down Negan and the Saviors once and for all. Yes, it’s been a long road to get here but the pay off should be something quite spectacular, especially if the TV version plays out anything like the one from the comic books.
In the penultimate episode this week, Rick finally gets the guns he needs to fight back against the Saviors while Negan takes another prisoner of war, who he hopes to convert to his side. And of course there’s the Hilltop where Gregory is watching his control over the community slip through his fingers with each day Maggie usurps his leadership, but when he’s faced with real danger, his true colors show through.
And at the end a major reveal that’s been building for weeks.
It’s a great set up for what’s about to unfold in the season finale next week but for now let’s recap the latest episode of ‘The Walking Dead’ titled ‘Something They Need’…
Picking Sides
Despite her best attempt to go on a kamikaze mission to kill Negan, we find that Sasha survived her assault on the Sanctuary and she now sits locked in the same prison cell that once housed Daryl. On the morning after her attack, Sasha gets a visit from a creepy Savior named David, who offers to trade her water for some sex. Of course if Sasha isn’t willing to give up the sex, he’ll just take it from her.
That’s when Negan arrives and he reminds ‘rapey Davey’ that sexual assault is not allowed inside the walls of the Sanctuary. David attempts to apologize, but Negan fails to accept it and instead shoves a gigantic knife through his neck.
Negan apologizes to Sasha for David’s behavior while also applauding her for those “beach ball sized lady nuts” that gave her the courage to storm the compound looking to kill him the night before. While Sasha’s attack should have left her dead, Negan is impressed that she went to those lengths to get at him and he could always use somebody like her in his employ.
So Negan leaves the knife behind and gives Sasha a few choices.
She can try to kill him again, but considering he’s standing overtop of her with a baseball bat, her chances to getting him are slim to none. She can use that knife to slit her own wrists if she really wants out. Or she can use the knife to kill ‘rapey Davey’ when he comes back from the dead and prove that she still wants to live.
Before David can reanimate himself, Eugene pays Sasha a visit with some provisions and offers her some advice as well. He tells Sasha that she’s safer and better off just submitting to Negan and becoming one of his legion because fighting back will only end with more bloodshed. Eugene admits that he has never been more scared than the night Negan captured them and ultimately killed Glenn and Abraham and he can’t go through that again.
So Eugene has pledged himself to Negan in hopes of saving his own life for a little while longer and he hopes Sasha will make the wise decision to join him as well.
Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying
Rick, Daryl, Michonne and many of the other Alexandrians are plotting an attack on the Oceanside community in an attempt to take away their guns or get them to join the battle against the Saviors. It seems Tara’s promise to keep that community hidden only went as far as finding out that her own friends are now forced to serve Negan and his Saviors.
The group sets up a massive trap complete with dynamite and Michonne as a sniper to take the armory and hopefully stop anybody from dying.
Before the attack begins, Tara breaks into Natania’s home and takes her hostage before doing the same to her granddaughter Cyndie.
Tara explains that Negan has taken over her home and now they are ready to fight back but they need the weapons from Oceanside to have a fighting chance to win the war. Tara would rather have Oceanside with them rather than against them, but if they don’t agree to terms, the choice will be taken away from them.
Natania and Cyndie eventually get the upper hand on Tara when she’s distracted but they discover that the gun she was holding on them wasn’t even loaded. Unfortunately for them a second later explosions are heard in the woods outside of Oceanside and it sets off a panic throughout the village.
The people all start running for an exit, which leads them right into the trap set by Rick and the others. As far as the armory goes, the two people who go there to protect the guns are quickly detained by sniper fire before Daryl, Jesus and the others step through to take them hostage and retrieve the guns.
Once everybody is rounded up, Rick explains that he didn’t come to hurt anybody but he needs their guns if they are going to defeat the Saviors. That’s when Natania shows up with Tara and threatens to shoot her dead unless everybody turns around and leaves immediately.
Rick tells them that there’s no getting out of this because they are taking the guns and they are going to fight the Saviors so this isn’t going to end well for Natania unless she hands over the weapon and joins the cause. Cyndie ultimately turns on her own grandmother because she sees the value in what Rick and the others are offering — a chance to fight back and defeat Negan once and for all.
Before everybody can shake hands and sing Kumbaya, walkers from all over the surrounding areas arrive at Oceanside due to the loud explosions set off in the woods. Rick, Daryl and everybody else bands together to protect the Oceanside survivors as they fight back the horde of zombies descending upon them.
Once the dead have been defeated, many people from Oceanside decide that fighting back against Negan is smart, especially with a group as capable as the one led by Rick Grimes. Of course, Natania wants no part of it, but Cyndie tells Tara that she’s ready to fight and so are many more from the community.
Rick and the rest of the survivors leave with the guns and they are now one step closer towards all out war on the Saviors.
Leader of Men
Back at the Hilltop, Maggie is teaching new skills to the people in the community, which only serve to further piss off Gregory that he’s losing control.
When Maggie goes outside the walls to dig up a wild blueberry bush, Gregory joins her with an offer of peace. He explains that he wants to come to an understanding with her and hopefully they can work together for the betterment of the Hilltop. Maggie agrees and offers to come by later to speak about it.
Gregory then decides to stick around to “protect” Maggie in case anything happens while she’s gardening.
When a walker tumbles out of the surrounding woods, Gregory tries to kill it but then can’t bring himself to actually do it so Maggie is forced to handle things instead. His cowardice nearly costs him anyways when Gregory is attacked by another nearby walker before crying to Maggie to save his life.
As Maggie helps Gregory back to his feet, some members of the Hilltop community wander by and she explains how he’s just shaken up after he killed his first walker (despite the fact that he never actually killed anything). The members of the community laugh and say that’s not what he told them before heading back inside.
The altercation leads Gregory back into his office where he takes a hit of some whisky before grabbing a map and telling one of his guards that they are about to take a trip. It appears Gregory is headed to the Sanctuary to take Simon up on his offer to squash any insurgency that may be happening inside the Hilltop.
No Choice At All
When Negan returns to check on Sasha the next day he finds her inside the cell and she’s still alive and the knife has been plunged through dead ‘rapey Davey’s head. That tells Negan that Sasha wants to live, which also means she had decided to join him as well. Of course, Negan isn’t ready to place trust in her just yet but this is a good first step.
Negan then reveals that a “little birdie” told him that Rick and his people were up to no good, which means he knows about the oncoming war. He tells Sasha that she’ll be a crucial piece in his planned reaction to Rick going against his rule of law.
Eugene comes back to visit Sasha and she explains that there’s no way she can be part of a plan that will kill her friends back in Alexandria. Sasha came to the Sanctuary on a suicide mission to hunt down Negan or die trying. Neither of those things happened and now Sasha could be used as a pawn for Negan’s war against Rick.
So Sasha asks Eugune for a way to kill herself.
The day she stepped inside the Sanctuary walls, Sasha never intended on walking out alive again. Now she just wants to finish the job.
Fighting back a few tears at the thoughts of losing another person he cares about, Eugene finally concedes to her wishes and slips one of his suicide pills (originally made for one of Negan’s wives) under the door. When Sasha gets the pill in her hand, she’s suddenly saddened because clearly she was hoping Eugene would give her a knife or a gun or some kind of weapon she could use against Negan when the time was right.
Now she’s got no means to escape, no way to kill Negan and a matter of hours before he goes after Rick and the rest of the survivors and Sasha knows she’s going to be going along for that ride.
Traitor
Rick, Daryl, Michonne and the others return to Alexandria victorious with a ton of new weapons to use in the upcoming war and hopefully some new allies who will join them. When they make it to the gate, Rosita is there to greet them.
Before they can unload the weapons, Rosita tells Rick that she has something to show him.
She leads him down into the prison cell that Morgan built once upon a time and when Rosita unlocks the door, Rick looks inside and finds Dwight hunkered down on the floor waiting to talk to him. Remember that shadowy figure Rosita encountered last week — it turns out it was Dwight after all.
Rick has to hold back Daryl, who is ready to kill him, but this turn of events could change everything for the war to come. Rosita tells Rick that Dwight wants to help them take down Negan and the Saviors once and for all. Rick asks if that’s the case and Dwight responds that he came here to help.
In response, Rick accepts his offer before telling Dwight to get on his knees — just like they endured when captured by Negan and the Saviors at the start of the season.
A special extended season finale of ‘The Walking Dead’ airs next Sunday night starting at 9pm ET and you can check out a preview and a clip from the episode below:
