In The Walking Dead recap, Jesus leads Rick and the other survivors to a community known as the Hilltop where they find hope for help and a new adversary….
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer @DamonMartin
The world is about to get a whole lot bigger.
If there was a central theme to the latest episode of The Walking Dead and what the survivors are about to endure in the immediate future, it’s exactly that.
There’s a lot of world out there beyond the scores of the undead still roaming the streets and it turns out that there are people just like Rick and the others who have been fighting to build something more.
It took Rick quite some time to not only believe a place like Alexandria could exist but that it was worth fighting for and saving. It’s understandable why he might have been slightly pessimistic after watching a farm and a prison both crumble under the weight of the outside world not to mention a community built solely to prey on the unfortunate souls who happen to cross their threshold.
Still through sheer force and will, Alexandria stood tall after a massive attack from a huge zombie horde and Rick is finally beginning to believe this place is not only worth saving but it could be even better given time.
Now he’s finding out that there are other communities out there just like Alexandria — some who have built similar walls — and others who are determined to tear them back down again.
With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of The Walking Dead titled ‘Knots Untie’….
A Larger World
Picking up from last week where Jesus broke out of his shackles and interrupted a little post coital cuddle time between Rick and Michonne, he decides to tell his captors that they have nothing to fear from him but they should listen to what he has to say.
Jesus reveals that on the day he met Rick and Daryl while battling for the same truck filled with supplies, that he was on the same kind of mission to gather goods for his home community known as The Hilltop.
It turns out Jesus resides in a community not unlike Alexandria with high walls that have been built and a somewhat structured government inside to help care for the people who live there. He also mentions that the Hilltop has worked out trade plans with other communities to help each other survive.
This is all great news for Rick and the folks in Alexandria because while they have become battle hardened recently, the crops still aren’t sprouting and food supplies are starting to run short. They’ve finally got everybody in town on board with stepping up and protecting the place but now they are running short on food and the quickest way to ensure a revolt is to watch everyone go hungry.
So Rick decides to lead a small band of people along with Jesus to trek back to the Hilltop to see what this place is all about and if an exchange in goods could be made.
On the Road Again
On the road to the Hilltop, Rick and the others run across a car that’s just been involved in an accident, which immediately triggers everyone into thinking that this is a trap that’s been set for them by the people in the community they are currently on a pilgrammage to find.
As it turns out, however, the people who crashed the car were from the Hilltop and they were out scavenging for supplies when they literally ran into a group of zombies they couldn’t avoid. The three survivors ran inside a building and hid from the walkers rather than kill them because as Jesus explains, the Hilltop hasn’t produced many fighters since the walls first went up.
While Maggie keeps a gun trained on Jesus, Daryl, Rick and the others go inside to discover that what he’s been telling them is the truth — the people have scattered for shelter with no real way to fight back. It turns out the Hilltop ran out of ammunition long ago and weapons are in short supply.
The surviving Hilltoppers are saved and brought aboard the RV bound for their home colony. Inside the vehicle, Maggie and Glenn get some good news to find out that one of the survivors named Harlan is actually a doctor, who would happily give the expecting couple all the pre-natal vitamins they can carry after saving his life.
So far this relationship seems to be going well but just wait until they actually get to the Hilltop to find out what’s actually lurking behind those walls.
Welcome to the Hilltop
Things get off to a rocky start at the Hilltop when Rick and the others are greeted by guards at the gates holding spears — OK maybe that’s not so scary after all. It seems Jesus was telling the truth when he told them that the people at the Hilltop had no actual guns and it appears very rudimentary weapons.
Jesus explains when they get their first glimpse of the Hilltop that the main building is an old house that was given to the local government many, many years ago and turned into a living history museum. When the world started to go to hell, many people came back to this place perhaps from memories from field trips as children to a house that has stood for hundreds of years — before and after modern society said it should crumble.
Inside the walls, Jesus prepares to introduce the group to the Hilltop’s leader — a man named Gregory, who carries himself with a snide and smug attitude that immediately rubs Rick the wrong way after he suggests that the group go get cleaned up before they soil his captured mansion that serves as the centerpiece to the community. Rick concedes to ‘clean up’ but then hands negotiating duties over to Maggie because if he’s in charge of this chat, Gregory is likely going to end up with a few less teeth than the started the say with.
When Maggie finally meets with Gregory, he’s everything Rick expected him to be and more. Not only does he scoff at the idea of trading much of anything with Alexandria, but he more or less spends the entire meeting hitting on Maggie and offering to ‘take care of her’ if she joins their community. The only way Gregory is willing to give Alexandria the supplies they need is if the group who ventured here ‘works’ for it.
After a failed negotiation, Rick and the others are ready to bail on this entire idea — or potentially just overrun this community considering they don’t have any weapons that weren’t created around the same time fire was discovered — but Jesus asks for a few days to allow him to talk to Gregory so an agreement can be brokered. He’s determined to make these two communities join forces and we soon find out why.
The Message
Just when it looks like Rick and the other survivors made a trip to the Hilltop for nothing, a messenger runs back into the house, screaming for Gregory because something has gone terribly wrong.
As we find out, the Hilltop have been giving a group known as the Saviors led by a man named Negan half of their supplies for several months now. In exchange, the Saviors will leave the Hilltop alone and not burn it to the ground with everyone still inside.
But this latest shipment has apparently come up short and Negan sends back a message to the Hilltop after brutally killing two members of the exchange party and keeping a third as a hostage. One of the men sent back named Ethan has a message to deliver to Gregory from Negan.
A second later, Ethan shoves a knife into Gregory’s belly and he doubles over from the stab wound, falling to the ground. Rick and the others react, which ultimately results in Ethan’s death and another Hilltopper getting his arm broken after attacking Abraham.
The peace is restored when Jesus intervenes and he explains just how dire things have gotten with this strained relationship between the Hilltop and the Saviors. Now Gregory has been wounded and while he may not be the best leader in the world, he’s the one they’ve got and allowing him to die would be very detrimental to the spirit of the community.
After tempers calm down, Maggie goes to see Gregory one more time with a different kind of negotiation in mind.
Rick, Daryl and the others will seek out the Saviors and eradicate them in exchange for half of the Hilltop’s current food supplies as well as at least one cow. Maggie is no longer asking for things — she’s more or less demanding it and the instincts that Deanna had about her becoming a good leader seem to be justified as she takes action. It also helps that Gregory and the rest of the people on the Hilltop aren’t very good at confrontation like dealing with a person such as Negan — but that’s just what Rick and the others specialize in. They’ve dealt with a lot of megalomaniacal assholes over the years and they believe Negan is just one more name to add to the list.
Before heading back to Alexandria, Maggie asks for one more thing out of Gregory in exchange for dealing with the Saviors — she has Harlan give her an ultrasound so she and Glenn can get a picture of their baby.
War is Coming
Rick gathers his group along with Jesus and one of the people from the Hilltop who has been a part of the supply exchange with the Saviors since the beginning. He’ll lead Rick and the others back to Negan to deal with him and hopefully retrieve the missing Hilltopper who has been held hostage.
One other side note this episode — Abraham is crushing hard on Sasha although she doesn’t exactly return his emotional attachment. Meanwhile, he’s sleeping with Rosita and accepting gifts from her, all while fantasizing about Sasha. Throughout the episode, Abraham is also trying to wrap his head around bringing a new life into this world while talking to Glenn and Maggie about their new baby on the way. In the end, Abraham loses the necklace that Rosita gave to him and it appears he’s decided that Sasha is the one he wants to be with.
Of course whether or not she actually wants anything to do with him remains to be seen.
Now Rick and the others are headed back to Alexandria to fortify their position, gather a cash of weapons and then finally meet the Saviors for the first time. Michonne knows this could be a bad idea and people will die, but Rick knows without these supplies and food, Alexandria will perish anyways.
So it’s time to batten down the hatches, load the guns and get ready because war is coming and it’s coming soon.
Take a sneak peek at the next episode of The Walking Dead from next Sunday night on AMC
