In The Walking Dead recap, Rick makes it back to Alexandria to warn the townspeople what they’re about to face and Maggie finds out about Glenn…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
It was finally time to slow things down in Alexandria this week on The Walking Dead as Rick returned from his trip hording zombies to accidentally lead half the pack — seemingly a few thousand walkers — back to the front doors of the town surrounded by walls that have never really been used before now.
Last week’s episode featuring the story of Morgan was an enthralling hour that gave some tremendous background on the character who went from bat shit crazy to the master of Zen, but it didn’t exactly advance the overall plot that involved the biggest herd of zombies in the history of the undead being led as far away from Alexandria as possible.
The new episode that aired Sunday night titled ‘Now’ didn’t exactly give us the answers we’ve been looking for either, but this was merely a speed bump for what’s coming down the pipe in the final three weeks of the show before the dreaded winter break.
A lot of set up and exposition as well as some shit zombies — and that’s not a knock on makeup master Greg Nicotero — these were actually zombies covered in shit but we’re no closer to knowing what happened to Glenn or what’s happening to Sasha, Abraham and Daryl but this was a necessary change of pace but something tells me the adrenaline rush over the final few weeks before the break is going to be intense.
With that said let’s recap the latest episode of The Walking Dead titled ‘Now’…..
They’re Coming for You
It seems Rick escaped his RV of doom without a problem because as this week’s episode opens we find Deanna scanning the town before a shouting is heard from the distance asking someone to open the gate! Deanna’s nearly catatonic at this point just staring out into the distance while she hears Michonne explain to Maggie what happened to Glenn before they made it back. The yelling finally wakes Deanna up and the people rush towards the front fence to find Rick sprinting to get inside as the zombie army teeters behind him.
Rick makes it inside and within moments, the zombies are at the gates, scratching and clawing and trying to get in.
The first reaction Rick gets (at least judging by the looks in their eyes) is blame for trying this plan in the first place because it’s already managed to get a few people killed and now the herd that they were specifically trying to lead away is at their front door. Rick obviously feels remorse but before he can bear the brunt of the blame for this latest disaster, Aaron pipes up and reminds them that thanks to Rick they are dealing with thousands of zombies rather than hundreds of thousands of zombies.
Aaron then confesses to his part in leading the Wolves back to town after he foolishly tried to gather supplies and then accidentally left his pack behind, which the scavengers found and it told them exactly where to go to create the most mayhem.
But he also warns everybody that what they are seeing outside the walls is what has been going on for years while they’ve been locked away in a safe space with minimal amount danger in their everyday lives. Without Rick, Alexandria would have already be overrun, but if they want to live through this they need to band together and fight for the town.
Rick warns that the walkers are going to be 20-deep in every direction — that means about 16-feet away from the walls — so escape right now isn’t an option but once their people come back from leading the other horde away, they can do the same thing here. It’s just going to take time and a whole lot of patience.
When Not If
Immediately after hearing about Glenn’s disappearance, Maggie had already decided that she was going to look for him. She didn’t care about the long odds that her husband would actually survive a full on zombie assault and she certainly didn’t want to hear about how he was supposed to give a signal so his group would knew he’d made it. Maggie just wanted to find Glenn.
While she’s arming up with guns and ammo, Aaron finds her and refuses to let Maggie go anywhere — without his help.
Aaron isn’t trying to convince Maggie that Glenn is dead — he’s just trying to suggest the best route out of Alexandria and away from the zombies at the gates.
He shows her an underground sewer system that was set up before the world fell apart and his hope is that they can follow the tunnels to pop out far enough away the zombies at Alexandria’s gates so they can make a run for it.
But while attempting to move a fallen ladder, some shit zombies — zombies that have been stuck in the sewers and marinating in feces — pop out and try to get both Aaron and Maggie. Aaron is actually the one that fights both off to save the day but that’s the least of their troubles when they reach the end of the line and the zombies are already outstretched that far from town.
Aaron wants to go even if it means escaping through an inescapable situation, but Maggie stops him and says enough is enough. This is basically suicide because there’s now way they are going to survive that horde. Then she tells Aaron the real reason she’s so desperate to find Glenn — he’s going to be a daddy.
Maggie admits that she’s pregnant and that’s why Glenn didn’t want her to go on the run to lead the herd away from town. She’s also beating herself up inside after tearing up her last remaining photo of Glenn because Maggie promised herself that they would never be separated again so there was no reason to need pictures. Now she’s pregnant, alone and has no real photo of the man she loved more than anything.
Aaron and Maggie hug it out before heading back into town. When they arrive, Maggie takes some water and goes to the wall where townspeople have been writing names of the dead there to honor them and at the bottom of one column read ‘Nicholas, Glenn’. Maggie went to the wall to wash Glenn’s name off and Aaron joined her to do the same for Nicholas. While cleaning, Aaron says ‘if Glenn’ gets back before correcting himself along with Maggie to say ‘when he gets back’ because they are still holding out hope that he will return.
Reality Check
Jessie is still trying to cope with what she had to do to protect herself when the Wolves came tearing through town trying to kill everybody inside Alexandria. Jessie fended off one attack and ended up stabbing her to death with a pair of scissors and this week she’s trying to bury some in the graveyard just by the walls.
Rick reminds Jessie that they don’t bury killers in this town and when the zombies eventually fade away from the wall, the body will be tossed out like all the other garbage.
On her way home, Jesse spots a moving curtain inside a house and realizes something is wrong. When she approaches the window, a walker attempts to come through after her and she realizes that a woman named Betsy was dead and came back to life. Jessie finally unsnaps the sheathe on her belt and pulls out a small knife before opening the door just slightly enough that Betsy would try to come through and she slid the knife into her eye.
Betsy fell dead (again) and the townspeople looking on after hearing zombie sounds coming from the house were in shock. Jessie finally turns and explains to everyone that this is reality now. What Rick has been telling them is the real deal and where they’ve been living has just been a fantasy. It’s time to fight or die and there’s no third direction.
Back at home, Jessie is dealing with her son Sam refusing to come downstairs because upstairs is the last place he knows as normal. She tries to get him down, but Sam is obviously traumatized by everything that’s happened in the last few days from invaders trying to kill them all inside and now the zombies just clawing away from outside trying to get to him.
As for Ron, he’s calmed down slightly from the last time we saw him, even trying to tell Carl that his new girlfriend Enid escaped over the wall all the time even when he warned her not to do it and that’s probably where she went before the zombies landed at their front gates just hours ago. Carl wants to go after her, but even Ron knows this is a remarkably stupid idea. He even threatens to go to Rick if Carl tries to escape.
While Ron is still holding a grudge with his mother, he does manage to spend some time with Rick this episode as he goes to the lookout tower on the wall and offers to relieve him of duty. He also tells Rick that he was right about everything he said when they went to bury his father in the woods — Ron wasn’t ready to deal with this new world and if you aren’t prepared, you are as good as dead.
Before Rick leaves, Ron reminds him that his mother was going to teach him to shoot and so the former sheriff’s deputy pulls out his own gun, takes out the bullets and shows him the tools of the trade.
Eventually, Rick ends up back at Jessie’s house while trying to discuss with her everything that’s happened recently after she rebuffed him in a bad way earlier this season. Jessie put on a strong face this week as she tried to relay reality to her fellow Alexandrians while telling them all that if they want to keep this place they need to fight for it. In her own head, however, Jessie has doubts and she asks Rick if there really is a future for them (meaning the human race).
Rick doesn’t answer and instead leans in to kiss Jessie and she returns in kind. Whether everybody makes it or not, Rick is telling her with his lips that there is a future and hopefully one for them (Rick and Jessie) as well.
On Call
Denise is struggling as the town’s new physician because she’s not really a physician at all. No amount of book reading helps her figure out how to help Scott (the guy who got shot a few weeks back while on the run to town with Michonne and Heath). Tara shows up to throw her some moral support, which eventually leads Denise to taking another look at the doctor’s manuals before making a breakthrough.
She drains fluid from the infected site of the gunshot wound and like magic, the swelling goes down and Scott’s blood pressure drops just slightly. Denise is relieved because hopefully she just saved this man’s life and maybe now things will get a little easier for her.
Denise finds Tara and rather than explain how her pep talk worked, she lays a kiss on her before sitting down for a few moments together on the porch.
This Pain Will Be Useful to You
(This is what Deanna wrote in Latin on the map of town)
Deanna isn’t coping very well after the death of her husband and the town she helped build seemingly on the verge of falling apart with zombies knocking at their door. Deanna’s day only gets worse after she finally wakes up and maps out part of the town to serve as a farm as well as education and trailing centers only to find her son Spencer half-sauced and well on his way to full blown blackout mode.
He talked a good game earlier in the day when he stopped a group of looters from raiding the pantry when food started to get rationed out, but really he was just biding his time as he came home with a box full of food and liquor with his mind set on facing the end of the world.
This came after he finally admitted to leaving the gate open, which allowed the Wolves to get in but he’s also responsible for shooting the driver to the truck from the Wolves that (honked a loud ass horn that draw the zombies here in the first place) stopped them from crashing through the gates all together.
Spencer fought for this town and everybody else should at least try to do the same.
But his speech was hollow because deep down Spencer agreed with all of them. This is the end. Spencer even lashes out at his mother and blames her for everything that’s happened because in her ultimate leadership she kept everyone sheltered from the reality that was just a few feet outside their front doors and no one in town was ready to deal with this situation until Rick and his people arrived.
Spencer eventually sobers up and heads to the lookout tower to relieve Rosita, who is shedding tears thinking about Abraham out there in the wild. When Spencer comes upstairs, Rosita tries to compliment him on his work in stopping the truck from the Wolves making it through the gates. Spencer says he was lucky not good, but Rosita tells him it doesn’t really matter because it worked!
Meanwhile, Deanna is lost while aimlessly wandering around town and doesn’t know where to turn but as she’s trying to return to the food to the pantry that Spencer took, she’s attacked by a walker that was previously a wolf, who died during the attack a few days ago. Deanna is scared at first but then she switches to seething anger as she stabs the zombie with a broken bottle again and again and again and again until Rick finally shows up and kills the thing with a knife to the head.
Townspeople gather again to see what happened and Deanna, with blood all over her face, turns to Rick and says that this is no longer her place to lead. The people need him and now we are returning to a Ricktatorship!
Deanna walks away but as she’s trekking through town, one of the wall ‘springs’ a leak of blood, which would seemingly signal an area of weakness and one that could end with the downfall of Alexandria.
Only 3 episodes to go during this half season so make sure to check out The Walking Dead next Sunday night at 9pm ET on AMC
