The Walking Dead Recap “Remember”: Welcome to the Alexandria Safe Zone

In The Walking Dead recap, Rick and the survivors try to adapt to life in the Alexandria Safe Zone but who should be afraid of who in this new living situation?

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

The definition of normal is really determined by what kind of environment surrounds you.

For a great majority of people reading these recaps, normal means watching ‘The Walking Dead’ on Sunday nights before getting up and going to work the next morning. For the survivors living through ‘The Walking Dead’ their definition of normal shifted a long time ago and it wasn’t just because the dead started springing back to life and wanted nothing more than a flesh-filled dinner.

Rick Grimes and his band of survivors learned how to depend on each other and no one else. Even in their worst moments, like those two weeks ago when the group was nearing starvation and on edge after losing both Beth and Tyreese, they were able to lean on each other. When an outside threat looked to invade their group, they banded together and immediately lashed out at the idea that there could be some safe haven in this pit of hell where they had been living for the past few months.

So now as the survivors walk into a gated, walled off community known as the Alexandria Safe-Zone, it’s going to be awfully hard for anyone to trust right away much less fully acclimate to this new culture, especially after living in the wild for so long. It’s no different than trying to cage a wild animal and expecting them to understand what it’s like to be surrounded by four walls and people handing you dinner instead of hunting it. Rick and his people have been living in the jungle for quite some time.

Integrating back into what some might call the real world isn’t going to be easy. And some of them might not go willingly.

With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of The Walking Dead titled ‘Remember’.

The Interview

Upon entering the Alexandria Safe-Zone, Rick and the others are prompted to give up their guns, but of course none of them do (right away). The welcome wagon knows right away that these people are a fearsome grew not to be trifled with. Darryl shows up at the front door with a possum he just killed outside and proclaims it dinner. Rick looks like he just got back from war and he’s forever locked in a 1000 yard stare but when he motions towards Sasha, the lady with a rifle knows what to do when a walker approaches from 25-yards away. She fires without blinking an eye, the walker goes down and the people from Alexandria are probably wondering what they got themselves into.

It’s a strange role reversal from the last two places Rick and his people came upon while trying to find a place to survive. While Hershel Greene was a warm, welcoming man, the group found no comfort in the tranquil surroundings at Woodbury or Terminus and those people greeted them with a handshake and a smile as well. This time it appears Rick and his people are the scary outsiders and everybody in Alexandria should be wary of them.

Once inside, it’s time to meet the leader of the safe zone, a woman named Deanna Monroe. Comic book readers will recognize right away that this is a gender switch from the original character, Douglas Monroe, but all the other characteristics appear to be the same.

Deanna is a former congresswoman from Ohio, who was trying to head home when the zombie apocalypse started but got re-routed to Alexandria when it was clear no one was getting out of Washington D.C. alive. Now she’s in charge of all the major decisions surrounding Alexandria including the interviews for the new people hoping to join their town.

She actually records the interviews as a matter of transparency so anyone in town can come view the tapes if they so choose. Each of the conversations are rather telling. Rick looks like the soldier just home from war and he’s not sure how to react to the surroundings. He speaks about loss and killings — both of which he’s been a part of a lot since first waking up in that hospital bed after getting shot so many months ago. As for Carl, he’s brutally straight forward and explains how his mom would have liked this place but it’s too bad she’s dead and he killed her.

Darryl can barely stand still for more than two seconds while Michonne is bubbling over with excitement about the prospects of this new home. Carol might take the award for best interview, however, as she puts on a PTA award winning smile as she explains how she was dedicated to her husband Ed and since this whole war of the undead started, she’s been more of a den mother to the other people in the group more than anything else. Carol’s falsities look like window dressing as she concocts the best plan of anybody to find out what makes Alexandria tick. She’s going to infiltrate the town as the happy homemaker with a heart of gold. Chances are no one will notice she has one hand on her blade at all times. It’s the perfect disguise.

New Digs

Aaron walks Rick and Carl to their new houses in the center of town. It seems Alexandria was designed to be the neighborhood of the future with all the latest in green technology and self-sustaining resources, which helps considering they are cut off from the rest of the world. Everybody in the group gets their own place, but Rick notes that all of them are separated by other houses so he decrees that everyone will sleep in one place for the first night.

One of the benefits of the new place, however, is a working shower and electricity. It doesn’t take Rick long to watch the grime off him and then take aim at a rather burly beard that’s been building up for the past two seasons. Once he’s all trimmed up it’s like that scene out of ‘Mr. Mom’ where Michael Keaton decides to stop being a fat lazy slob and make something out of himself again. In this case, Rick is trying to remember what it’s like to not have to look over your shoulder 24-hours a day and get ready to drop the hammer on whatever threat — human or zombie — that might approach.

Once he’s clean shaven and looking all ‘Love Actually’ again, Rick meets Jessie (played by American Horror Story actress Alexandra Breckinridge). She’s there to give them some sundries, but part of her job in town also includes hairdresser and she offers to give Rick a trim because he desperately needs it. With each snip of the scissors, Rick and Jessie bond just a little bit more. She has a son named Ron, who is close in age to Carl and she even makes artistic sculptures of owls in her front yard whenever she has the time. She helps Rick out in a moment of panic when Carl and Judith disappear, although in reality they were just visiting with an elderly couple who hadn’t seen a baby in ages. She encourages Carl to hang out with her son although he’s quickly got eyes for another newcomer to town named Enid. She’s irritatingly off putting to the new addition to the group so of course Carl has eyes for her already.

Meanwhile, it seems like the sparks are flying for clean-shaven Rick and Jessie, until he goes out for a walk a couple of nights later and runs into the third wheel in this potentially fruitful relationship. A man sitting on a darkened porch smoking a cigarette recognizes Rick and says welcome to Alexandria (which sound suspiciously like ‘fuck you!’) before telling him that he’s Jessie’s husband. You get no second chance at a first impression and the initial thoughts on this guy are what an asshole.

Deanna comes to visit the group on their first night in and commends them on sticking together until they really know if they can trust the new people they’ve just met in town. As the leader of the town, she’s also the person in charge of handing out jobs to everyone who just arrived. Yes, communism wins she says with a laugh.

Everybody has assignments except Rick, Michonne, Sasha and Darryl. She’s still trying to figure something out for them.

Considering Darryl spent the majority of this episode hunkered down in a corner either splitting open the possum he shot earlier or adjusting his crossbow while failing to shower, my guess is he’ll be the sulking badass who just sits around and waits for terrible shit to happen. Darryl is vigilant and clearly doesn’t trust these people and good on him for being the voice of opposition. If it looks too good to be true, it usually is. But for the love of god Darryl, take a shower. There’s nothing wrong with being pissed off and clean at the same time.

But as it turns out even Carl is concerned about what Alexandria will do to them. If there’s a good side to being out in the world for as long as they have been, the survivors have an edge and are ready for whatever gets thrown at them next. As witnessed by the farm, the prison and Terminus, whatever happens a lot. He’s worried they’ll get soft living in Alexandria. Rick assures him that’s not the case.

Employee of the Month

The next day while Darryl is still on the porch, Carol shuffles off to her new job where she looks more like Carol Brady than the gun wielding Rambo we’ve seen all season long. Rick decides to go outside the walls while Carl follows Enid over the wall because why the hell not?

Rick is heading back to the spot where he left the gun hidden inside the blender and surprise, surprise — it’s gone. Right away, Rick is suspicious of his surroundings. Did someone follow them and take the gun? Was someone from Alexandria watching them the entire time and they took the gun? Was it Morgan?

Carl loses track of Enid (of course he does) but runs into his dad just in the nick of time when a group of walkers happens upon them. They dissect them with precision and if nothing else this is good practice to stay in shape for zombie killing mode because no matter how high those walls, everybody has to know eventually they are coming down.

As for Glenn, Tara and Noah, they are teamed up with Deanna’s son Aidan and his pal Ryan, who are the supply crew in charge of scavenging through local towns for food and other needs for Alexandria. Aidan is a former ROTC member but more importantly he’s a douchebag. He even says so right in the beginning so you know this is going to end badly.

Out in the woods, he regales the new team about how important it is that they follow his rules or people get hurt. Just before they arrived, three more people sent on the supply team didn’t make it when a group of walkers attacked and they didn’t listen to Aidan so of course they died. Aidan and his buddy Nicholas did manage to find the walker who killed one of their friends and they tied him up to a tree so they could presumably come back and torture it for days to come. Seeing as how a zombie doesn’t feel pain or remorse, I can’t really fathom the purpose of torturing one, but hey whatever gets your rocks off.

The problem is the walker has gnawed itself free and instead of just letting it go, Aidan and Nicholas actually whistle to get its attention. As it walks back into the trap, they try to wrap its arms but the skin on the zombie is literally falling off the bone. Eventually, Aidan’s sucky job wrangling the walker ends up putting the thing right on top of Tara about to take a bite. Glenn knifes it and Aidan flips out.

He’s pissed Glenn took away his favorite play toy.

Back in town, Aidan is still playing over privileged moron. See what Aidan doesn’t understand is when he’s going out beyond the walls, he’s playing soldier. He’s playing the role of a leader. He’s playing someone at war. Glenn, Tara and Noah haven’t been playing for quite some time and they know what it’s like to actually go through a war. So when Aidan decides to take a swipe, Glenn pops him in the mouth, Darryl jumps in and puts Nicholas down and two days into this new marriage, there’s problems already.

Thankfully there’s no Mexican standoff between Rick and his people and the Alexandria folks. Deanna shows up and admonishes Aidan for being a dick and then finally springs the job offer she’s had waiting for Rick. She wants him to be the town constable and Michonne to be his deputy.

Both accept and before you know it, Rick is cleaned up and wearing a new uniform with a badge and everything! He’s going to be the new sheriff in town.

When Carol expresses her concerns to him about the town and how living in such plush accommodations might dull the razor’s edge they’ve honed over the last few months, Rick puts her mind at ease while letting a little bit of his new Napoleonic complex show through just when it looked like he was acclimating to this new life.

“We won’t get weak. That’s not in us anymore. We’ll make it work. And if they can’t make it — then we’ll just take this place.”
~ Rick

Going into Alexandria, Rick and his people were afraid of what was on the other side of the wall. Now it seems the people on the other side of the wall should be afraid of Rick and his people.

The next episode of The Walking Dead airs Sunday night at 9pm ET on AMC.