In ‘The Walking Dead’ recap, Rick and Michonne go hunting for guns while Rosita is hunting for revenge…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
The road to war is long and winding and that evidence has never been more clear than the last few episodes of ‘The Walking Dead’ that are all building towards the eventual showdown between Rick Grimes and his fellow survivors against Negan and the Saviors.
The slow build will eventually culminate in a grand battle between the factions but getting there is taking some time. The latest episode is more of that building process as Rick and Michonne went on a honeymoon away from Alexandria while searching for guns to hand over to Jadis and the Scavengers.
Their trip lead them far away from town — so far in fact that Rick seemed ready to leave everybody else behind and just enjoy a life out in the wild with the woman he now loves.
Meanwhile, Rosita’s anger grows more and more volatile by the day and she’s tired of all the planning and strategizing that it’s going to take to stop Negan once and for all. Instead, Rosita prefers charging at him like a bull, which will likely get her killed or as we saw this week it might get someone else killed instead.
And finally, Tara’s promise to keep Oceanside a secret has seemingly come to an end as she realizes that to defeat Negan they are going to need those women to either join forces with them or the guns they possess are going to be used in the all out war that’s brewing with the Saviors.
Honeymooners
This week’s episode of ‘The Walking Dead’ picks up with Rick and Michonne scavenging through the surrounding areas outside of Alexandria in an attempt to find guns that they can hand over to Jadis and the Scavengers so they will join the battle against Negan and the Saviors. Of course no one said hunting for weapons couldn’t be fun because Rick and Michonne seem to spend the days looking for supplies and the nights wrapped up in each others’ arms doing the dirty.
Unfortunately as much fun as Rick is having with some alone time with his lady, they just aren’t finding enough supplies to justify going out that much further. With only two guns recovered and some canned goods, the trip is looking like a flop but Rick is still insisting on spending another day or two out there together before heading back to Alexandria.
On the morning of the last day looking for supplies, Michonne spots a deer in the woods and Rick decides to join her on the hunt. Rick feels like he owes her a deer after she killed one at the start of this season and he forced her to hand it over to the Saviors are part of their deal with the group.
They hunt the deer but can’t find it in the woods, but Rick and Michonne happen upon and even better discovery — a military stronghold that was set up at a local carnival when the zombie apocalypse first started.
The camp was set up with fences all the way around and the one century guard, who had been long since turned into a zombie, was still carrying around his machine gun. After killing the guard, Rick and Michonne make their way inside before getting on top of the roof to look down at what they just found.
The carnival ground was filled with walkers — the last remains of this group that tried to survive before they were eventually overrun — but each of the soldiers on the ground still had their weapons on them. Rick knows this is the break they’ve been waiting for and now all they have to do is devise a plan to kill the walkers, take the guns and they will have the weapons necessary for Jadis and her people to join their fight against Negan.
Before Rick and Michonne can enact any kind of plan, the roof caves in and the two of them fall into the building below but rather than finding more walkers awaiting them inside they get a much better surprise instead.
The room is packed with canned goods and supplies, which leads Rick and Michonne into a candle lit dinner together as they spend at least one more night out in the wild before concocting a plan to take down the walkers and get those guns.
Zombieland
As much as the Rick and Michonne are enjoying their de facto honeymoon away from Alexandria, it’s time to take down the carnival full of walkers and get those guns before heading back to town.
Of course the plan goes awry almost immediately with Rick and Michonne getting locked in a car that was supposed to serve as a blockade to keep more walkers from pouring into the compound. Once that backfires, Rick and Michonne battle their way out and decide on a different plan of attack.
Michonne takes one section of the park while Rick goes to the Ferris wheel where he will kill off the other half of the walkers. In the midst of the battle, Rick gets distracted by that same deer he spotted earlier and he climbs up on the Ferris wheel in an attempt to get a better shot at it so he can serve his lady some fresh venison for dinner.
Unfortunately, the Ferris wheel booth gives way and Rick comes crashing down with walkers surrounding him from all sides. The entire plan was predicating on killing the walkers without making too much noise but with no other choice, Rick is forced to start firing on them with his gun.
The shots ring out and it alerts Michonne that Rick is in trouble so she finishes up her half of the walkers and runs for the Ferris Wheel to save him.
When she arrives, Michonne only finds the walkers all gathered around something that was recently living because they are chowing down like Thanksgiving dinner. Michonne is heartbroken because she knows it’s Rick and so she drops her sword and basically stands there waiting for the rest of the walkers to take her, too.
A moment later, Rick springs out of a hiding spot because the walkers were actually munching on the deer and he tosses Michonne her sword — in a really cheesy action sequence — before the two of them slice and dice the rest of the walkers together. The two of them are reunited — alive and well — and now they have guns and plenty of supplies to take back to Alexandria.
On the road back to town, Rick pulls off the road where they discuss what happens next and what happens after Negan is defeated. Michonne believes Rick could be the leader who takes charge of all three communities between Alexandria, the Kingdom and the Hilltop but he says he doesn’t want that responsibility any longer. Rick says his only goal right now is the pay back Negan for what he did to his friends.
It’s a rather heartfelt moment when Rick finally addresses Glenn’s death by remarking how he wouldn’t be alive today without him — remembering that Glenn saved his life in that tank when he first woke up from his coma and found zombies had taken over the world — but when it came time for him to repay that favor, he couldn’t save him.
Glenn isn’t coming back but Rick is damn sure going to make Negan pay for it.
Rick also declares that no matter what happens during this upcoming battle with Negan and the Saviors that they must move forward for the greater good of the community. If Rick dies, Michonne needs to carry on and the same goes for him if she dies. Rick feels like they are now fighting for something much bigger than themselves — they are battling for a better life for Judith as well as Glenn and Maggie’s baby and everybody else who will only know what this world looks like after it already fell apart.
Take Your Shot
Rick and Michonne deliver the guns to Jadis and her people but there’s one problem — the 63 weapons they recovered still aren’t enough to satisfy the demands of the Scavengers. Rick strikes a secondary deal with Jadis to take back 20 guns so they can continue to hunt for more.
Unfortunately, Rick’s continued search for guns to appease the Scavengers means more time before they can strike back against Negan and the Saviors and that leaves Rosita feeling unsatisfied because her thirst for vengeance needs to be quenched.
When Tara sees just how determined Rosita is to get revenge along with the Scavengers demanding more weapons, she begins to realize that there may only be one way to satisfy everybody in this current climate and that’s by outing the Oceanside community to Rick and the others. She promised when she left Oceanside that their community would remain a secret but they have a huge stash of guns that could be the tipping point in the war with Negan and the Saviors.
With Rosita reaching her tipping point, Tara decides that it’s time to come clean to Rick about what she saw out in the world before returning to Alexandria — namely her encounter with the Oceanside community.
As for Rosita, she’s haunted by a long list of ‘what if’s’ and that leads her to a confrontation with Father Gabriel after he talked her out of going after Negan previously. Rosita is really struggling with the evil that Negan has perpetuated yet he still hasn’t had to pay for any of it. It doesn’t help matters much that Rosita’s own search for weapons ends with walker blood sprayed all over her clothes and the gun she though she found was nothing more than a toy.
Finally after reaching her breaking point, Rosita makes a trip to the Hilltop to visit her old pal Sasha with a plan to bring Negan’s reign of terror to an end once and for all. Rosita is done waiting on troops to gather and weapons to be found.
She wants Negan dead now.
So she presents Sasha with a unique opportunity — with knowledge about the Sanctuary thanks to information shared from Jesus, Carl and Daryl — Rosita believes they can make it inside to get a real shot at Negan. Rosita knows they aren’t going to just get close to him without a fight, however, so she gives Sasha a gift that will help them in their fight to make him dead.
Rosita hands Sasha a sniper rifle that Rick and Michonne captured while out gathering guns. Of course, Rosita has one more wrinkle to add to this mission — the two of them are going with plans of eliminating Negan once and for all but after he’s dead, neither of them will probably make it out of the Sanctuary alive.
Rosita and Sasha agree that this is a one way trip but this suicide squad is willing to take the risk if that means Negan is finally gone.
‘The Walking Dead’ returns with a brand new episode next Sunday night at 9pm ET on AMC
