In The Walking Dead recap, Rick and Morgan go on the hunt, Negan tries to escape from Jadis while Daryl and Rosita decide on the next plan of attack against the Saviors…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
Following a battle against the Saviors a week ago, Rick and the other survivors were either finishing that fight or preparing for the next one with only a few weeks left in The Walking Dead season 8.
The major theme this week surrounded grief and how different people are dealing with it in the apocalypse. For Rick Grimes, he still can’t wrap his head around the fact that Carl is dead so rather than dealing with the pain of his son being gone, he’s lashing out with anger and rage.
For Jadis, she’s decided to take out her grief on the person she believes is responsible for causing it as she kidnapped Negan two weeks ago and now it’s time for a reckoning. Sadly, Negan’s day spent in captivity goes against every single thing we know about this character much less the source material he’s based upon in the comic books, but alas it’s apparently crucial to continue coming back to the trash heap while forcing Jadis to become a central character.
Meanwhile, Morgan is still coming more and more unglued with each passing day until he finally exits to join Fear The Walking Dead in season 4.
And finally, Daryl and Rosita decide on the next best course of action in a pre-emptive attack on the Saviors that will prevent them from restocking their ammunition shelves by taking out the guy responsible for making those bullets.
With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of The Walking Dead titled ‘Still Gotta Mean Something’…
A Man’s Word
Rick walks in on Michonne reading her letter from Carl with tears streaming down her face. Whatever words the boy left behind before dying has left a profound impact on her but Michonne knows that Rick hasn’t faced that same level of emotion since Carl’s death because he still never read his letter.
Reading Carl’s letter would be like saying goodbye and Rick isn’t ready for that just yet.
Instead, Rick decides to take out his anger on the Saviors who were being held prisoner at the Hilltop that managed to escape after Henry opened up their holding cell while members of the community were dying and turning into the undead in the middle of the night. Rick questions Alden, one of the Saviors who decided to stay behind and become part of the Hilltop family.
Alden informs Rick about an old dive bar between the Hilltop and the Sanctuary where the Saviors used to stop along the way and it’s possible the rest of his crew ended up there after fleeing for their lives. Alden begs Rick to give them the same opportunity that Maggie gave him — all them to choose a better way that doesn’t force them to go back to Negan and it won’t put them back in chains at the Hilltop.
Rick more or less brushes off the request as he gets ready to go on the hunt.
Meanwhile, Morgan is still teetering on the edge after seeing visions of Gavin a week ago and now he’s being haunted by Henry, who he believes is already dead after going missing during the ruckus from a couple of nights before when the Hilltop erupted with walkers inside the walls. He still believes it’s up to him to find the boy and at least put him down because his thirst for revenge was only further fueled by Morgan.
As for Carol, she refuses to go look for Henry despite King Ezekiel attempting to give her a pep talk after the fighting was finished. It seems Carol is having flashbacks to her daughter Sophia, who went missing all the way back in season 2 and she had her heart shattered when finding out that the little girl had been dead all along, trapped inside Hershel’s barn on the farm where she had been staying for weeks.
Carol is eventually drawn out beyond the walls when she sees Morgan doing the same as he goes to hunt for missing Henry. Carol feels somewhat responsible for Morgan’s behavior lately after she forced him to break his code to never kill anybody when he was saving her life after she got into a fight with the Saviors.
Unfortunately all signs are pointing towards Henry being dead when they find bloody gear on the ground and a walker stumbling in their direction with his staff shoved through the zombie’s stomach. Still, Morgan refuses to give up because if nothing else he owes it to Henry to put him down if he has indeed turned into a walker.
Carol ends up on the hunt alone while Morgan crosses paths with Rick, who is hot on the trailer of the missing Saviors. Morgan nearly attacks Rick out of instinct because he’s walking a fine line between rational decision making and pure lunacy. Thankfully, Rick is able to talk Morgan down but a second later both of them are knocked unconscious from some attackers they didn’t see coming.
When they wake up, Rick and Morgan are tied up and they’ve been captured by the missing Saviors. Jared, the long haired douche who provoked Morgan back at the Kingdom, is leading the pack but he’s running into problems because some of the people in his group are injured and others are wondering if returning to Negan is really the best plan considering Simon basically left them for dead a week ago.
Rick decides to offer them an alternative.
He claims that there’s a herd coming this way so time is limited but if the Saviors release them, they will allow the rest of the group to come back with them to the Hilltop where they can learn to become productive members of the community. It seems Rick is listening to Alden’s plea as well as perhaps his own son’s words echoing in his head that there has to be something more when this war is over. Rick promises them no harm and that’s his word.
There may not be much left in this world but a man’s word has still gotta mean something, right?
Jared is the one guy who doesn’t believe a word of it but he’s cut short when the herd of walkers actually arrives and starts barreling through the burned out building where they’ve been standing. Jared is ready to finish off Rick and Morgan when another Savior knocks him down and ultimately frees the two prisoners in hopes of currying favor.
The entire group battles back against the walkers, taking them out one by one until Rick gives a signal to Morgan. At that moment, they both turn on the remaining Saviors and slaughter all of them.
Morgan even gets his ultimate revenge on Jared when he traps the last remaining Savior behind a gate while he’s eaten alive by a pack of walkers. Morgan never breaks eye contact as the zombies tear him apart.
As for Carol, she is just about ready to give up on her hunt when she hears screams from the distance. It’s Henry — he’s trapped trying to fend off some walkers who are attempting to get at him. Carol quickly dispatches the undead before pulling Henry back to safety.
When they arrive at the Hilltop, everybody is joyous to see that the boy is still alive, especially King Ezekiel who is proud that Carol never gave up on her mission to find him. Rick and Morgan soon arrive as well, except they are covered in blood.
Alden spots Rick walking inside and has to know that his pleas went unanswered. As for Morgan, he has to hug Henry to make sure he’s real after talking to a vision of him for the past few hours. Morgan then tells Henry that he finally killed the man responsible for murdering his brother Ben. Henry apologizes for not listening to him and for trying to take matters into his own hand while Morgan apologizes for pretty much everything to this point in mentoring the boy.
Finally, Rick walks inside and goes to the drawer where Carl’s letters are stashed. He pulls out the one meant for him to read when Michonne finds him there. They embrace and profess their love for each other as Rick finally reads what his son wanted to tell him with his final words.
Bullet Club
Following the attack on the Hilltop last week, Daryl, Tara and the rest of the community found out the hard way how the Saviors were fighting them now — by tainting their weapons with zombie blood so anybody that gets cut or scratched will eventually turn into one of the undead. Even Tara took an arrow from Dwight last week that convinced Daryl that the turncoat had turned traitor yet again.
There’s just one problem — Tara is perfectly fine.
It seems Tara has been given a clean bill of health, which makes her believe that Dwight might have shot her with an untainted arrow on purpose so she didn’t get sick. Daryl still isn’t buying it, especially considering Dwight never gave them the heads up about the attack and still hasn’t reached out since the fighting stopped. It’s a role reversal from a few weeks ago as Tara now believes Dwight really is on their side while Daryl is beyond skeptical.
Dwight aside, they’ve got another problem to deal with right now.
Supplies are dwindling and ammunition is running short. Another fight with the Saviors will only last about 15 minutes because that’s everything that the Hilltop can throw at them before they are completely out of options.
The only hope right now might be that the Saviors are in an equally dire situation after using most of their ammunition to fight their way free from the horde of zombies at the Sanctuary. That’s when Rosita reminds them that the Saviors will be able to make more bullets thanks to the factory she found and they have the man who can make the ammunition for them — Eugene.
Rosita ends up leading Daryl to the factory where they find the Saviors delivering boxes full of empty shell casings to be turned into usable ammunition. They then find Eugene overseeing the entire operation.
Rosita knows destroying the machines will only slow them down so they have to get rid of the person responsible for making the bullets.
It’s time to kill Eugene
Captive Audience
Back at the trash heap, Jadis has tied up Negan and she’s preparing to torture him or exact revenge somehow after she believes he ordered Simon to wipe out her entire community. Of course, Negan didn’t order Simon to do anything but send a message and he tries to remind her that he views people as a resource.
Still, Jadis is determined to get her revenge but she’s got limited time to work with right now.
We soon discover that inside one of those shipping containers is an entire apartment — pristine and clean from top to bottom — where Jadis resides. She’s checking her watch and packing a bag as she intends to go somewhere but first she has to deal with Negan.
Unfortunately while she left him alone, Negan was able to wiggle free and get into one of her bags where he grabbed a gun, a flare and a pile of photos. Negan lights the flare and threatens to burn the photos, which in turn forces Jadis to roll in another walker she’s tied to a cart as she attempts to finally kill him.
After a lot of back and forth, Negan puts out the flare but that’s not what Jadis wanted.
A few seconds later a helicopter comes flying by — remember Rick spotted a landing pad out in the back of the trash heap a few weeks ago — and it seems Jadis was using that flare as a signal for those people to pick her up. Unfortunately by the time she lights another flare, they’ve flown past the trash heap and turned to go the other way.
Enraged by missing her flight, Jadis threatens to burn up Lucille, which forces Negan to drop his guard for a moment as he reveals to her that he named his baseball bat after his wife. Negan addressed his wife earlier this season when trapped with Father Gabriel and now he does it again while telling Jadis that he has nothing left of her except this bat that he named for his wife.
Finally, Jadis gives up her conquest to kill Negan and she ends up letting him go.
Negan gets dressed, picks up Lucille and promises to come back by to give Jadis one more chance to join them if she wants.
He then hops in a car bound for the Sanctuary but before he gets home he runs into a mystery person walking on the side of the road as he invites them to hop in the car. Whoever it is, Negan knows them and before long he arrives at the Sanctuary but tells the guards to keep it a secret that he’s home.
Negan has a surprise in store for everybody at the Sanctuary when he announces his resurrection from the dead. While the identity of the mystery person on the road is never revealed, it seems likely that it’s Laura — the member of the Saviors who discovered that Dwight had turned traitor but she was lost in the battle at Alexandria when the rest of the survivors escaped.
Negan drives inside as he prepares to return from the dead and then plot his final attack on the Hilltop to put an end to this war once and for all.
Only two episodes of The Walking Dead left this season so don’t miss the penultimate episode next Sunday night at 9pm ET on AMC.
