The Walking Dead Recap ‘Strangers’: Fear The Hunters

In the latest Walking Dead recap, Rick and the survivors meet Father Gabriel for the first time and little do they know it, but the entire group is being watched by a sinister force known as The Hunters….

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

When The Walking Dead debuted five seasons ago, it didn’t take long for the show to take a big turn away from the original stories that were told in the comic books by creator Robert Kirkman. Certain stories worked better on the show along with different characters being introduced over the years. For instance, Darryl Dixon and his brother Merle don’t exist in The Walking Dead comic book universe yet the show wouldn’t be nearly what it is today without them. The story arcs have followed a similar path as the comics with the farm and the prison both taking center stage, but many longtime readers (myself included) noted that certain places such as Terminus never existed until the TV show.

As it turns out, credit is due to show runner Scott Gimple and company for playing out the Terminus storyline in rapid fashion during the debut episode and then molding everything back into a classic tale from the comic books with episode two on Sunday night titled ‘Strangers’. It was a beautifully woven turn around at the tail end of the episode and a perfectly timed homage to the original work and world crafted by Kirkman.

More on the similarities and differences explained a little later, but for now let’s get into The Walking Dead recap for ‘Strangers’.

Father Gabriel

This week’s episode starts out with the group of survivors trekking through the woods, trying to find refuge after escaping Terminus. Abraham is still pushing for a trip to Washington D.C. and Rick is still unsure if that’s the best plan, but none of it really matters so long as they are all together again. Later that night while camping out, Darryl feels like Rockwell as he sits on watch with Carol, but they shrug it off as just paranoia after dealing with a seriously screwed up situation just a day earlier.

The next morning when they are ready to head out, the group hears a screaming from off in the distance as someone begs and pleads for help. When they arrive, a pastor is sitting atop a tall rock trying to kick away a group of walkers who have him surrounded. He shrieks in terror like he just saw a spider on his bathroom floor until Rick and his team kill off the undead to save his life. When he climbs down, we meet for the first time Father Gabriel.

Gabriel is an iconic character from The Walking Dead comic books, who first meets Rick and his group in a somewhat similar fashion. He’s a loner. He’s been living in his church ever since the outbreak began and has rarely ventured past his front door after surviving on rations left over from a canned food drive his congregation conducted just before the zombie apocalypse began. He hasn’t killed a walker. He hasn’t killed a human either (at least not directly). And of course, Rick doesn’t trust him as far as he can throw him.

When Gabriel leads the group back to his church, they verify as much of his information as possible because the building is empty, there are cans of eaten food all over the place and no sign of walkers or humans for that matter. Gabriel tells Rick that he’s scavenged all of the local food sources within walking distance except for one — a food bank where walkers have taken over and he can’t go there.

Later in the episode, Carl discovers knife marks along the side of the church wall and a message scribbled that reads ‘You’ll burn for this’. Carl wants to find a reason to trust Gabriel so he doesn’t this as a bad sign. Rick has learned through many painful experiences that trust is a four-letter word in this new world so he wants to know what it is Gabriel is hiding.

Comic book fans already know what Gabriel is hiding and if you study the episode long enough, it should be rather obvious what it is he’s holding back from telling Rick and the other survivors. Assuming this plays out like it did in the original material, Gabriel will eventually tell his secrets to the world.

Swamp Zombies

Rick takes Bob, Sasha and Michone with him to check out the food bank along with Father Gabriel in tow. It’s clear Rick isn’t letting this guy out of his sight for more than two seconds so where he goes, Gabriel goes.

Once they arrive at the food pantry, a quick look inside reveals nothing out of sorts — except a gigantic hole in the floor and a dozen walkers roaming around in three feet of water that’s flooded the basement from a hole in the roof. The walkers down there have been water logged for who knows how long and if you’re not aware of the damage water can do to a human when exposed for days upon days at a time, look it up. It’s not pretty.

Rick figures out a way to get to the walkers so they can ultimately get to the food. The attack works well until Father Gabriel freaks out and runs away and Rick has to rescue him from certain death. They finally get all the walkers killed, but remember this is all taking place in chest-high water. Needless to say, Bob finds out the hard way that walkers lurking under the surface are just as dangerous as the ones on land. He goes down under water struggling to survive as Sasha rushes to his aid. These two have become quite the couple of late, complete with kisses along the road while big brother Tyreese watches in approval. Sasha is about to lose her man when Bob pops back up out of the water and they fight off the walker together.

All told, Rick and the group walk out of the pantry with two huge hauls of food, enough to nourish the entire group for days if not weeks. A successful trip — well almost.

Can We Go Back?

The conversations on The Walking Dead this week all surround a general theme of forgive and forget. Carl wants to trust Gabriel because he believes there still has to be someone good left in the world despite everything going to hell. Rick quickly reminds him that no matter where they are, no matter how locked the doors might seem, they are never, ever safe. There’s no going back.

Carol is still feeling the ill effects of killing Lizzie and all of the other awful things she’s done to survive these last few months. She comes to peace with Rick after Carol was originally banished from living at the prison. She’s trying hard to forget all of the bad things that have happened, many by her own hand, but Darryl is convinced that Carol is a good person capable of doing great things.

When they find a car while out searching for supplies, Carol notes that this could be an emergency vehicle to use for a getaway if things go south in a hurry. Later that night when Carol pops up again, she’s got the car running except she’s all along until Darryl happens upon her. It seemed as if Carol was revving up for an escape before he arrived. Carol looked like she had enough group comfort for one night and was ready to be back on her own. Maybe that’s what she believes she needs to survive or maybe it’s what she deserves?

Either way, the question won’t get answer for now because when a car goes flying by in the night, Darryl notices a familiar symbol. It’s the same medical sign that decorated the car that kidnapped Beth weeks ago. He quickly bashes out the rear break lights so the car doesn’t give them away while traveling. Darryl grabs Carol and they are off chasing Beth, wherever she may be.
Tara also has a few moments in this episode as she interacts with Glenn and Maggie. The Walking Dead’s original happy couple is back to where they belong — together. The new trio finds a gun store in town where supplies are short except for three silencers that Glenn finds inside a mini-fridge. As he notes, “there’s nothing left in this world that isn’t hidden”.

Back at the church, Tara finally confesses to Maggie that she was with The Governor when he showed up at the prison, which means she was also standing nearby when he beheaded her father Hershel. Tara admits she didn’t know what kind of man The Governor was when she teamed up with him and if not for Glenn she would have been dead a long time ago. Maggie tells her she’s part of the group now and that’s all that matters.

Is it just me or did it seem like Tara had eyes for Glenn and Maggie during those scenes? Not to turn things into The Walking Dead on Cinemax After Dark, but it certainly looked like Tara was fluttering her eyes for Glenn and then gave a couple knowing looks to Maggie as well.

Purpose

Following the harrowing trip to the food pantry, Rick and his survivors are enjoying a family dinner at the church complete with communion wine as an appetizer. Rick wonders if drinking the wine is sitting well with Gabriel, but as he says it’s just wine unless it’s blessed and in this new world, no one is receiving communion anyway. So with that, Gabriel takes a big swig of wine and tries to forget whatever it is he’s hiding.

Finally with everyone fat and happy on the day’s spoils, Abraham decides to give his speech. He wants the group to follow him to Washington D.C. There Eugene can go to work and find the cure to kill the dead and help the living take back the planet. Eugene also knows Washington is the best possible place to go because if there’s one city prepared for a nuclear fallout, it’s our nation’s capital. They have the shelter, food supply and everything necessary to survive a ‘FUBAR’ (fucked up beyond all recognition for those curious) situation. Rick’s had enough wine by now that he’ll say yes to just about anything and he’s on board. Mr. Grimes is going to Washington.

The two central themes of The Walking Dead have been safety and purpose. They are always searching for one or the other. Safety was finding the farm and the prison. Purpose was going to the CDC looking for answers and now to Washington to hopefully find a way to end this blackest plague of all time.

It’s What’s for Dinner

While the rest of the group is filling up on food and wine, Bob seems a little cutoff from everybody. He’s resolute sitting quietly until he offers Sasha a kiss and one more before he heads outside. It’s there that Bob finds a place of silent reflection and he’s alone with his thoughts. It’s quite clear from his reaction in the food pantry and now outside the church that the underwater walker got a bite of him while he was fighting for his life. His kiss with Sasha was quite possibly his final goodbye.

Before he could actually say anything, however, Bob gets knocked over the head and when he wakes up, the man facing him is none other than Gareth, leader of Terminus.

Gareth reveals the awful truth that’s never quite been spoken since we first discovered the town of Terminus.

“It didn’t start that way — eating people. It evolved into that. We evolved. We had to. And now we’ve devolved into hunters. I told you, I said it, you can’t go back, Bob. I just hope you understand that nothing happening to you now is personal. Yeah, you put us in this situation and it is almost a cosmic justice for it to be you, but we would have done this to anybody. We will. But at the end of the day, no matter how much we hate all this ugly business, a man’s gotta eat.”
~ Gareth

As the camera pans down, Bob meets a horrific sight when he sees that his left leg has been severed and the remaining citizens of Terminus are munching down on a big dinner. A quick look at the fire reveals a foot attached to a leg that’s nothing much more than bone now after the Termites have filled their bellies with Bob. Gareth comments that Bob’s leg tasted better than they expected as he munches down on another barbecued bite. The group that survived Terminus also reveals that the Detroit Tigers’ baseball cap wearing psycho who nearly killed Judith was very much alive. It seems Tyreese is still unwilling to kill and now it’s going to cost the group because this guy is coming back to haunt them.

This was a scene ripped straight from the comics — much to my delight — although in the original story it was Dale who was being eaten (obviously he’s dead already in the show). Gareth also revealed in his speech the story we are about to enter as he stated his group has devolved into Hunters, which kicks off the plot from the comics known as ‘Fear the Hunters’. Rejoice, things are about to get really interesting.  Also a word of note, if you haven’t read the comic books yet, this is a great story to check out — it’s volume 11 of the collected editions for those curious and a really good read as well.

And if you thought Bob’s leg getting eaten was the worst of it, you haven’t seen anything yet.

A much slower paced episode than last week, but the tension was ratcheted up to a new extreme with some taut moments in the basement of the food pantry not to mention what happened to poor old Bob. So far The Walking Dead is two-for-two in great episodes for season five and hopefully this train doesn’t slow down as things get really interested next week as Darryl continues to look for Beth and the group finds out that they are definitely being watched from someone on the hunt.