The Walking Dead Recap ‘Them’: Live Together or Die Alone

In the latest Walking Dead recap, in one of the most downtrodden episodes in recent memory, the group is faced with surviving the elements as much as the zombie apocalypse…

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

To say there are happy days on The Walking Dead is really better measured in varying degrees of grief and regret. Sometimes it’s easier to forget the charred world filled with undead zombies all looking for a piece of human flesh to snack on when there’s an enemy on the horizon like The Governor or the Terminites.

But left with no gas, no water and nothing but haunting memories of lost loved ones plus 60-miles to go until Washington D.C., the group really hit a ditch in this week’s episode titled ‘Them’. Darryl was left digging into the dirt to eat a worm for sustenance while Maggie could barely be bothered to kill a walker as she was sitting alone in a somber mood undoubtedly contemplating the loss of her last known living relative. Sasha was seemingly the most disconnected of everybody, spurning both Michonne and Abraham who made an attempt to reach her as she was a mixed bag of sadness and rage after the loss of her brother Tyreese a week ago.

The point is things have always been bad on ‘The Walking Dead’ but for the first time in a long time, the group no longer looks like people trying to survive. Instead they are just barely hanging on by a thread and instinct to live seems to be about the only thing keeping them from just packing it in and calling it quits. Things are quite bleak until they finally find a reason to come together again and then a stranger calls…

Let’s recap this week’s episode of ‘The Walking Dead’ titled ‘Them’

Hard Times to Come

It’s not bad enough that the vehicles are out of gas and so the survivors are left to walk on blazing hot concrete with the sun bearing down on them with no water and no signs of food, but add on a mountain of loss and it feels like the weight of the world is on their shoulders as they try to make it to Washington D.C.

Maggie is inconsolable about the loss of Beth because in many ways it feels like she lost her twice. For a big part of the season one of the complaints about Maggie was her outward lack of care when it came to wondering about her sister’s whereabouts, but as she explained tonight, it really came down to her already assuming Beth was gone and letting her go only to find out she was alive again. But before the same day ended, Beth actually was dead and Maggie never even got the chance to say goodbye.

It’s left her in an implosive state where she doesn’t want to eat or drink and the slightest attempt at human connection by Father Gabriel ends with Maggie accusing him of hiding in his church like a coward when his congregation needed him most. In other words, Maggie will decline your pep talk, Gabriel.

Meanwhile, Darryl is just downtrodden and can’t face the pain he’s feeling from Beth dying just moments after he thought she was coming home. He heads off on different paths at a couple of points this episode searching for water when in reality, Darryl just wants to be left the fuck alone. Carol tries to comfort him by handing him Beth’s knife and reminding him that he once told her poignantly that ‘you’re not dead’ before she brushed back his hair and kissed him on the forehead.

Darry’s trek through the woods finally finds him by an old abandoned barn where he sits down for a smoke. Instead of just puffing his way through misery, Darryl instead decides to go full emo and burns himself with the cigarette before breaking down in tears and sobbing for the first time in forever. Sometimes you just need a good cry, Darryl. Cue the Dashboard Confessional.

And then there’s Sasha.

She’s not only sad about losing Tyreese, but she’s pissed off that anyone can even try to comprehend what she’s going through right now. There are several hands extended offering help, but each time she slaps them away. When a group of walkers starts to get closer to the group, Rick devises a plan where instead of wasting a bunch of energy they don’t have, they will toss the zombies down the side of a steep hill and leave them there instead of swinging blades, shooting guns and giving up what little they have left in physical reserves.

Things are going well enough until Sasha goes rogue and just starts slicing and dicing the zombies with her knife, which forces the rest of the group to dive in and do the same to back her up. Rick nearly gets bit until Darryl pops out of the woods and makes a late save while Michonne ends up pushing Sasha to the ground because it’s time for this shit to stop.

Dog Soldiers

Hunger and thirst are setting in and it’s about as dire as it can get right now for our survivors. Just then a pack of mangy dogs show up, growling and barking at the group because even canines gotta eat in the zombie apocalypse. They don’t get to attack, however, because Sasha cuts them down in a hail of gunfire. Just when it seems like Rick is going to admonish her, he instead picks up a stick, breaks it in two and the next thing you know it’s doggy barbecue time. Desperate times call for desperate measures and at least they’re not eating each other (yet).

Noah is the latest person to express his misery because after everything that’s happened including his part in Tyreese’s death, he’s not sure he can carry on or survive much longer. Sasha isn’t exactly giving him confidence when she tells him that if he thinks that way then he won’t make it. And Father Gabriel after Maggie told him in no uncertain terms that he was the worst preacher this side of Jim Bakkar, tosses his collar into the fire, burning away whatever remnants he has left from his former life. No sugar coating this episode, folks.

Glenn is the one voice of reason amidst a pack of depression when he finally reaches out to Darryl and channels his inner Jack Shephard and gives a Walking Dead version of ‘live together, die alone’.

“We can make it together but we can only make it together”
~ Glenn

As if things weren’t bad enough already, Rick and the rest of the group find a stockade of water bottles and jugs left for them in the middle of the road left with a note attached saying ‘from a friend’. Eugene doesn’t give a damn if these water bottles are tainted, he’ll be the parakeet down the mine shaft because he’s thirsty but Abraham — despite all of his huge list of issues with Eugene thanks to his lies — slaps the bottle away because they are all still in this together and who knows what’s inside this free water left by someone clearly watching the group make their way up the road.

As they say, the night is always darkest before the dawn and just when it looks like the group is going to die of thirst, the skies open up and the rain starts to fall.

Everybody is loving the rainfall as if it’s washing away their shared sadness, but there’s a bigger problem on the horizon — this isn’t just any storm. It’s turning into tornado weather and they need to find shelter and fast. Thankfully, Darryl reveals the barn he found earlier in the day and they make a run for it.

We Ain’t Them

Inside the barn, the mood hasn’t exactly raised but it’s starting to improve ever so slightly. Rick opens up and tells the group a story by the campfire about his grandfather and the torment he went through while fighting for the United States during World War II.

When Rick was a boy he asked his grandpa if he killed anybody while he was overseas and his granddad responded that that was something only adults should know. So Rick countered with the question did any Germans try to kill him? Rick’s grandfather explained to him that the day he left for war he was already dead and he woke up every morning with the idea that he was gone before picking himself up off the ground, loading his rifle and going back into the fray alongside his band of brothers. Only after the war was over did Rick’s grandfather remember how to live.

He believes it’s the same thing for the survivors right now. While the title of the series has always seemingly referenced the undead masses with a hunger for flesh, Rick turns things around and explains that the ones who are still alive are real walking dead.

“That’s the trick of it I think. We do what we need to do and then we get to live. But no matter what we find in D.C. I know we’ll be okay. Because this is how we survive. We tell ourselves that we are the walking dead.”
~ Rick Grimes

Darryl disagrees and says ‘we ain’t them’ before getting up and going to another corner of the barn (presumably to cry some more). But in these moments of despair when it appears this group is about to be torn apart — either by the creatures looking to do them harm or just the internal strife that torments them daily — Darryl peaks outside the barn and sees a herd of walkers rumbling towards the doors. He blocks the double door with his own body and before long Maggie notices and runs to do the same. One by one, each group member gets up and hurls themselves at the door, trying to fight back the mass of undead looking to break in and eat them alive.

The next morning, everyone is still alive but for the first time in days, they actually feel alive again. Darryl and Maggie have a quiet moment grieving for Beth and before long Maggie is outside with Sasha as both of them share a smile and a laugh over a constantly broken music box that Carl gave to her earlier and Darryl just tried to fix. But there’s no time for laughter when a strange man walks up on them, dressed like he just got out of a L.L. Bean photoshoot.

Maggie and Sasha draw their weapons and keep him at further than arm’s length. Just then the man ups the creepy factor by acknowledging that his arrival is probably scary but he means them no harm. He just wants them to take him to their leader Rick, who he already knows by name, before introducing himself as Aaron.

Was Aaron the ‘friend’ who left the water bottles on the road? Comic book fans already know the answer who Aaron is or who we all expect him to be, but no spoilers here. Just get ready for the next episode because this guy isn’t a one and done character. Aaron will be around for a while…

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