What I Watched Today
(rambling, random thoughts & annoyingly detailed recaps from real time TV watching)
The Walking Dead
Michonne
Michonne looks lost while Rick decorates the cross on Carl’s grave with a gun. She lets off steam by whacking some zombies’ heads off. As I like to do when I’m stressed. She looks at the half burned down Alexandria, and shuts the gate. Making sure to take half a zombie’s face off with it, and stabbing some in the eyeballs first.
Rick asks for some pudding. Just kidding. Nobody is saying anything, and I got bored. Michonne looks at Carl and Judith’s finger-paint handprints on the porch, and gets even more bummed. She goes inside. She tells Rick they have to go. They slip out the back door.
When they get to the car, Michonne grabs a fire extinguisher and runs with it; Rick following with another one. They try putting out a fire in the gazebo, but the zombies are forming a crowd, so they both run back to the van. Nice try. Alexandria has officially been taken over by zombies.
Rick asks what Michonne is thinking. Does she want to stop fighting? She says they could pull over, but he says not yet, not him. He wants to talk to Jadis. They have weapons and people, and they need them. She asks why now? He tells her that they went to the Sanctuary. They were seen, and will be a target too.
They sneak around where the trash pile is. Rick opens the door to go in, and it’s like a Three Stooges prank. A rope is triggered, and all this stuff on the roof above tumbles down. There are zombies all over the place.
Negan
Negan wants his men to check every nook and cranny. The Alexandrians had an escape plan. Rick’s kid is plaguing him; he’s built for this sh*t. Simon asks if he’s heard from Gavin. Negan says, no, but it’s coming. Gavin is perpetually pissed off, but has it together. Simon asks where Negan wants him; he’s not running down Rick. Negan says, the garbage people. Simon thinks it will be worth it to get the guns, but Negan says they may have pulled a triple-cross, but they’re still a resource. A deal with him is a lock, stock, and suck-my-barrel deal. He tells Simon to deliver the standard message. Take one out, and the rest fall in line. Just one. He asks if Simon has anything to say. Simon thinks maybe they should cut their losses. None of them can learn the lesson, no matter how many times they teach it. No one understands the situation one little bit, so maybe they should learn. Scrape the plates into the trash, move further out, and find other communities to save. Negan laughs. He’s doing his best to hold it together right now. He tells Simon to take own advice. The easy way isn’t their way. Saving people is hard, but it works. Simon says (it finally became unavoidable), not lately, and Negan tells him once he clips Rick, everything will be aces again.
There’s a knock at the door. Some guys bring in a delivery. It’s the crate from Hilltop. Negan tells them to get out, and he reads the lid: We have 38 more – stand down. We hear zombie noises from inside. Simon pries open the Crate, and Negan nail guns Dean in the head multiple times. Simon tells Negan that means the rest are from the outpost. They’re killing everyone, and he can’t let them get away with it. Negan tells him he’ll do his job. Simon is obviously not happy, but says nothing.
Enid
Enid and Aaron are shoved into a house by the Oceanside women. Aaron says, let’s talk about it, but they get chained to a radiator. One of the women tells Cyndie that Netanya was her family, and another says she should just kill them. The women leave, and Enid and Aaron are left alone.
Aaron says they’ll get out of it. Enid says it’s not about that. She had to do it. Netanya made her do it, and she’d do it again
Cyndie and her crew come back, and unchain them. They cuff Enid and Aaron’s hands behind their backs, and Cyndie says take them to the beach. Aaron says it’s her decision, but she has to own it (what is this? Real Housewives?), and she’d better have a good reason to kill them, other than making herself feel better. Killing is the punishment, but if Cyndie executes them, some of their people will come looking. They might kill a few more, but eventually, they’ll get wiped out. Her grandmother got herself killed. He tells her not to make the same mistake. Let them go. They’ll keep fighting, and the Oceansiders can keep hiding. Cyndie says, no… they live, confusing all of us
Aaron asks if she wants to know if they win, and she says, yes. He asks her to help them win. She says their contribution was not killing them, and they’ve taken everything else the Oceansiders can give. She tells him not to come there again. Aaron suggests they stop trying to kill strangers. They need to know the difference between friends and enemies. She says, don’t come back. Cyndie and her posse walk off, looking like weird Girl Scouts.
Aaron asks if Enid knows how to get to the car. She says they’re not going to help. Aaron wants to go home, but can’t leave until they join the fight. Enid says Beatrice and Cathy (which, no doubt, is spelled Kaythe) seem open to it, and Aaron thinks he can convince both. He tells Enid to go back and tell Maggie what he’s doing, but not to come. Enid thinks they’ll kill him if he goes back there, and he says he won’t go back there. No matter what happens, he’ll be okay. She makes him promise she’ll see him again, and he makes her promise she’ll be okay. They hug, and he tells her to go.
Commercial break. Talking Dead has a surprise guest. That usually means someone significant dies.
Simon
Simon is going to the landfill. He says, no worries, grabs some dudes, and they head to the heap.
Both the Saviors and the Heapsters draw their guns. Simon asks Tardis Jadis if they’re not friends, and she gives a nod. He says the bottom line is they need an apology – genuine. He knows she had a side deal with Rick, despite their preexisting arrangement. She saw them, and tried to kill them. By now, she’s had time to prepare a heartfelt act of confession. He tells her to feel free to use notes. Jadis says, no deal with Rick. They delivered him, brought him to the Saviors. Simon calls bullsh*t, but says no need to worry. They’ve cut themselves a big break. Negan is graciously willing to forego punishment. If they agree to revert to the agreed upon terms, all is forgiven. However, they will be taking all guns and ammo the Heapsters currently have. Jadis says danger is everywhere, and they need guns too. Simon tells her not when they have the Saviors. The Saviors will provide guns when they need them. Jadis nods because she’s used up her words for the day. The Saviors take their guns.
Simon asks about painting, if she learned it before or after. She says you don’t learn, you just know, which I kind of agree with. He asks why the dump? There had to be a better place to call home. Jadis says, our place. He wonders what the deal is with the helipad and solar panels (which is a clue to something, according to Robert Kirkman), and asks what it was before. She says, a dump. Simon laughs, but he’s not buying it. He wants to know if she understands they have guns and a deal, and he wants the full definition of an apology. What he got was a transgressional acknowledgment, and the guns as restitution, but no remorse. She says, there is remorse, and he shoots Brion. She repeats, there is remorse, and he shoots Tamiel. (Her two main people. I got their names from Talking Dead.) Jadis punches Simon, knocking him down, and says, there is remorse, you SOB. He says, no, no, no. He doesn’t think she means it. He says, light it up, gents. Everyone starts screaming, and they shoot… everyone? I’m not so sure Negan is going to like this.
Simon returns. Simon tells Negan that they got guns that and then some. Negan asks how it went, and he says the standard mess and delivery. They showed and told him they had remorse. There’s a call for Negan on the radio. It’s Rick.
Jadis
Michonne and Rick knock off the zombies at the trash pile. They climb up, since zombies aren’t good at climbing. Jadis is there. Michonne asks what happened, and Jadis says, Saviors. Rick asks how they get out, and Jadis says the same way they got in. Jadis starts to talk, and loses her woman-of-few-words shtick as she goes along. She says they weren’t heaps. There was just trash far as the eye could see. She would go there to find things to paint on – metal and fabric. When everything changed, she realized the whole place was a canvas, and they were the paint. They could create something new, become something new, and they did. This was their world, apart from everyone else in every way. Rick says, you did this because of you.
Rick picks up a car door, and twirls it around. He bends some pieces of it; he’s going to use it as a shield. Jadis says she’s coming with them until they’re gone. Rick says he’s done with games. She can’t help them anyway. He goes down, and uses the door to knock some zombies around, and shoots some others. Michonne shoves the stuff in front of the door out of the way. Jadis asks them to just let her get out, but no deal.
All is quiet at the trash piles. Jadis pounds on the ground, and the zombies come toward her. They’re stopped by a chain several feet from her. She flips a switch, and a grinding machine turns on. I assume it was once used to crunch up trash. It’s between her and the horde, and she releases the chain with a stick. As they continue forward, they fall in and get chopped up. Cool. She watches as people she knows fall in. She cries. It churns out chili con zombie. When all of the zombies have been dispatched, she shuts off the machine.
Jadis digs a file cabinet out of one of the trash piles. She takes out a box that says apple sauce. I think it must be something else, and just says that to throw people off, but it’s apple sauce. She eats some, and I reflect on Carl’s pudding, and eat a piece of beef jerky, which somehow seems appropriate.
Rick
Rick tells Michonne he shot above Jadis’s head; he saw she made it. He didn’t want her dead, just gone. Michonne says they have a choice. He stops the van, and says he needs a second. He gets out and walks through a field next to the road.
He takes out Carl’s letter to Negan, and looks at it. I guess we don’t get to know what it says, but Rick looks like he has a headache. He radios Negan, who asks where he is, saying they should talk face to face. Rick says Carl is dead, and Negan is visibly shaken. Rick tells Negan that Carl left some letters, and wrote one to him. He asked Negan to stop, and asked Rick to stop. He asked them to make peace, but it’s too late. Even if Negan wanted to deal, it doesn’t matter. He’s going to kill Negan. Negan asks how it happened. Was it them? The grenades or the fire? Rick tells him that Carl went out to help someone, and got bit. Negan says, goddammit. He says he’s sorry, and I totally believe it. He’d wanted Carl to be part of things; he had plans. Carl was the future. Rick says the only future is one where he’s dead. Negan asks why Rick is making this hard. Carl is dead because he couldn’t leave sh*t well enough alone. Maybe he would have died anyway, but in this case, he’s dead because Rick wasn’t there to stop him from doing something stupid. He set the course; who’s next? Rick says, Negan is. Negan says, someone is. He stops people from dying. He’s the answer. It might be a hard lesson to hear, but it’s time. He tells Rick not to let another sh*t decision cost him the people he loves. That garbage sticks with you forever, like Carl will. He’s feeling it, and will for a while. He could have let Negan save all of them. That’s why he killed them in the first place, so Rick could say he’ll kill him when he won’t. He’s failed as a leader. He should just give up. He’s already lost.
Next time, Gabriel is up and running, Dwight says it’s too dangerous, a swamp full of zombies, and Eugene makes something.
👂 Although I’ve long grown weary of this show being so one note – now Rick even seems to have perpetual tears in his eyes – I actually got something out of the episode. Negan’s methods need some serious tweaking, but he makes sense to himself, and is better leader than Rick, especially at this point. Rick should have waited a hot minute before going against Negan, since he was originally taken by surprise and didn’t have a plan. Instead, he went on his emotions. It seems odd that now he doesn’t want to take a stab (no pun intended) at making Carl’s vision a reality. What spoke to me, is that Carl had a revelation of an idyllic new society, and instead of trying to make that happen – which seemed to be his original plan – Rick has put up his own road block. It made me think of how we often get in our own way of attaining what we say we want. Of course, zombie stories are rarely really about zombies. I just wish this one were more balanced. To be fair, I doubt Carl’s dream could be achieved. It’s like socialism. Great in theory, but there’s always somebody who is going to want more. And in this case, that somebody is Negan.
📡 As much as Walking Dead annoys me, I love Talking Dead. It’s nice to see that nerds are finally getting a voice, and not just on the Sy – we can’t spell – Fy channel. I’m sure The Big Bang Theory made a big contribution to that. Along with Comic Book Men, this show is a nerd’s dream. Lots of getting deep into things that are pretty much meaningless. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a nerd myself, and labeled myself as such long before it was fashionable. I used to stand out at Star Trek conventions. I’d probably just blend in now. Anyway, Chris Hardwick fooled us. The surprise guest was Enid (Katelyn Necon), who did not die. There was some discussion as to whether Rick did the right thing not helping Jadis get out. The general consensus was that he did, because she’d screwed him over. I’m of two minds on that. Yeah, there is that, but she got left alone with a load of zombies after she’d just poured her heart out to him about her art – and probably used more words than she had in the past two years. On the other hand, while I don’t think her wanting to get the best deal for her people was that horrible, Rick might have done her a favor in having to be on her own, and rely on herself. Who knows? Maybe she’ll end up at Oceanside. The highlight of the show for me was when they had the factoid segment. According to his portrayer, Steven Ogg, Simon is a multi-layered persona, who is a bit of a bully, but loves musical theatre. Who knew?
🏥 Speaking of Comic Book Men, glad to hear Kevin Smith is on the mend.
✌ The Two Kevins…
What I Watched - TV With Theresa 