What I Watched Today
(rambling, random thoughts & annoyingly detailed recaps from real time TV watching)
The Walking Dead
In a voiceover, Judith says, the only way she’s known is to fight. They’ve done so much, but there’s so much more to do. She wants to believe there’s hope, but together there’s hope. Isn’t there?
Maggie struggles to get out of the zip tie on her wrists, as the guard snoozes. She frees herself, then Gabriel, who frees Rosita, but the guard wakes up. Gabriel and Rosita jump out, and Maggie gets the guard’s gun, shooting the two troopers in front, and tossing the guard out the back. The truck crashes, and Maggie gets out, ducking down as the rest of the caravan passes crash.
Gabriel and Rosita lie in the woods, as the one of the troopers reanimates. Gabriel leaps up, shoving the zombie away from Rosita, and she slices its head open from behind. Gabriel asks if she’s okay, and she says, she’s been better. Him? He says he’s been worse. He takes the trooper’s radio, and a call comes in. The caller says, there’s been no sign of 525 and the escapees, but they found a set of boot tracks that looks like they might be 525’s. Gabriel and Rosita jet.
On the bus, Ezekiel comes to, and takes his hood off. The others slowly do the same. They hear banging, and when it stops, Ezekiel asks if everyone is all right. Kelly asks how long they were out for, and he says he doesn’t know, but his neck is still sore from the injection. Negan says, no sign of Maggie, Gabriel, or Rosita, and Annie says, the trucks are being unleaded. They stopped for a few minutes, and there was a crash. Does he think it was them? A guy gets on the bus, and tells them, welcome. Today is the day of a new beginning. The world works when everybody knows their place. Their place is at the bottom. The resources they used bring old world back sustains the Commonwealth. Their labor will be appreciated, and is their redemption; their salvation. The children safe, and if they play by the rules, they’ll see them again. They must work as one. Here, nobody has a name. There’s no need for them. He’s not going to tell them his name, and they won’t address each other by theirs. If he points to them, they’re to stand up, and go to the rear. Some troopers open the back of the bus, and he picks people out. He points to Annie, but not Negan, and Negan tells her that he’s going to get them out of here, all three of them. The guy tells those left on the bus that the others are being transported to another site. The one on the bus are going to work until the tracks are clear. If they work hard, they’ll be protected by the Commonwealth. Although they’ve been delivered from the utopia of the Commonwealth, it’s better to be here than the wasteland. One of the troopers tells them, get to work.
Maggie wanders in the woods, and sees a child zombie. She flashes back to seeing him when he was alive, and picks up a rock, but walks past him.
Gabriel asks Rosita, what’s the plan? and she says, to follow the convoy. He says, then what? There’s only two of them. What are they going to do? Knock on the door and ask for their daughter? She says, if he has a better idea, she’s all ears. She suggests splitting up, but he says, no way, he’s not leaving her, and she says, then come on. A couple of zombies come out of the woods, and Gabriel kills them, but Rosita gets knocked down in the melee. She says, her arm is dislocated, and tells him what to do. He pops it back in, which is obviously painful, and she gets up. She starts walking, and he tells her that she needs to rest. What good is torturing herself? She asks, what she always says to him, and he says, quit bitching, and move forward. They hear a train, but Gabriel says, it can’t be a train.
Daryl looks through binoculars at the train, and tells Carol, there’s six of them. Carol wonders if they should follow the train, but Daryl says, if they hang back, they’ll be fine. He sees a trooper bring Connie over, and the trooper says, he received a call, and she’s not a worker, but a Designation Two. Get her there safely. Carol wonders what the designation is, but Daryl says, they can’t bust her out, so they’ll look for the kids. She says, they should follow the train, and get everyone out at once.
They drive to the nearest junction, and Carol suggests they sit tight until the train gets there. Daryl says he doesn’t think he can, but she says, when she saw Connie get on the train, she thought the same thing he did; the cave. Does he remember what Kelly said when her sister disappeared? He says, they can’t help anyone if they’re dead, and she says, if they go it alone, they might make the same mistakes again. He tells her, all right, and she takes his hand.
Maggie hears a motorcycle and hides. A trooper stops, and radios that the crossing is clear, and there’s no sign of the escapees. He’s moving to the next stop. The zombie kid toddles toward him, and he raises his gun, but Maggie jumps out, and gives him a sharp stick to the armpit. She gets him down, kills him, and grabs his gun. Since no good deed goes unpunished, the zombie kid grabs at her. She fends him off for a while, then puts him in a hold. She cradles him for a moment, then tells him, it’s all right, and stabs him in the head. Carol and Daryl drive up.
Maggie tells Carol that they just ripped Herschel away from her. She wasn’t strong enough. Carol says, she’s just one person, but Maggie says, it’s on her. The not knowing is worse. She cries, and Carol tells her again, she’s just one person. Maggie says, it doesn’t matter, and Carol holds her as she sobs. Carol says, she barely saw Daryl after she got her job at the Commonwealth. They were doing their own thing like in the old world. After the fall, they were forced to become a family. Pamela had to come at them when they were separated. What does that say? Maggie tells her, that they scared the sh*t out of them, and Carol says, they’re not alone anymore. Rosita and Gabriel come out of the woods, and Gabriel says, they heard a train. Rosita asks where Daryl is, and Carol says, inside
In the depot, a trooper sits against the wall, covered in blood. Daryl tells him that he’s running out of time. Do something good in the time he has left. Where is the train going? He has a friend on it, and she’s Designation Two. What does that mean? He was like the trooper once, and joined the force when his family needed money. He’s guessing that’s the trooper’s story too. They took his kids, and he wants them back. He kicks the trooper, and the others come in. Carol says, the train is going to be here soon, and Daryl asks if the trooper wants to die quick or screaming. Gabriel says he knows the trooper. Every Sunday in the back pew, closest to the door. He came in late, and left early. It seemed like he wanted to talk about something. The trooper asks if God forgives people like him, and Gabriel says he wishes he knew. The trooper says he has guilt and shame, and Gabriel says, that’s because he’s a coward. He’s trying not to be, but fear can cause us to do things that make us feel shame. Or he can push to the light, and die trying to do the right thing. The trooper says he’s trying to have peace, and Gabriel says he wishes he had peace too. People remember the last thing you do. The end of a story is important. How does he want his to end? The trooper says, they punish exiles by making them do hard labor. Their friends are on railway duty. Daryl asks, where? but the trooper says he doesn’t know. He got called when the three escaped. They have to follow the train. He’s heard rumors that those in Designation Two are taken far away and never seen again. Daryl and Maggie go back outside, and he asks Gabriel to pray with him while he goes. Gabriel asks Carol to give them a minute, and takes out his Bible.
Daryl wants to get Connie off the train, but Rosita says, they’ll radio ahead. The the best way to get everyone out is them not knowing they’re coming. He says, they can’t leave her, but Carol thinks there’s a way do both.
While working on the railroad all the livelong day, Kelly tells Ezekiel, there are three guards. They can run; the troopers can’t catch them all. Ezekiel says, don’t do anything, and a trooper tells them, stop talking, and keep working. Negan says, his wife is on the bus, and the trooper whacks him with a stick. He says, they stop to eat and sleep. Keep working. Some of the group make a break for it, and Kelly starts to go too, but Ezekiel grabs her. The troopers shoot the escapees, and Negan looks supremely pissed.
There’s a train delay – zombie on the tracks. A trooper gets out and kills it. He walks over to a lever, but it won’t budge. He radios the engineer, and says, there’s stuck junction switch. Another zombie comes along, and he stabs it through one of its nostrils. The engineer radios Outpost 22, while Maggie slips on the train. Another trooper comes outside, and asks, how hard can it be? The trooper on the tracks says, come over here and he’ll show him. Daryl and Carol crawl under the train to the other side, while the troopers deal with more zombies. Maggie ties up the engineer, and a trooper comes in, saying, the woods are cleared; he’s heading back. Maggie grabs his gun, and outside, the skeptical trooper tries to pull the switch, and the other one mocks him, saying, how hard can it be? The other trooper says, it’s bent; somebody jammed it. Everybody needs to get back here now. Carol shoots at them, and a gunfight ensues, bullets pinging off of everything metal. Maggie shoots at a trooper, and Daryl comes at him, but he brings out Connie, holding a gun to her head. He tells Daryl to drop his weapon, and asks if Daryl cut the wire or shut it off. Answer him. It’s the old if you’re gonna shoot, shoot don’t talk situation, and Connie knocks his gun out of his hand, then grabs it. Daryl checks Connie out, and puts her on the train. The trooper gets away on a motorcycle, and they shoot at him, but miss. Daryl gets another bike, and takes off after him. The trooper rides into the woods, and Daryl follows. The trooper gets off the bike, and goes under a huge fallen tree branch, but even though Daryl is knocked off his bike, he reaches under the branch. He knocks the trooper down, and kills him.
Daryl and Maggie bring the engineer inside the depot, and he says his family lives in a nearby outpost. If the warden finds out he helped them – he looks at the dead trooper – he’ll end up like his friend. Daryl says, they took his children. He has a family. The engineer tells them, there’s a map in the engine room. Daryl goes to get it, and signs to Connie that he thought he wasn’t going to see her again. She signs back, she’s not going anywhere. Outside, the engineer holds a sharp stick to his throat, and tells Carol and Maggie, if he helps them, his wife and kids will die. Carol says, they’ll injure him just enough make it look like he barely got away, but he says, they’ll know he lied, and kill his family. He can’t. He’s sorry. He stabs himself in the neck, and everyone is bummed.
Gruel is served to the railway laborers for dinner, and Negan sits near Ezekiel, telling him, don’t turn around. Ezekiel asks what Negan wants, and Negan says, to get on the same page. Ezekiel says, he stayed away from Negan for years for a reason, but Negan says, he’s going to have to shelve that sh*t. Ezekiel says, melting people’s faces with irons, coercing women into marrying him, slaughtering Ezekiel’s people. That sh*t he has not forgotten. Negan says, neither has he. He probably deserves to be in a place like this. But the others don’t, especially his wife and baby. Ezekiel asks where they were taken, but Negan doesn’t know. He needs to find her; he promised. He’s coming to Ezekiel as a soon-to-be father and a man who’s led people. He’s asking Ezekiel to put that sh*t aside, and work together for everyone, Ezekiel asks what he’s thinking, and Negan says, he knows the warden’s playbook, using fear as a weapon. Ezekiel asks if he’s going to scare them into an uprising, but Negan says, that only works if you’re the one with the gun. Fear doesn’t work, but hope does, That’s Ezekiel’s thing, not his. Ezekiel says, they thrive by separating people and breaking them down. They need a spark that reaches their hearts and wakes them up. He doesn’t know how to do that; they can barely talk to each other. Negan says he can get Ezekiel a spark, but when he does, Ezekiel ought to know, he doubts he’ll getting out with them. Ezekiel asks what he means, but a trooper says, back to work. Now. Negan asks if Ezekiel is with him, and Ezekiel says, he’s with Negan… for now.
Connie signs to Daryl, asking him which way the others went, but he signs, he doesn’t know. Connie signs, Kelly is with them. She can’t lose her. Daryl signs, they won’t. He promises they’ll get her out. Connie signs, how? and Rosita says, they’re going back to the train, and getting the radio back up.
The trooper tells the railway workers to pack it in and load up. A zombie comes out of the woods, and the trooper shoots it, then tells them, move it along.
Rosita radios outpost 22, saying, the train she was on was overtaken. She’s lost in the woods, and needs help. She waits, then radios again, and an operator asks, what’s her original setback and location? Rosita says, junction seven. She’s the last one left. She needs to get home. The woman says, damn. Don’t worry. They’ll get her home. Does she still have her compass? Rosita says she does, and the woman tells her, head north through the woods until she reaches a bridge. Cross it, and go to Packard Avenue, then head south to where is breaches to Highway 30. Eventually, she’ll reach a suburban neighborhood. There’s a section shored up with walls, and she’ll see friendly faces in the guard tower. Go to the northeast gate, and they’ll let her in. She’s sorry they don’t have a spare vehicle to pick her up, but they have a convoy coming for reprocessing. Governor’s orders. Rosita asks if she just said they have a convoy coming in for reprocessing, and the woman says, word is some of the processees used to live here before the Commonwealth took over the territory and turned it into an outpost back when it was still called Alexandria. Keep eye out for hostiles, but if she has to engage, shoot to kill. Watch her six, and Godspeed. There’s silence for a moment, and Maggie says, Milton has underestimated us since day one. We’re going to get our kids, take back our home, and make it right. And Pamela will never see it coming.
Next time – 3 episodes left – Negan tries to save Annie; Rosita says, they need to go in now; Eugene’s trial happens; and Ezekiel says, this world is broken, but they don’t have to be.
🧛🏽♂️ This Week In Vampire…
The latest episode of Interview with the Vampire.
🐶 Don’t Forget…
Have an amazing time, but don’t forget about your pets
https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/pet-owners/petcare/halloween-pet-safety
🎃 The List Goes On…
Some of these are quite original. I was at Halloween karaoke last night, and the first place winner of the costume contest was a couple doing Barbie and Ken, complete with boxes. I thought they deserved it just for having to stand all night.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/chelseastewart/best-celebrity-halloween-costumes-2022
🐺 Howling At the Moon…
When you’re done trick or treating, drop by for some soap and what’s on Deck tomorrow. Until then, stay safe, stay doubly safe on Halloween, and stay not bitching, but moving forward.
What I Watched - TV With Theresa 