The episode begins with an Emergency Broadcast System warning Baltimore about the apocalypse. It is Day 23 of the apocalypse. A man named Frank talks with his family about his frustrations. Lydia tries to be optimistic but her father, Frank, shuts it down. Her mother comforts her before the scene switches back to Lydia in the present day explaining the past to Henry in their Hilltop jail cells. Daryl is listening as she explains how the group walks around in dead people’s skins. She refers to Daryl as his dad but he corrects her. He offers little information, telling her Carol is not somebody she wants to mess with.
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When he asks what happened to her dad, she recalls him dying, bleeding from his neck. Her mom, however, kept her alive. Daryl seems a bit concerned.
The Walking Dead‘s opening credits play.
Continued
In the woods, Tara leads a small group. They find a walker herd eating animals but they’re skeptic about whether or not they’re Whisperers. They quickly take the herd down while checking evaluating each to see if they are alive. They realize the horses being eaten were Alden and Luke’s. They devise a plan of action.
In the cells, Lydia and Henry continue their conversation. She claims everything will never be okay again.ย
Flashback: Frank devises a plan to get out of this current location. Frank gets frustrated to be told that he doesn’t care about his kid. He demands he is going to leave and starts trimming his beard with scissors, claiming he only ever had it for her.ย
When Henry starts to tell Lydia about the Kingdom, Daryl bursts in to take him out of his cell. Henry is furious to learn that others were listening to him.ย
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Later, Daryl brings Lydia medicine for her ear but she doesn’t accept it. He explains that two of his people went missing but she claims not to know anything about it.
Back at Day 43, the survivor camp panics as gun shots ring out outside. Matthias starts banging on the windows and Lydia’s mom yanks him down, scolding him, and accidentally killing him. She is telling Daryl the story and he can understand that she did what she had to do. After she grabs her ear again, he tosses her the medication.ย
As he tries to give her water, she lunges for him, and he discovers a slew of scars on her forearm.ย
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Elsewhere, Magna, Yumiko, Connie, and Kelly debate who will go after Luke. They all get on board.ย
Daryl tries again with Lydia. He explains how some fathers will beat their kids for any reason by any means necessary. He tells her that the whole story is a lie and he knows the bruises on her arm are not from her dad. He wants to know where her mom is but she doesn’t tell. “When you stay soft, people die,” she tells him.
In the past, her mom has shaved her head and her dad’s beard has grown back. At night, Lydia evaluates Matthias’ dead body. When she walks away, he rises up as a walker, and she rushes to her parents. Frank gets bit and her mom hides her away from it. Today, it has Lydia believing people like her father are weak. Daryl tries to explain that they are rebuilding the world but she insists he doesn’t belong with these people. “You’re hard, they’re soft,” she says.
Meanwhile, Magna’sย group comes hides out for the night.
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Henry asks Daryl what’s going to happen to Lydia and if someone used to beat him up, too. Henry explains to Daryl that Ezekiel asked Carol why she used to keep her hair so short and she told him it was because Ed would use it to abuse her. She cut it all off so he couldn’t but it took her this long to feel safe again. Henry wants Daryl to show Lydia there’s nothing to be afraid of.ย
Magna’s group finds a group of walkers and uses sign language to hide out. Kelly wants to find Luke but Magna and Yumiko decide it’s time to head back to be safe. Kelly gets emotional about leaving Luke behind. Connie stays with her but they don’t know Whisperers are watching.ย
At the prison, Henry goes in to talk with Lydia. He opens her cell and wants to show her around. They sneak about until they stop to hide and she finds some worms in the ground, going on to eat them. Henry eats one, surprising himself. As they continue, she debates clubbing Henry with a hammer until she hears a baby crying and having flashbacks to her childhood at the survivor camp. She remembers being forced to wear the walker flesh for the first time and quickly asks to be put back in the cell. She asks him to stay down there with her.
Daryl has been watching the whole time.ย
Continued
The next day, Lydia asks Daryl for the pills he offered her. She accepts water this time. She claims no one is coming to look for her because they just move on when people are lost or killed. She says her mom found Luke and Alden. She now realizes her story about the early days at the camp might not be true but actually just a story from her mom. In fact, her mom wanted the people here to be taken down because they’re weak. She had an escape plan, all along. Frank tried to keep Lydia and clear a path for them. On his way, he steps on a rabbit, the same one Gracie had.ย
Lydia’s mom pinned him against the wall and killed him. Daryl tells her they have heard enough.ย
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Yumiko and Magna make it back to Hilltop. Henry questions Daryl about why Lydia’s mom would lie to her like she did. Daryl is undecided on what to do with Lydia. “Im glad you and my mom are friends,” Henry tells him before walking away.
Yumikoย tells Tara they didn’t find anything and they shouldn’t have left. Moments later, Connie and Kelly are escorted back by Hilltop guards who were watching them. Tara only wants them to talk to her next time. From atop the wall, Yumikoย sees a group of Whisperers approaching the community with Alpha at its front. She is not wearing her mask, showing off her bald head and eye black.ย
“I am Alpha,” she says. “We only want one thing from you: my daughter.”ย