‘The Walking Dead’ Recap With Spoilers: Still Gotta Mean Something

The episode starts with Jadis fleeing from the scene of her people getting slaughtered by Simon at the trash heap. She moves a body to the side and lays in the pool of blood, playing dead and being left alive.

Moments after the slaughter concludes, Jadis rises up from the blood and removes all of her dark clothing. She stands in the trash heap wearing only a white dress. Inside one of the shipping containers, she packs clothes and gets dressed. Lucille is there, along with a bed and wooden bench. She ventures over to another container where she has Negan chained to a board. He questions what is going on as she tows him out.

The Walking Dead‘s opening credits roll.

At the Hilltop, Ezekiel tries to help Carol believe in Henry’s fate not being so dark. He fears for Henry. He thought Carol was the bravest but thinks he was wrong now.

Later, Tara meets with Daryl. She tells him she isn’t sick and that Dwight shot him with a clean arrow. “Sometimes nothing happens,” Daryl says of the sickness. Tara points out that everyone else who got injured got sick. They disagree on their stances with the character.

Later, Michonne is tearing up over Carl’s note. She offers it to Rick but he doesn’t read it. He hasn’t read Carl’s note to him yet. Michonne urges him to read it and stay here at the Hilltop. Rick stays in the room alone, emotional. He pulls out Carl’s note from a drawer.

Continued

Morgan walks out of the Hilltop. Carol urges him to stay. “I was supposed to,” Morgan tells her. “I thought I had to. Thought it would be different.” Since Morgan is going, Carol will come, too. 

Inside, Rosita and Diane update Maggie on the situation. Daryl points out that the Saviors might have to go hand to hand if the walker guts were their only option. Rosita points out that they have their bullet maker. 

Later, Jadis prepares a fire beside Negan. He tells her he can smell what happened here and he doesn’t throw resources like people away. “I wouldn’t have killed all your people,” Negan tells her. “That was the work of someone not following the problem.” He owns this situation, though, and says it is his mistake. He apologizes to her. “I am sorry for this,” he says. “I’m sorry that you lost all you had but I know in some way that I can help get it back–” 

Jadis cuts him off by crashing Lucille down to about an inch from his face.

Continued

Morgan and Carol journey through the woods. They come across a turnip which means they were on this side of the road. Morgan thinks he sees Henry and runs off after him. Carol follows. When Morgan comes across Henry, he finds the kid with a fatal wound on his neck. Henry tells him, “You were supposed to,” but Morgan realizes he’s not here. 

“He’s dead,” Morgan tells Carol. “You know he is.”

“I didn’t come out here to look for him,” Carol says. “I’m came out here to keep an eye on you.”

“You save people,” Morgan tells her. “But you can’t save the dead, Carol.”

“You’re not dead,” she tells him.

“I know, I don’t die,” Morgan responds. “I just see it.” He spots a walker wit a rock in its head, ruling the Saviors came through here as a shortcut. 

Back at Hilltop, Rick sits with Judith. He sees his Sheriff hat which was given to Carl and becomes emotional. He storms out of the building, wearing his brown coat. He asks Alden where the Saviors went. Back to the Sanctuary is Alden’s best guess. Rick questions how he would get back there. Alden points out they are probably at an old dive bar. Alden asks for a favor: “Don’t kill any more of them than you have to.” He insists Rick can show them they made the wrong choice. 

Continued

Jadis’ watch beeps as Negan lays next to her. She wheels a walker over to him. It is strapped to a cart. Negan, however, has a flare, a gun, and photos taken by Jadis.

Elsewhere, Morgan and Carol come across a herd walking through an intersection. Carol suggests waiting but Morgan wants to continue. They come across a bearded walker which has Henry’s stick driven through its core. Carol is saddened. Morgan puts the walker down and continues. Carol asks him to stop and go back to look for Henry. Morgan insists she knows what they’ll find but she won’t know unless she goes. She wants him to try, too. 

“You save people,” Morgan says. “I watch them die. I have to. I’m supposed to.”

“When I tried to run, you found me,” Carol tells him. “You saved me. You knew I could come back. You can, too.” 

“That wasn’t me,” Morgan tells her. “I’m not strong like you. I was there that whole time watching them, knowing that something would happen. I know it, I saw it, and then I was waiting for it to happen and it did like it always does. So, I just have to. I have to kill them. I have to.” 

He hands Carol the stick which was Henry’s before heading off. They walk separate ways. 

Continued

Jadis emerges from her cover and orders Negan to leave the pictures alone. 

“What the s—?” Negan asks her. “This is how you kill people? With that thing? Slowly?”

“No, people are a resource,” she tells him. “Put the flare away, please! They’re all I have left!” 

“My wife’s name was Lucille,” Negan tells her. “She got me through. I didn’t give her shit and she got me through. Just life. Regular life. The bat, the bat got me through this. So, I named it after her. That’s it. Nothing more to do with her than that but it is the last little piece of her that I got left. Sort of like these snaps for you, huh?”

Jadis’ watch beeps. She rushes to the flare but can’t get it. A helicopter flies overhead. Negan is in disbelief. Jadis rushes over with another flare, trying to wave it down but it leaves.

Jadis rushes over to burn the bat. Negan begs her not to. Negan offers to “settle it.” Jadis drops the flare and they’re both painfully relieved. 

Continued

Rick and Morgan run into one another in the woods. Rick reasons with him. They’re both out here for the Saviors and will go after them together. 

They head off into the woods together and come across a foot and a leg beside a car before being attacked from behind.

Later, Rick awakens tied up with Morgan. The Saviors, lead by Jared, caught them. They’ve chopped off limbs from other Saviors but they’re not getting better. Saviors question whether or not they should go back to the Sanctuary. Jared says delivering Rick to Negan is a win. They realize Rick is awake, now. Jared rules they will ditch the dead weight and head back to the Sanctuary. Just as he is about to kill the injured Saviors, Rick rules that his truck is not far and they can take these guys back to the Hilltop for medical attention and they can all join them. 

“There’s not a lot that’s worth much these days,” Rick says. “But a man’s word, that’s gotta mean something.”

Jared is furious that his Saviors are debating agreeing to Rick’s offer. Morgan tells Jared he only came here to “kill every last one of you.” Jared puts a gun in Morgan’s face but he smiles and tells him to prepare for the herd coming. 

“I don’t die!” Morgan says. “Everybody turns!”

The herd approaches after Morgan’s screams. Jared is going to let them get eaten but Saviors stop him and free Rick and Morgan. A Savior ttosses Morgan his stick. Together, he and Rick take down walkers. At one point, a Savior saves Rick from getting bit. Morgan and Rick, however, quickly come up with a plan to kill all of these Saviors and do. JAred, however, is escaping. Morgan chases him down. 

Morgan comes upon Henry’s ghost and is attacked by Jared. He fights him off and locks him in a room with the walkers, watching closely as Jared gets eaten alive and screams for him to let go. 

Moments later, a dying Savior whispers to Rick, “We could’ve lived after this,” but Rick shoots him in the head. 

Morgan puts the last of the Saviors down and walks out. 

“You saved me,” Rick tells him. “I would’ve died, maybe on that street right in front of your house. You didn’t know me. Why’d you do it?” 

“We should go,” Morgan says.

“Just tell me. Why’d you save me? You had your son there.”

“I know.”

“Why’d you save me? Why?”

“Because… Because my son was there.”

Continued

Negan is dressed and ready to leave the trash heap. He wants to know what just happened here. She is silent, though. He invites her with him but she rejects it. “I’ll swing back by sometime,” Negan tells her. “Who knows, maybe you’ll wanna share.”

Night has fallen and Carol finds Henry’s knee pads in the woods. She hears him screaming for help, later. After finding and putting down a trio of walkers, he is hidden in a log next to a creek. She relieved to find him. He cries and apologizes.

At the Hilltop, Jerry and Cal are excited about something they see outside the Hilltop. They call the walkers away from the gate. Jerry rushes to Ezekiel to share the good news, just as Carol and Henry enter the community.

Later, Carol tells Ezekiel he was right about her being afraid. He tells her she is no coward. “I had a daughter,” she tells him. “After I lost her, I was nothing but the people I was with, being with them, I found myself. Some version of myself. A better self. Still, it always feels like could always be swept away again but that doesn’t man it will and it doesn’t mean that I couldn’t find myself again if it does. 

Moments later, the gate opens again and Rick enters with Morgan. Michonne is relieved to see him. Morgan approaches Henry and is relieved to realize he is real. “I killed him,” Morgan tells Henry. “I killed the man who killed your brother. I did. I killed him.”

“I’m sorry,” Henry tells Morgan. 

“No, no, don’t ever be sorry,” Morgan responds. 

Alden is disappointed to see Rick return bloodied and without any Saviors. Michonne is a bit taken aback by his lack of greeting.

Later, Morgan becomes emotional while sitting alone. 

Jadis enters her shipping container and unpacks her suitcase and places her photos on a shelf.

Negan is driving himself back to the Sanctuary when he comes across someone on the road and orders them into the car. They arrive at the Sanctuary where Saviors greet them. He orders everyone to keep his arrival a secret. 

Elsewhere, Daryl and Rosita are scouting Eugene’s bullet factory. “We don’t take out the machines,” Rosita rules. “We take out the men.”

Continued

In his room, Rick gets dressed and stands alone for a moment. He walks toward his dresser drawers and looks to the note Carl wrote for him. 

Michonne enters the room and sees him.

“Thank you,” he tells her. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be,” she tells him.

“I love you,” Rick says.

“I love you, too.”

They share a kiss and stand together. She exits and he sits down with Carl’s note, finally reading it for the first time.