‘The Walking Dead’ Recap With Spoilers: The Obliged

Michonne wakes up beside Rick. She gives Judith breakfast. She calms arguments on the farm. She cares for people in the infirmary. She helps around Alexandria. At night, she rolls over in bed as Rick sleeps, glancing at her katana hanging on the wall. She decides to take a late night stroll and kill some walkers to blow off steam.

The next day, it’s back to tomato picking with Judith, reading and writing, and killing walkers at night. One night, she discovers a walker hanging with its hands tied in the rain. She sees the noose and is visibly upset, becoming vulnerable enough for a walker to get close. She drops her sword but ends up using a baseball bat to smash its skull. The bat resembles Lucille, and she is caught off guard, quickly heading back to Alexandria.

The Walking Dead‘s opening credits play.

Continued

In the morning at Hilltop, Maggie hand Hershel off to a woman who helps care for him. She observes the thriving community which is building through the day. Jesus delivers her another letter from Georgie but she asks him to put it in the drawer with the others and he’ll have to look over the place while she’s gone.

Armed with a crowbar and tools, Maggie is heading out to see Negan. Jesus tries to level with her and make sure she is sure. She insists she is and heads off on horseback with Diane from the Kingdom. 

At the bridge, Rick observes the bridge. There is now a strong flow of water beneath it. Eugene tells Rick that he doesn’t expect the bridge to continue standing and working on it will be dangerous. The good news is the herds Thibault and Cornelia are marching in their desired directions and won’t merge. Eugene feels sorry for not being able to deliver more for Rick. Rick, however, insists he deserves to give himself more credits.

Continued

Carol and Rick talk at the camp. She is going to head back to the Kingdom with her people and she doesn’t care to help the Saviors anymore. They want to be on their own. Carol apologizes and heads out. Outside, Jerry finds Rick and tells him that Maggie is on her way to Alexandria. Daryl watches Rick send a warning message over the radio but the girl on the other end says Maggie is “done talking” after hanging up. Daryl questions what’s going on and offers to give him a ride on his bike. 

In Alexandria, Michonne is studying books of laws and ethics when Nora greets her. “We’ve given up about a fourth of our tomato crops to the crows,” she tells Michonne. Michonne promises the windmill getting up and running will help them. Furthermore, Negan won’t eat in the prison cell. Michonne will handle it. 

Along their ride, Rick realizes Daryl is taking him the wrong way. Daryl insists this time Negan will die. They fight and fall into a ditch together, realizing they’re not going to find a way out easily.

Continued

In Alexandria, Michonne brings food to Negan. She demands he eat but he claims he isn’t in the mood to eat. “You want me to eat,” Negan says,” I want you to stay and talk to me. I mean, I’m proof that you’re making civilization right? That’s what your boyfriend said. Hard to do that if I’m dead, right?” She offers him 20 minutes. 

Rick tries to get out but can’t. He blames Daryl for this. He claims to understand why Maggie wants Negan dead. “Your ass wouldn’t even be alive if it wasn’t for Glenn,” Daryl says. “You wouldn’t have found Lori. You wouldn’t have found Carl. And you sure as f— wouldn’t have found any of us!”

Rick references Daryl freeing Dwight despite what he did to Denise and him. Rick insists keeping Negan alive is creating hope that the world won’t go back to his ways but Daryl insists it’s the opposite. He tells Rick that Oceanside has been the ones killing Saviors. Rick begins to break down and insists that everyone who died in the war, including Carl, will have died for nothing. Daryl, however, says that Rick doesn’t have enough faith in all of his people.

“I’d die for you, and I would’ve died for Carl,” Daryl tells him. “But you gotta hear me: you’re chasing something for him that ain’t meant to be, man. You just gotta let him go. Let him go.” Rick insists he never asked anyone to follow him. “Maybe you should’ve.”

 

Continued

Meanwhile, Michonne insists the world is coming back together and he is rotting with nothing. Negan whispers that he is glad his wife never had to see him like this. “She was an angel,” Negan said. “She deserved better than she got.”

“What happened to her?” Michonne asks.

“What used to happen,” Negan says. “Cancer. We would’ve loved to have a kid. We would’ve loved to have a kid like Carl. You were lucky.”

“I think about him every damn day,” Michonne says. “But he’s still here. In everything we do. I look around and I see him everywhere.”

“Do you see him in this cell?”

“Everywhere.”

“Carl wasn’t your first was he?” Negan asks. “How did he die?”

“His name was Andre,” Michonne says. “And he just didn’t make it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’ve made my peace with it.”

“If you ask me, it’s better this way.”

“How the hell exactly is that?”

“My wife, she wasn’t made for this,” Negan explains. “She was weak when she died. There was a part of me that was relieved. Now, I know she made me not weak. With you, with you it’s the same.”

“We are not the same.”

“We were built for more. We still are Michonne. Behind walls, bars, we die. Out there, it’s like an addiction. I know that you know what I’m talking about and that is why you’re grateful, too.”

“Grateful for what?”

“That Andre is gone because you know that all he would’ve done is make you weak.”

Continued

At the trash heap, Anne brushes sweat from Gabriel’s head before she kisses him. She gets up to the same walker with the bucket over its head that she carted out before Negan. She insists he is the price of admission to where she wants to go. She leans the walker into Gabriel. It is wearing a pearl necklace like the woman in his drawing. He begs for forgiveness and forgives her, as well. As the walker gets close to his face, she pulls it back, unable to let it bite her. Instead, she knocks him out with a rag containing some sort of drugs. 

Elsewhere, Carol gets caught by an armed Jed and other Saviors with all of their weapons. Jerry emerges, drawing his gun, and there are others on Carol’s side. Jed has figured out that Oceanside is killing them but Jed insists he stop to avoid everyone dying. He insists she step aside, so she lowers her gun, allowing Jed to take her keys. However, she quickly kicks him down when he’s not looking.

In their ditch, Rick and Daryl hear the gun shots. Rick realizes this will draw the herds. They work together to get out of the ditch.

Continued

In her house, Michonne looks at her katana thinking about what Negan said. She heads back to Negan’s cell and he’s apologetic for bringing up her son.

“We’re the same, all or nothing,” he tells her. “We are the same and you can’t stand that we’re the same.”

“No,” she tells him. “We’re not. Yeah, we do what we need to to get s— done but you get a kick out of it. Me? I’m trying everyday to make things better.” She is trying to bring people together, making sacrifices and compromising. “I do get strength from the dead but I live for the living,” Michonne says. “My sons are gone but this world is going to be better for my daughter an every other child that comes in to it.”

Negan realizes she is scared to live alone and she realizes he is trying to connect with her. Finally, he eats but stops quickly to ask Michonne if he can see Lucille. “Where is she?” he asks. “What did you do with her?”

“Still out there,” Michonne says to herself. 

Negan begins to break down. “I am gonna see my Lucille,” he says to himself.  “Damnit! Damnit!” He bashes his head on the wall and starts to bleed. 

Continued

Walkers begin to pour into the ditch with Rick and Daryl. Rick is trying to make the climb out. Together, Rick and Daryl begin to get close to the top as a herd forms at their feet. They narrowly make it to the top, where Rick quickly scans for walkers. A herd is approaching so they rush out of the woods. A white horse has made it their way from the camp. Rick elects to stay back and lead the herd away from the camp. 

At the trash heap, Gabriel wakes up in a shipping container. The door is open and he heads outside looking for Anne. No one is there but a note is in his pocket.

“If you want go fast, go alone,” the note says. “If you want to go far, go together. I need to go fast.” Gabriel is deeply saddened by the note.

Continued

In Alexandria, Michonne reads a book to Judith. A drawing of a baseball bat catches her off guard. Maggie rides along to Alexandria but passes three dead bodies along the way. Two of them are decapitated and one has an axe in its back. They were walkers when they died. 

Meanwhile, Daryl rides his bike back to camp.

Elsewhere, Rick rides the white horse in an effort to lead the herd. He quickly comes across a massive secondary group, though. Caught up in sand and startled, the horse bucks Rick on the metal rods sticking out of broke road blocks. He is impaled and falls unconscious.