The Walking Dead Spoilers Recap: "Warlords"

Lydia (Cassady McClincy) leaves Hilltop for a Commonwealth checkpoint. Elijah (Okea Eme-Akwari) and Marco (Gustavo Gomez) see her off at the gate when a bloodied young man rides up on a horse. He's been shot. "Devils... they're slaughtering them... liars..." The stranger hands Lydia a blood-stained map and dies.

Maggie studies the map. She decides they're not going. "Maggie, he died begging for our help," Marco says. She understands, but they're barely holding on as it is. Elijah believes he was sent by someone they know – maybe from the Commonwealth, or Georgie (Jayne Atkinson). Maggie says the Hilltop is outnumbered if they're walking into a trap. It's never stopped Maggie before, Elijah says.
"Maybe it should have."

Lydia is determined to help these people, fearing their desperation makes them prey for someone like her mother Alpha (Samantha Morton). Maggie agrees to join Lydia and Elijah on their trip and hugs Hershel (Kien Michael Spiller) goodbye.
"How long this time?"
"What do I always tell you?"
"As long as it takes."

On the road, Lydia asks why Maggie doesn't want the Commonwealth's help.
"Because we can get by without it."
"Why do we have to just 'get by'?"
"It's only temporary," Maggie reminds her. "What's easier isn't always better."

Maggie tells Lydia a story about the Greene family farm before the Fall. Corporate farm developers tried to buy out Hershel Greene (Scott Wilson), who refused their offers. When drought hit, they offered three times what the farm was worth, knowing the Greenes were in debt and desperate. "All they had to do was outlast us," Maggie explains. The developers left crates of food for the livestock, which would go to rot.

"He said that we were being tested," Maggie says. The drought ended, they got back on their feet, and the developers never bothered them again. If they took the help, "They would've known we needed them and never left us alone. We stuck together, and we made it through."

"Getting by" is what Lydia was forced to do her whole life. Alpha told her it makes you stronger and wiser. "But it doesn't. It hurts." Lydia says she would have asked everyone what they wanted "instead of deciding for them."
"Is that what I'm doing?" Maggie asks. "You think the Commonwealth knows better? Those people have not been tested for 10 years. Do you want to be there when they are?"

Up ahead, three zombified Commonwealth soldiers walk the road in a slow shamble. One corpse shows evidence of a knife slash through a neck guard. On the others, bullet wounds between the armor gaps. They hear a man calling out down the road. It's Aaron.

ONE WEEK AGO.

Aaron attends Father Gabriel's sermon at the First Christian Church of The Commonwealth. He encourages his flock in the pews to introduce themselves to their stranger neighbors.

"Those of you that were out there in the wasteland, you know from the people you found, from the ones you could rely upon, that it didn't matter that you were strangers beforehand, did it? You were forced to see the humanity in each other, and though not bound by blood, these strangers became more than friends, they became family. Why is it that way out there... but not that way in here?" Father Gabriel preaches. "Romans 3:23... 'For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.' Now let me repeat that... 'All of us have sinned.' And that is the very thread that binds us together. And if you strip yourselves of the superficial labels... what do we do, where do I live, how much money do I have... if you strip yourselves of that, it will make you see the person by your side as you see yourself in the mirror. And the way we were before the world fell cannot be the way we are moving forward. We must always remember the thread, for that is what makes us try, it makes us forgive, it makes us return from peril. It makes us... us."

He hears the voice of God again.

Later, Aaron approaches Gabriel. The Commonwealth is pouring more manpower and resources into the rebuild after Governor Pamela Milton (Laila Robins) toured the satellite communities with Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton). As the Commonwealth finishes the repairs, they've asked Aaron to help with their new immigration initiative.

"They didn't seem too keen on immigrants when we came in," Gabriel points out. After they learned Aaron worked for an NGO before the Fall, they asked him to review their intake policies.
"Now we're reaching out and bringing in people that need help."
"The Lord's work," Gabriel replies.
That's why he's here.

"There's a group of about 40 people holed up in an apartment complex on the western border of Virginia. We want to make first contact and offer them help," Aaron explains. "Some of the folks upstairs... they thought it'd be a good idea if you tag along."

It's a religious group. They'll be backed up by troops, just in case, and joined by his boss, Carlson. "He's a little, um... you'll see, but his heart's in the right place."

At the border, Gabriel meets new kid Jesse (Connor Hammond) and Toby Carlson (Jason Butler Harner). Scouts report the group is a "friendly group of settlers," but their apartment building "doesn't look friendly."
"What if they aren't?" Carlson asks. "If they're angry, that just means they're afraid. When they meet you, they won't be."

Gabriel doesn't want to go in. "Places like that usually have some old man with a shotgun inside just looking for an excuse to kill some dumbass who stepped on his front lawn," Gabriel says. "It practically screams 'do not disturb.'"

Aaron has the same doubts and wants to abort the outreach mission. "Your plan is shit, and I don't want to die," Gabriel tells Carlson. It's not up for discussion: they're going in.

Outside the Riverbend apartment complex, Aaron extends their friendship. He asks to speak to someone face-to-face. Out steps Hart (Jenique Hendrix), a scythe slung over her shoulder. She collects the group's weapons and escorts them inside.

Aaron, Gabriel, Jesse, and Carlson walk through dark corridors barely lit by candles. Tough-looking tenants stand guard throughout the halls. They meet with Ian (Michael Biehn), dressed like a general, his office decorated with the skulls of raiders.

Aaron tells the warlord they come from a community called the Commonwealth. "It's a bit like the old world. 50,000 people living there. We have a functioning government, protective walls, housing for everyone, restaurants, two movie theaters-"
"Soldiers?" Ian asks. "And churches, too, I take it."
Because this place is like the old world, Ian says, they must have hookers and gambling and a "shit side of town where addicts swap needles with runaways. Got all that, too?"

Gabriel says he hasn't seen any of that. Aaron presents him with iPhone photos of the vibrant community. "Whenever people see those photos, they want to live there, too."
"You'd just let us in? That easy?"
Aaron says there's a screening process. "An audition," Ian replies. "Let me get my tap-dancing shoes."
He wants to know where the Commonwealth is located. When Carlson answers for Aaron, telling Ian they can't tell him that, the warlord erupts. Ian points them to his shelf of skulls.
"Those are raiders, murderers, rapists, and a few cannibals. All of them sat in the same seats you're sitting in right now. Most were wolves dressed as sheep. All of them meant my people harm. Mr. Head Wolf," he asks Carlson, "if you know where I live and I don't know where you live, how dumb would that be for me to let you go?"

Ian forces Carlson to his knees at gunpoint. A stammering Carlson begs for his life. Ian suspects a plot to get his people into the open so they can be slaughtered. Ian turns his gun on Jesse as Aaron talks him down.
"Do we look like raiders to you?"
"Wolves dressed as sheep, speaking lies!" the warlord says. His people have "entrusted me with their very souls."
Aaron and Gabriel tell him they have nothing they would want. Ian thinks they're after their meat. Aaron reminds him they've done nothing but give them food and water to prevent them starving. If they don't report back, Gabriel warns, the soldiers in the photos will come in and kill his people.

"Or nobody dies, okay? You save yourself and your people by letting us go, and we will never come back here again. We will never bother you," Aaron promises.

Ian allows them to leave with their lives. Before he can finish, Carlson shoots Ian and guns down his bodyguards. His whole demeanor has changed.

ONE WEEK (AND ONE HOUR) AGO.

Carlson meets with Hornsby in his office.

"You know how I got Milton to agree to this whole communal project with these hick towns out in Virginia? She's released a lot of resources for me. And I used some of them to send out a convoy full of supplies. For that other thing. Convoy didn't check in last week, so I sent out scouts to see what happened. It was hijacked. Troopers guarding it, all dead."

According to Hornsby, the tracks led to the Riverbend apartment complex where Ian's group of religious followers is holed up. And they've got his guns and cargo.

Carlson recommends Hornsby snuff them out. But he can't because of Riverbend having the high ground – they could fire out from the top floors in all directions. If he asks for enough soldiers to get the job done, there's no way Milton doesn't notice. "I need a surgical solution. I need the former CIA guy who helped root out disobedient shits from here back in the day. I need an assassin."

Carlson reminds him he's retired. And four years sober. He's Zen now, and he goes out and finds people who need help – a second chance.
"And it can be taken from you," Hornsby reminds Carlson.
Hornsby reveals his plan: send Aaron and Gabriel in to make first contact. Because they're religious, the priest will get their guard down for Hornsby's... surgical solution.

In the present, Carlson interrogates Ian for the guns and cargo his people hijacked. "The ones you massacred my soldiers to get to, where are they?"
"I got no idea what you're talking about."
"Three sets of tracks led back here from there. Want to try again?"

Ian says they found the caravan like that. Carlson has heard enough lies and shoots Ian dead.

"We're supposed to be helping people," a shocked Aaron reminds Carlson.
"We are. This is the other side of it. Snuffing out threats. This is how we make the world safe."

He orders Gabriel held inside.

Outside, Jesse flees on horseback. Carlson orders a trooper "pop him," firing a shot at Jesse's back. Aaron cuts the soldier down with a swing of his mace arm. Carlson pulls his gun on Aaron and fires – CLICK. CLICK.
Before they can fight, soldiers open fire on Aaron. He runs for cover into the woods.
Back inside, a trooper alerts Carlson: they find a dead trooper and Gabriel gone.

At the road, Aaron meets with Maggie, Lydia, and Elijah. "He was a wolf, just like their leader said."
Aaron doesn't know if he was lying about the stolen shipments. Asks Maggie, "What would the Commonwealth want with all those guns?"

She shows him the bloodied map.
"Where'd you get that?"
"You gave it to the guy who rode into Hilltop."
"No, I didn't."
"Then who did?"

TWELVE HOURS AGO. DURING THE ATTACK.

Jesse unties a horse when he's stopped by Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). Jesse says he's part of a group of 12. He didn't know what they were there for. Annie (Medina Senghore) reports to Negan: "A lot dead. A guy in charge is arguing with two others – a priest and a guy with a spiked ball for an arm." When Negan recognizes them as Gabriel and Aaron, Jesse says they didn't know, either. Negan marks the Hilltop on a map and tells him to ask for Maggie, no one else. "You tell her Gabriel and Aaron are in trouble. Go!"

Back at Riverbend, Negan and Annie sneak up on the Commonwealth trooper holding Gabriel. Annie slashes his throat and frees Gabriel, who is surprised to see Negan. Outside, Carlson tries to shoot Aaron, only to find his gun empty. Gabriel says they can't leave Aaron behind, but if they go out there, they all die. Negan, Annie, and Gabriel sneak away into the halls.

NOW.
Carlson is clad in trooper armor on top of the roof. "Residents of the complex. You have been deemed enemies of the Commonwealth," Carlson says into a megaphone speaker. "One of you has stolen from us. That cannot stand."
If they hand over the weapons, Carlson says he'll let them live. No one talks, and Carlson starts pushing people off the roof.

Gabriel urges Annie to get the weapons.
"Gabe, if she says they don't have them," Negan tells him, "they don't have them."
"You don't understand. I'm praying that you did steal them, because without them, we're dead. He's not going to let any of us leave here alive."

On the roof, Carlson orders his troopers to hit each room and kill anyone who won't talk.

"What we need to do now is stick together. You can forget about giving up or begging for forgiveness. Ian's dead. But he wasn't our first leader. He wasn't what kept us together this long. We did, and we did it by working together as a family," Annie tells her people huddled together in a hidden room. "And right now, our family's scattered all over this building, but you know what? We know this place better than the assholes in our house do. We're coming out of this on top."

Privately, Negan reminds her the troopers took out their best fighters. "Yeah," Annie says, "but they needed to hear it."

In the hall, Aaron, Maggie, Elijah, and Lydia have taken out a pair of troopers. Guns at the ready, they sneak upstairs of the complex.

END OF EPISODE.

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