The Walking Dead Spoilers Recap: “The Rotten Core”

Warning: this story contains spoilers for Sunday’s “The Rotten Core” episode of The Walking Dead. Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Rosita (Christian Serratos) gut up for a zombie heist when the troopers are forced on a mission to steal money for Sebastian Milton (Teo Rapp-Olsson). Meanwhile, at Riverbend, Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Annie (Medina Senghore) join forces to escape the apartment complex under siege by Commonwealth troopers. Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and his new group of Riverbend tenants are accused of stealing a shipment of missing Commonwealth weapons — guns that Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton) has sent Toby Carlson (Jason Butler Harner) to find by any means necessary.

LAW AND ORDER

Zombified bodies of Riverbend residents litter the ground. Looking down from the roof of the apartment complex is Toby Carlson. He radios Lance Hornsby about the missing shipment. Carlson reports the Riverbenders haven’t been cooperative, “But a small taste of law and order” will turn up the missing weapons. 

On the third floor, Maggie’s group — Aaron, Lydia, Elijah — have guns drawn as they sneak towards the sounds of gunfire and screams. 

At the Commonwealth, Daryl asks Carol if she’s heard anything about Alexandria outside the police department of the Commonwealth Army. Daryl reports for a duty assignment with Rosita: Sector D. Sebastian Milton brags about his calm demeanor around rotters, but his pretty date laughs when Daryl sarcastically remarks about Sebastian’s skills. 

Castle (Henry Bazemore Jr.) and Alves (J.R. Adduci) pull Daryl and Rosita off Sector D duty to check out a swarm of walkers spotted outside the walls. 

SOMEONE THEY TRUST

Maggie and Aaron search the complex when a Riverbender holds Maggie at gunpoint. It’s Annie. Elijah and Lydia turn their weapons on Annie.
“I’m here to help,” Maggie says.

“And who the hell are you?” asks Annie. 

“Her name is Maggie.” 

It’s Negan. He cools the situation and introduces Annie. “We live here.” 

Negan escorts the group into the hideout behind a false wall. Gabriel is relieved to see Aaron and Maggie. She asks Annie if her people stole the Commonwealth guns and hijacked the convoy. Speaking for Riverbend, Annie tells them they didn’t take the guns. 

Maggie’s mission is to get the Riverbenders out of the building, but Annie says they can’t leave until the rest of her people are out of hiding. They’ll split into teams, sweep each floor for whoever’s left, and find a way out together. 

Aaron and Maggie listen as Annie tells Negan to stay: “They need someone they trust protecting them.” Annie will go with Maggie. 

GUTS

Outside the walls of the Commonwealth, Alves and Crowe take Daryl and Rosita to a mansion surrounded by walkers. Sebastian is there to reveal the purpose of their mission. The house belonged to a childhood friend, Cooper, the son of a bank president. Inside the mansion is a panic room — and cash. Lots of it. Sebastian needs them to get the money for him.

“My bitch mother has cut off my line of credit,” Sebastian says of Governor Pamela Milton (Laila Robins), so he needs to “come up with creative ways to support my lifestyle.” 

He can’t send in Alves and Castle because the military tracks when rounds are fired. If the troopers use their guns, it will raise questions. If the troopers can’t use their guns, they’ll get dog-piled and suffocate. “But you two,” Sebastian tells Daryl and Rosita, “I know that you can do it. I believe in you.” 

Daryl scoffs. They ain’t doing it. “You’re gonna slime yourself up with guts,” Sebastian orders, “and then you are gonna walk through that swarm, and you are gonna get me my cash.” 

“Or what?” Daryl leaves.
“Hey, how are your kids doing?” 

Daryl draws his knife and holds it to Sebastian’s throat. Alves and Crowe pull their guns. “Let’s get something straight,” Daryl growls. “You threaten my kids one more time, and I will gut you.” 

“Who said anything about hurting kids? I’m just saying I can make their life easier,” Sebastian says. “Or you can make them both orphans. It’s your call.” 

Daryl and Rosita’s blood-slathered armor gets them through the horde. They kill fresh walkers and locate the panic room. April (Wynn Everett) is trapped inside. She’s the only one left. Sebastian has done this before. April explains she was in debt when a man offered her a way out. She was with a group of 12, but only three made it inside. They were able to turn on the generators when the two men she was with turned on each other, so April locked them out and was trapped inside when the power shut off. Daryl breaks away to find the generator. 

STOWAWAY

At Riverbend, Negan assures his people they’re going to make it out alive. Lydia confronts him about leaving without a word. “I left because I gave a shit. I left because that’s what everyone needed. Right?” 

Negan flashes a wedding ring. “It’s crazy, right?” 

Aaron is suspicious still of Negan, questioning him about the shelf of skulls in Ian’s (Michael Biehn) office. “Says the guy who rolled up with the Gestapo.” 

Gabriel tells him they didn’t know. He tells Negan they’re living in a place unlike any they’ve ever seen. 

“No, it isn’t,” says Lydia. “I hoped that they might be, but they just want to swallow up other communities. They’re like the Whisperers. They just wear different masks.” 

Annie radios Negan from the fifth floor. The soldiers are spread out, but their window to escape is closing. The Riverbenders are on the move. She tells Negan not to worry. 

He looks out the window. “Oh, shit.” 

A Commonwealth trooper reports a stowaway found hiding in a truck on the perimeter: it’s Hershel Rhee (Kien Michael Spiller). A crowbar suddenly strikes the trooper in the back of the head. Negan finishes him off with a blow to the brain. Negan, meet Hershel. 

A BAD MAN

On the fifth floor, Maggie hides out with Annie. She notices her take a bite of ginger.
“I’m 12 weeks, give or take. And yeah, it’s his,” Annie reveals. “Not that he’d want me telling you.” 

Negan radios Annie. He found Maggie’s son. He tells her to stay put with Annie. 

“He’s safe. You stay focused.” 

“If anything happens to him…” before Maggie can finish, Negan radios back.

“It’ll have to happen to me first.” 

Annie assures Maggie her son is in good hands. 

Tearfully, Maggie tells her, “He’s in the hands of the man who killed his father.” 

“I know who he is and what he did. He told me.” 

“And you’re still with him?”
“None of us have clean hands. I’ve seen what people will do to each other to survive. Sometimes, it was done to me. Other times I did it to them. I’m not proud of it, but it happened. All I can do now is try to be better. Just like him.” 

“He doesn’t get to forget,” Maggie says through tears. 

Softly, Annie tells her, “He hasn’t.” 

“What matters to me is who he is now,” Annie says. “He’s someone who will do whatever he can to protect your boy.” 

In the hideout, Hershel says his mom told him to stay away from Negan. “Why doesn’t she like you?” 

“Because of something that happened a long time ago.” 

“Was it something bad?” 

Negan hangs his head. He nods. “Yeah. It was something bad.” 

“Are you a bad man?” asks Hershel. 

“I was,” Negan tells him. He turns away. Hershel pulls out a gun and cocks it. 

“My mom told me a bad man killed my dad. It was you, wasn’t it?” 

Negan nods. “Yeah. Yeah, it was me.” He crouches down. “Look… kid, what I took away from you and your mom, there is nothing I can say or do that is gonna make that better. I know you want to pull that trigger, and I don’t blame you. The thing is, if you do, the bad people are gonna know where we’re hiding. Maybe I deserve to die for what I did to your dad — to your family — but these people here, they don’t.”

Hershel looks to Lydia. The Riverbenders watch. The boy lowers his gun. He lets Lydia take it and runs out of the room. 

Negan releases a breath and cries. 

SMASH AND GRAB

At the mansion, Daryl turns on the generator. The whirring draws out a walker. Daryl fights it off as the power comes back. Rosita enters the code to free April. Daryl busts into the safe as the panic room alarm blares, threatening to draw even more walkers towards the house. Rosita smashes the alarm, shutting it off. They fill a duffle bag with money and barricade themselves inside. 

Rosita gives April her blood-covered armor. Outside, rapid gunfire. The door opens to reveal their rescuers: Carol and General Mercer (Michael James Shaw).

Carol tells him she alerted Mercer when Daryl didn’t show up for lunch.  

“Y’all looting houses now? Is that it?” asks Mercer. 

“Sebastian made us come in here,” Rosita explains. “He threatened our kids.” 

They’re low on ammo: there are more walkers than bullets. 

Knife in hand, Daryl decides: “We gut up, and we go.” The group of five slips through the walkers in the hall, camouflaged by blood. April’s armor catches on a walker. She panics, giving hershel away to the mob of biters. 

Rosita puts down April. 

At Riverbend, Maggie and Annie evade Carlson and his men. He orders his troopers to kill anyone who doesn’t talk. If they don’t find the guns, they burn Riverbend to the ground. 

Maggie radios Negan with a plan. 

BLOOD MONEY

Carlson and his men inspect the room, just feet away from where Negan’s group hides behind the closet entrance. Carlson notices a footprint and closes in — only for gunfire to draw his unit to the roof. The troopers trap Aaron and Gabriel. 

“What are you even thinking, just turning on me? On The Commonwealth? For what?” Carlson asks Aaron at gunpoint. “Some tenement warlord and all these thieving followers? I really thought you were smarter than all that.”

A masked Elijah is a ninja as he gets the drop on Carlson’s men. Aaron swings his mace arm on Carlson as he orders his men to the roof. Over the radio, the sound of gunfire: they’re busy with combatants. 

Carlson chuckles. He’s cornered. “Things just got a little out of hand.” As Maggie and Annie enter the roof, Aaron guns down Carlson, sending his body toppling off the roof. He’s alive when he hits the ground, but not for long. His bones broken, Carlson is helpless as the reanimated Riverbenders tear him apart. 

Mercer, Daryl, Rosita, and Carol hand over stuffed bags of money to Alves and Castle.

“Could’ve used your help back there,” a pissed Mercer tells Alves. 

Too bad, he says: “We don’t answer to you.” 

Alves and Castle casually remark they sent in something like 30, maybe 40 people before April. Before they can finish answering, Mercer guns them down. He tells Daryl to pay Sebastian. “If you don’t, he’ll come after you. That’s a fight you ain’t gonna win.” 

Mercer will take the bags through the gate, knowing he won’t be searched. Back at the station, Sebastian shows up to retrieve his blood money. He slams Daryl’s cut on the desk. “We did it! I am so glad that we’re friends again.” 

Daryl looks to Rosita. The look says it all: Fuck the Commonwealth.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Hornsby radios Carlson. No answer. Carol reports to Hornsby and tells him her friends were on a mission for the Governor’s son. “He’s been finding desperate people, sending them through swarms to get stashes of cash. Most of them didn’t make it out.” 

“He sent your friends to do this? They all made it back?”
“Barely,” answers Carol. 

“And the money? Did they get it?” 

Hornsby releases a sigh of relief. “Finally.” 

She asks why he sent the other people. What did they do? 

“They put themselves in bad situations, either through stupid choices or an unwillingness to play by the rules. I tried to throw them a lifeline. This place works because everyone plays their part. If you can’t — or won’t — it hurts everyone else. That’s when the system breaks down, and we can’t let that happen. You know what I’m saying?” 

Carol listens. “Yeah. Yeah,” she says, playing along. “People can either be part of the problem or part of the solution.” 

“I knew you’d get it.”

“It’s nice to be able to talk to someone who sees the big picture. Not many can,” Hornsby tells Carol. She smiles sweetly. As she turns, Carol’s expression gives away her true feelings: Fuck the Commonwealth. 

At Riverbend, Negan approaches Hershel. They have unfinished business. 

“I tell you what. You go back with your mom. Help her rebuild your home. And in a few years, when you’ve grown up a bit come find me. And I promise you, we will settle it.” 

Maggie reunites with her son. Negan backs off. “What did he say to you?” For another time. 

Maggie tells Aaron and Gabriel they can’t go back to Commonwealth, but they’ll have to: Hornsby will want to know what happened here. “Well, the more immediate problem is these people,” Gabriel points out. “It’s only a matter of time before Hornsby comes for them.” Maggie decides to do something.

“All of this over some guns,” Aaron says. Asks Gabe, “But if Ian didn’t steal the weapons, who did? 

TWO WEEKS AGO. Dead troopers and a bloodied convoy. One trooper crawls away, begging or her life. The killer slits her throat. It’s Leah (Lynn Collins). 

END OF EPISODE. 

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