Now, I know what the producers and writers are doing. They’re building up each individual story line and weaving them all together to make one giant action packed beautiful tapestry for the season finale. That’s basically been their M.O. for the last several seasons. While that plan is a proven one for excellent ratings at the beginning and end of the season, you do see viewer drop off, the likes of which have been plaguing TWD this season following the premiere.
Now that I’ve said that, let me say this: I loved the mid-season finale, I like how it ended. I like where we’re going; I LOVE that it wasn’t ended on a severe cliffhanger that makes me cranky knowing I’ll have to wait two months to see what happens. What was so good about it? Let’s jump on in that, shall we?
First, These Things Happened
We got a reminder of where everyone was in the first part of this episode. Here’s the breakdown on everyone’s location and current situations:
- Darryl’s at Sanctuary and attempting to break out
- Maggie’s at Hill Top and not playing Gregory’s games
- Carol and Morgan are hanging out with some fresh produce at her little home outside of the Kingdom
- Rick and Aaron are out in the wild attempting to go through a floater filled swamp (they have a Peeping Tom watching them)
- Negan’s still hanging out in Alexandria making a spaghetti dinner with Carl and Olivia
- Michonne is out in the wild with the Savoir she captured
- Eugene, Rosita, Father Gabriel, and Spencer are all back at Alexandria
Are you all still with me? That’s some Game of Thrones level amount of characters and locations. The only difference between GoT and this season of TWD is that everyone’s name is easy to remember.
Maggie, Sasha, and Enid are all still hanging out in the Hill Top compound. Maggie and Gregory verbally spar over whose balls are bigger, Maggie wins that round.
Negan and Carl are making a spaghetti dinner, while Tara brings over the lemonade powder that Negan asked for last episode. She gives it to a visibly distraught Olivia. Tara even offers to go back into the house in Olivia’s place, but Oliva declines stating that Rick left her in charge of taking care of Judith and that’s what she plans on doing. After realizing that those guns were missing, and almost getting herself and others killed for it, I would bet that Olivia felt as though she needed to make up her oversight to Rick.
Rick and Aaron are faced with crossing a swamp filled with floaters in a bullet-hole ridden boat. Rick offers for Aaron to stay back, but Aaron comes along with him. Aaron falls into the water, and while making my palms sweaty with anxiety, he happily makes it out alive.
Morgan visits Carol. Carol is still saying she doesn’t need or want anyone to come around, but upon hearing someone on her doorstep, she invites Morgan in. Supposedly she just wants to make sure he’s doing well. They’re visited by Ezekiel’s right-hand man (what’s his name again?), he tries to convince both of them to talk to Ezekiel about going against the Saviors. Neither Morgan nor Carol are willing to volunteer as tribute for that task.
Michonne is talking to the red-haired lady she kidnapped in the truck, she’s trying to get the Savior to talk to her. Once she see’s that Red isn’t willing to talk, Michonne starts speaking about how she will not give up. “I’m gonna change how this ends for me.” Michonne has been and will always be my girl. She’s so determined to live her life the way she wants to live it. Her frustration over not being in control over her life living in the world she’s been forced in is palpable in that car. Michonne is taking an active role in controlling her destiny. #Slay
Then These Things Happened
We have Father Gabriel laying down some hard truths to Rosita in the chapel. Who would have thought that Father Gabriel would be so not douchey this season? That, to me, was more surprising than the deaths we witnessed in episode one. He talks with Rosita about how valuable she is to the group and how risking her life to take out Negan isn’t a worthwhile endeavor.
Spencer takes that opportunity of having Negan in Alexandria and Rick not in Alexandria to try and kiss Negan’s ass. He brings him a bottle of liquor and cozies up with him on the front porch.
Darryl breaks out of his closet and makes it outside where he runs into Fat Joey. Fat Joey begs for his life telling Darryl that he can just take the bike and go, he won’t tell anyone, he won’t try and stop him. Darryl beats in Fat Joey’s head with metal pipe. RIP Fat Joey. Jesus pops out from behind some stuff and they escape Sanctuary together. But not before Darryl takes a revolver off of Fat Joey and saying, “It’s not just about getting by here, it’s about taking it all.”
Before we get into what finally happened, let us take a quick poll of everyone who is plotting to kill Negan.
- Darryl
- Michonne
- Carl
- Rosita
- Ezekiel’s Guy
- Father Gabriel
- Maggie
- Sasha
- Enid
- Jesus
That’s a lot of people gunning for one dude with a bat.
Finally, This Shit Happened
Rick and Aaron make is back to Alexandria with the supplies they took from the house-boat. Sadly for Aaron, he didn’t trash the note that came with the supplies and he gets his ass beat by some Saviors for that.
Red shows Michonne a bunch of Saviors and tells her how outnumbered they are.
Spencer continues to suck up to Negan whilst playing pool in the middle of the street. He starts talking about how his mother was in charge of Alexandria. How everything was fine until Rick and his group showed up. That with Rick’s arrival his mother, brother, and father were all killed. Aaron tells Negan that Rick shouldn’t be in charge of Alexandria, that Aaron himself should be.
Meanwhile, Rick is forced to watch and not help as Aaron gets the crap beat out him. He helps Aaron up and they start hobbling back to Rick’s house.
Back at the pool table, surrounded by a bunch of Alexandria’s people and Negan’s guards, Spencer just keeps digging his hole deeper and deeper. Negan calls him out on trying to use him to usurp Rick and then guts him in the middle of the street. Rosita, forgetting her convo with Father Gabriel then attempts to shoot Negan with her one Eugene made bullet.
This is just another example of what a good person Rick is. He hears a gunshot going off near his home and instead of leaving Aaron by himself in the street he just keeps going, not leaving him behind.
Sadly, for Rosita, she didn’t kill Negan. She shot Lucille. Whoops.
Negan demands to know who made the bullet. Rosita claims it was her. He threatens to cut up Rosita’s face, but that doesn’t sway her. She still claims it was her. Negan doesn’t believe her and orders his guard Arat to kill someone. She shoots Olivia, who was standing next to Carl on the front porch. Rick shows up with Aaron and reminds Negan that they had a deal. Negan informs Rick about Carl trying to kill him, Rosita trying to kill him, and Spencer trying to get Negan to kill Rick. Negan again demands to know who made the bullet and threatens to kill someone. Tara claims it was her, but Eugene steps forward and implicates himself. Negan takes Eugene and informs Rick he needs to get a lot more stuff to make up for what happened.
Michonne comes home to find Rick in the make-shift cells they made. Michonne talks to him about how outnumbered they are but about how they are fighters, doers, and people who make things happen. Michonne speaks to him about working together to take out Negan. That they can win if they fight together. Rick agrees with her and all is right in my happy little Richonne ship.
Rick, Michonne, Carl, Tara, and Rosita show up at Hill Top. Rick tells Maggie she was right from the start and that they’re all ready to fight. Darryl and Jesus show up and there’s a great moment when Rickyl is reunited and my heart felt full and happy. #Bromance
Then we had a few minutes of cameras showing everyone’s face whilst they smiled and nodded. That felt like a million years. We got a brief flash of next season with Rick showing up at the Kingdom and then the peeping-tom spying on Alexandria.
What I want from the next half of the season:
- The Saviors to go away
- Carol to get over herself and be the badass I love so much
- Morgan and Carol to be back with our group
- To find out who’s been spying on our group
- More hugs between Darryl and Rick
