On this week’s episode of The Walking Dead, we head back to Rick’s group and see how they’re faring in the wake of Negan’s slaughter of Glenn and Abraham. On top of that, they will be trying to find a way to adjust to Rick no longer being their leader. They all are Negan now.

Recap: “Service”

Rick and Michonne wake up next to each other, but their body language is clear: life is not business as usual right now. She slinks out of bed, grabs her katana, retrieves the shotgun from the fireplace and heads out, leaving Rick behind.

I’m not sure how a relationship really bounces back from “witnessing your family being murdered by a psychopath that owns you now.”

Whatever she is doing, she is doing it with purpose (as per usual), and she comes across a rotted car in the middle of a field. She perches atop it with weapons in tow and waits for what is to come.

Awww, our first glimpse of Judith! She’s so big now.

Eugene is on guard duty when Rosita and Spencer drive up. He’s also clearly out of it and doesn’t even register when she asks him to open the gate and let them out so they can go search for the supplies required to fulfill Negan’s demands.

Before they can leave, however, they see that Negan has actually already come to call — with Lucille — and he is knocking at their gate. Spencer asks Negan who he is, and Negan is clearly taken aback by this.

Rick comes up and lets him pass, but they do not have the supplies because Negan is early, coming before the end of the week he promised.

Rick looks behind Negan and sees Daryl among his minions. Daryl can’t even look him in the eye. Negan pushes past Rick, and, honestly, at this point, I don’t know why someone doesn’t just kill Negan and get it over with. Maybe someone would fill his spot, but I gotta think that true evil like doesn’t come around all the time.

Negan is definitely digging Alexandria; he believes that Rick will have plenty to offer him.

Rick tries to speak to Daryl, but Negan shuts that shit down quickly. He is not to talk to or look at Daryl, or Negan will make Rick chop things off of him.

Negan pushes past Rick and tells his minions to start searching the place for supplies. Rick tries to speak up, but Negan tells him that they will take whatever they please, and he’ll keep quiet about it.

Dwight heads Rosita and Spencer off before they can go finish their supply run. He sweeps the car and takes all their weapons before telling Rosita to go and fetch him Daryl’s bike. She tells him it isn’t there, but he’s sure she knows where it is and sends her on her way — but not before dumping out her water on the ground, just to top of the douche sundae he just served her.

GAH I hate them all and cannot believe I actually felt bad for Dwight last week. Firmly back to hating him now. Glad that’s settled.

Michonne sees a walker lumbering toward her from her perch on the car, but, when she tries to shoot it, she misses several times, which is very unlike her, obviously. She can’t get out of her own head, either. So now she’s wasted a shit ton of ammunition and very well may have led even more to her with all that ruckus she made.

When Michonne goes to the woods to see where the walker came from, she finds a dead deer on the ground. It looks as it was hit with an errant bullet. She looks super sad, but I’m like, yo girl, get you that venison. Negan’ll love it. Or, maybe, if you get back after he leaves, your people will actually be able to eat for a bit.

Gene Page/AMC

Negan’s people are seriously taking armchairs out of the Alexandria houses now. Anything that strikes his/their fancy is up for the taking. He keeps talking about how much he “loves this place,” and I’m waiting for him to say they’re just moving in and keeping Alexandria for themselves.

Negan asks whatever happened to “that sick girl,” and I’m grateful someone is going to finally mention it. The way he’s talking about Maggie puts murder in Rick’s eyes, a fact that does not go unnoticed by Negan. As he starts to call him out, Father Gabriel comes up and asks if he’d like to pay his respects, implying that Maggie is dead. Negan is at Maggie’s gravestone (THEY’RE JUST HIDING HER. SHE’S AT THE HILLTOP GETTING BETTER. IT’S JUST A RUSE EVERYTHING IS FINE.) when we hear a gunshot in the distance.

Rick and Negan rush into the doctor’s office and see Carl threatening some of Negan’s men at gunpoint, since they’re trying to clear out all of their medicine, despite promising to only take half.

Negan is super impressed with Carl’s man-sized balls since Carl tells him to leave Alexandria before Negan and his people find out how dangerous they all really are.

Negan may be impressed with Carl, but that doesn’t stop him from telling Rick that they are all clearly too emotional to keep any of their own guns — they’re all his now.

Rick takes Negan to the armory so that he can clean it out. Olivia shows them the way, and Negan likes that they keep track of the weapons and rations.

Negan wants to point out to Rick that he hasn’t touched a scrap of their food. He is looking for a thank you, but Rick doesn’t know what to say. Negan tries to get the point across that he is a very reasonable man as long as people cooperate. Negan asks Rick if he’s cooperating, and Rick asks, “What’s it look like?”

Negan tells Rick that he is wondering if all of their guns are actually in the armory or if they’ve got a secret stash somewhere. Rick tells him that, to the best of his knowledge, they’re all there. I like that he qualified it because Negan tells him he’s counting on it.

Gene Page/AMC

Rosita and Spencer come to a roadblock and retrieve Daryl’s bike from the brush. She looks disgusted, and I don’t blame her. I wouldn’t be able to stomach handing it over to Dwight either. Spencer tries to tell Rosita that it’s over now; this is their life. Rick got them to this point, and now they all have to suffer the consequences. As he is monologuing, he notices that Rosita enters the woods in what looks like pursuit.

We’re back in Alexandria with Negan clearing out the armory, and he is super excited about that RPG. Olivia is shoved outside because her ledger shows that there are two guns missing from the inventory. Negan’s gonna shoot Olivia. Right here, right now.

He is telling her that he doesn’t enjoy killing women, but, at the end of the day, this problem is her fault, and she will pay for it. “Keeping track of guns? That shit is life and death.” I mean, he’s not wrong, I guess, as far as walker apocalypse goes. But still — poor Olivia.

Rick and Lucille are chilling together in the church with the rest of Alexandria trying to figure out where the missing guns are. He tells them life is really black and white now: they must do what Negan says. They need to give up the guns, or they will kill Olivia. Simple as that.

Someone speaks up, but Rick tells them that they were not there. They don’t understand how serious this is. Rick. Is. Not. In. Charge. Anymore. They MUST give up the guns.

No one fesses up to it, and Eugene says, “Not everyone’s here,” breaking the silence, and we flash back to Rosita who is chasing walkers through the woods. Spencer calls out to her and blows her cover, and she’s forced to make a full frontal attack. We see she had a mission, though, and it’s retrieving a gun from the woods. She does have one of the missing weapons.

Spencer is not down with this ish, though. He’s weak. He’s always been weak. He’ll get them all killed. He will not fight for their freedom.

Rick sees Negan casually chilling with Olivia and knows that his time is limited. He starts searching his own house for the missing weapons — I guess thinking that maybe Carl or Michonne hid them somewhere.

Father Gabe comes in trying to offer positivity and faith, and Rick is not having it. Father Gabe believes they can get through anything as long as Rick is there, but Rick is not so sure.

Under a loose register, Rick finds a secret stash of food, booze and, yes, a handgun. Carl? Or Michonne? Or maybe a past inhabitant? Rick rushes out to return it to Negan and finds Enid with one of his henchmen. He is taunting her with something, and Carl will definitely kill that person at some point.

Gene Page/AMC

Negan asks which one of his people hid the gun, and when Rick tries to tell him that it doesn’t matter, Negan cuts him off. It does matter because everyone needs to be on board, or nothing works.

Negan and his people are finally heading out with all of Alexandria’s weapons, medicine and furniture packed in their old U-Hauls. They stop at the gate right as Spencer and Rosita return with Daryl’s bike. I wonder if they’ll realize Rosita is packing.

Rick asks for a quick sec to go and speak with Michonne, but I don’t know why. Oh, okay. He needs her to give up the rifle before they realize she has it and Negan kills her or someone else. Clearly she is reluctant, but Rick insists.

When he delivers it to Negan, Negan is so pleased that Rick is emboldened to ask if Daryl can stay now that Negan knows they can follow his rules.

Negan asks Daryl if he’ll plead his case, but Daryl refuses to even look his friends in the eyes. He’s in no place to walk, really; no way could he muster the words or energy for that.

Dwight collects Daryl’s bike, and I hope that Daryl seeing it will, like, shock him back to life. He’s still tranced out, though, and Dwight tells him he could have it back — he just needs to say the words — before speeding off.

Negan tells Rick he’ll go if and only if Rick says those two magical words. Rick spits out a short “thank you,” and Negan, ever the gracious guest, thanks him right back. Negan goes to kill the walker coming up and has Rick hold Lucille. For a minute there, I thought Rick was going to do some of his own bludgeoning, but he comes to his senses right in time.

Negan tells his people to clear out and turns around to retrieve Lucille. Then he tells Rick, “In case you missed it, I just slipped my dick down your throat and you thanked me for it,” before driving away.

No matter what has happened or will happen, Negan is the best villain this show has ever seen. He’s one of my top villains of all-time right now, honestly.

Daryl is stuck gazing at Rick out of the back of the truck, and it’s the saddest damn thing.

Also, I had no idea this episode was going to be an hour and a half (almost). No idea whatsoever.

Rick closes the gates and asks Spencer if he knows where the other gun is that was missing. OH. The gun and supplies that Rick found was actually in Spencer’s house, not Rick’s.

Spencer starts talking shit and throws up something about Glenn and Abraham being lucky, and Rick tells him that, if he ever says anything like that again, he will break Spencer’s jaw and knock all of his teeth out of his skull. I believe he got the message.

Rick is rolling out the comforter on the floor, since the Saviors took all of their beds, when Michonne comes up to talk to him. She is pissed that he made her give up the rifle; there’s no way they ever would have known about it. She can’t believe that he’s given up on everything they stand for. Everything they have, they got by fighting. Why would they stop doing that now?

He’s telling Michonne about Shane. Not sure what this has to do with what’s happening here, other than Shane playing the Benedict Arnold (dirty rotten traitor). He also tells Michonne that he knows Judith isn’t his. He loves her — she’s his daughter — but she’s isn’t his. She’s Shane’s. He had to accept that, so he could keep her alive. He needs to stay alive to keep Judith alive, and, to do that, they MUST accept Negan’s way as the only way.

He is pleading with Michonne to accept this — they all need to accept it, or Negan will kill them all.

OH, and I forgot to mention before that Father Gabe had dug those empty graves to fool Negan. Maggie is alive!

Michonne tells Rick she’ll try and accept this life they lead now, but I know her. Subservience is not in her makeup.

She’s back on top of car-perch when she hears something behind her. The trail leads her to a road where she finds their mattresses burning in the middle of the road. The fuckers burned them, simply ruining them just so they couldn’t be used by Alexandria residents.

Rosita shows up to Eugene’s door and asks him to make her a bullet, and the episode ends.

I’m honestly so conflicted right now. I REALLY want them to rebel against Negan and the Saviors, but I also REALLY don’t want anyone else to die. Glenn is dead, Daryl is basically already a walker, Rick is a husk of his former self, Carol’s off banging King Ezekiel (hopefully) in The Kingdom l and Maggie’s convalescing with Sasha and Jesus at the Hilltop.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: no good EVER comes from the group being separated. I need them together, stat.

Until next week, Deadheads!