I could give you a quick recap of last week’s episode of The Walking Dead, but suffice it to say that Maggie and Carol solidified their place among the most bad-ass characters on television, period. We still haven’t seen Negan, but I GOTTA think it’s gonna be soon, right? Please?

It’s a serenely peaceful day in Alexandria, which definitely means something terrible is about to happen. And since they’re letting Eugene take on guard duty now, it’ll probably start with him. 

Carol is still holding on tightly to her rosary, have a crisis of conscience and faith as she is.

We see that Morgan’s construction project was actually a legitimate cell. He tells Rick it’s so he’ll have some choices next time. Morgan is still all about the preservation of life, and I truly wonder if they’re just trying to beat us into submission with this and bully us into accepting that his way of thinking is not going anywhere. 

The beginning is on a loop, I suppose to showcase the fact that life in Alexandria is, by all accounts, quite normal. People are domestic and together and they do chores and tend crops and stand guard and have sex. It’s basically Pleasantville. 

Daryl finds a little toy soldier in his recovered bike and it stops him for a minute. Carol comes up and offers him a cigarette and she asks him details about how he lost it in the first place. He tells her not to admire him, he should have killed the people that took it from him. He regrets not doing it. And she gets up to walk away, because this is not the kind of thing she wants to be hearing right now. He asks what the people did that kidnapped her and Maggie and she says, “To us? They didn’t do anything,” and leaves. 

She basically just sits on her porch and chain smokes and holds her rosary. I do not approve. 

Rosita is banging Spencer to stave off the sting of Abraham’s scorn, and she’s having trouble getting all the way involved, but finally succumbs to his probing and agrees to dinner.

Doctor Denise decides that they need to go on a run to an apothecary shop to see if there are drugs there, and Daryl and Rosita go with her convinced she will die if she goes alone.

They come upon a large branch blocking the road and find walkers trapped underneath of it. They have to abandon the truck and walk the rest of the way, and Daryl insists they use the road, despite their insistence that the tracks right there would be a much straighter shot. Tracks… he’s seen enough of those. Tracks led to Terminus, I wouldn’t want to take them either. 

Rosita, however, is feeling feisty, and decides to take the quicker route on the tracks alone. 

Eugene and Abraham are also on some sort of a mission. Eugene explains that, like any good RPG character, he is in the process of adapting to his environment and turning into a survivor. Abraham, however, is not convinced and lets him know it.

Daryl, Rosita and Denise finally reconnect and make their way to the apothecary shop that was in the middle of a strip mall. Very authentic

.

The windows to the shop have desperate hand prints all over them, but they decide to explore anyway. 

Abraham and Eugene also come upon their destination and Abraham wants to know what they’re doing. Eugene tells him that they’re going to manufacture bullets here. Abraham is dubious, but then again, he is generally suspicious of Eugene these days. A walker comes lumbering in, but Eugene tells Abraham that he wants to take care of this one. This walker, though, had melted steel on its head and his blade bounces right off. Abraham saves his face and tells him to learn his place as the brains and not the brawn. 

Eugene tells Abraham that he has exhausted his usefulness, so Abraham leaves Eugene to find his own way home. 

Daryl, Rosita and Denise enter the shop and find themselves overwhelmed by the scent of death. The music tells me that something messed up is about to happen so I’m braced for the worst at this point. 

Daryl is trying to pry open the pharmacy door and they hear a banging on the wall. Daryl and Rosita tell her that it’s just one, so Denise thinks she can handle it. I KNOW it’s going to be the boy in the pictures. I just know it. No no no. Don’t dooooo ittttttttt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh my God seriously. My heart. This is on par with any horror movie I have ever seen. She finds a disgustingly misshapen walker plastered to the ground, but still alive, and races out of the room into the fresh air. Daryl and Rosita grab all the drugs and make haste to GTFO.

Daryl agrees to take the tracks back to the vehicle this time, showing a sense of trust for both of them. Seems like an ominously bad idea, though…

Denise breaks off from the group and finds a car with a cooler in it. She tells Daryl and Rosita about it but they tell her that it’s not worth the trouble. She doesn’t listen, though, and goes try and get it herself. 

The starving walker in the car immediately falls on her, but she manages to get the upper hand and stabs it through the head. I suppose she had to prove it to herself, or something. 

She finishes the job and promptly hurls. Daryl tries to chastise her but she tells him that she needs to be able to take risks on her own. She is right in the middle of her speech when an arrow goes straight through her eye. Daryl and Rosita pull their weapons, but a gang of maybe 15 men emerge from the woods. One of them has Eugene hostage, and it just so happens to be the man that Daryl let live. The one that stole his bike. And his crossbow.

Holy. Shit.

The entire gang have guns pointed at Rosita and Daryl, and if I remember correctly, this asshole that stole Daryl’s bike and crossbow is the first time we heard mention of The Saviors. He tells Daryl that Denise wasn’t even who he was aiming for, implying he was looking for Daryl instead. 

He tells them that they were the ones that started this, and now they’re going to let them into their little complex, and they’re going to allow them to take whatever, and whoever they want. Eugene tells D, or Dwight, that if they want to kill someone they should start with the redhead by the oil barrels, so Dwight sends someone to check it out. This gives Eugene the opening he needs to literally bite Dwight’s dick off, and Abraham starts shooting, while Daryl and Rosita grab their own weapons. 

AMC

Dwight and his boys fall back, but their group is severely diminished. Daryl does retrieve his crossbow, though, and they find that Denise is definitely dead, while Eugene has been shot. Daryl, Abraham and Rosita carry him back to the truck, and are forced to leave Denise behind. 

Poor Denise, she didn’t deserve to go down like that. 

They’re back in Alexandria, with Eugene in tow and alive. Rick is on his way, and the antibiotics that they collected will probably save his life. Eugene tells Abraham that he was not trying to kill him, and Abraham apologizes for doubting his skills. He says, “You didn’t have to bite a dick Eugene, I mean that with the utmost respect. Welcome to stage two.” HA!

Abraham goes to find Sasha and express his undying love and she invites him inside.

Daryl went back to recover Denise’s body and he and Carol are burying her in their rapidly expanding graveyard. She’s acting weird and I’m worried.

Carol leaves a note for Tobin breaking up with him, and explaining why she has to leave. She says that she loves them all, and that means she would have to kill for them, and she can’t do that anymore. She can’t love anymore because she can’t kill for anyone. She’s going like she always should have. Then she begs them not to come after her, and ends the note. 

The episode ends with Morgan looking very intently at, like, nothing. Okay then. 

And still. No. Negan. There are only two episodes left in this season and we STILL haven’t met Negan!?

W.

T.

F.

He better have a long arc next season, if we’re literally only getting him for two (possibly one!) episode this season. 

I’m here until the end, Deadheads. Stick with me as I finish out The Walking Dead‘s phenomenal sixth season.

Until next week!