“The Obliged”
Michonne finishes various errands around the community and that night finds a walker being hung a tree who resembles someone she once knew. She tears up and almost gets killed by another walker, but kills it with a bat. She looks at the bat in horror, reminded of Negan.
Maggie returns to Hilltop and sneaks a crowbar into a travel bag, which Jesus notices. She instructs him to look after the Hilltop while she heads to Alexandria (to take care of Negan) and he implores her to think about it. At the camp, Eugene updates Rick on the status of the rising river in relation to their bridge construction. He apologizes for the bad news but Rick reminds him how valuable he is to them. Carol tells Rick she’s taking her people back to Kingdom while the Sanctuary figures out who they want to be.
Jerry arrives at the camp to warn Rick about Maggie’s march to Alexandria. He immediately radios Rachel to warn his people not to let Maggie into the community, but Rachel picks up a magazine and ignores the request. Daryl overhears Rick and tells him he’ll take him to Alexandria himself. Nora, one of Alexandria’s residents, warns Michonne that Negan has been refusing to eat and she promises to handle it.
Daryl rides past the road to Alexandria and Rick angrily tells him to pull over. Rick asks what’s up and Daryl reveals he messed with the relay so Maggie will be allowed into Alexandria to kill Negan. Rick jumps at him and the two wrestle until they roll into a giant ditch. Michonne brings Negan a meal and he says he’ll only eat if she stays to talk to him.
In the ditch, Rick and Daryl argue over the merits of keeping Negan alive. Daryl reminds Rick how Negan turned him into a slave and how no one’s on board with him sticking around. Rick says if they martyr Negan then Carl will have died for nothing. Daryl tells Rick he’d die for him and he would have for Carl too, but he has to just let him go. Rick says he never asked anyone to follow him, and Daryl says, “Maybe you should have.”
Negan tells Michonne he’s not meant to be in the cell just as she’s not meant to be “planting kale and kissing boo boos.” Michonne shoots back that she’s helping rebuild civilization. Negan admits he’s happy his wife never got to see him like this. Michonne presses, and Negan reveals they wish they had a kid like Carl, but his wife got cancer and the world changed. Michonne says she sees Carl everywhere, and when Negan asks about her own kid, she angrily says Andre “just didn’t make it.” Negan says it’s better this way because his wife wasn’t made for the apocalypse. “We were built for more,” he says.
At the junkyard Anne kisses a tied up Father Gabriel before rolling up one of her walker experiments to kill him. He wakes up and begs her to stop before telling her he forgives her. She leans the walker over him and then stops, before putting another chloroform rag over his mouth to knock him out.
At the camp Carol packs up for Kingdom when Jedd and the Saviors return, this time they’re armed. He reveals he knows that Oceanside’s been killing the Saviors and he needs her to step aside so he can enact his revenge. Carol attacks him again, more Saviors show up and a shoot-out ensues. Rick and Daryl hear the shots from the ditch and are forced to help each other escape. Negan tells Michonne that the two of them are the same, which enrages her. She acknowledges they’re similar but distinguishes that her worldview is a lot more positive than his. She finally gets him to eat, and as she leaves he asks her to see Lucille. Michonne tells him they don’t have the bat anymore, which causes him to violently bang his head against the wall.
Walkers slip into the ditch as Rick and Daryl struggle to climb out. Rick finally crawls out of it and uses a tree branch to get Daryl out as well. With a horde building near the camp Rick concocts a plan to lead them away while Daryl heads for the river. Father Gabriel wakes up untied and alone in the junkyard. He finds a note in his pocket from Anne telling him, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. I want to go fast.” Gabe breaks down in tears. Elsewhere, Michonne reads to Judith about baseball and gets triggered by the bat again.
Quickly surrounded by walkers, Rick’s horse gets spooked and throws him into a pile of rebar, WHICH STABS HIM THROUGH HIS SIDE. Rick loses consciousness as the walkers close in.
WHAT! Do you think Rick will survive that injury? Will his friends make it back in time to save him? Give us all your reactions in the comments!
Let me guess, Rick dying is what’s going to convince Maggie and Daryl to not kill Negan. Pulling a Carl are we.
HEY PRODUCERS! WRITERS! Listen TF up. Killing Rick… sigh. Why, just… why? So your show is more talked about? So you can win an academy award? Listen, if I watch next week’s episode and Rick DOESNT get captured or go missing or something (for a badass return later, which would be the CORRECT way to get rid of a character onscreen if the actor decides not to be a part of it anymore, just think about the theorists, the mystery! that would keep the show going! hope my friend, hope!) anyway, IM GONNA BE PISSED. THIS IS GONNA BE A MISTAKE. YOUVE CROSSED THE LINE. Basic rules for WRITING PEOPLE! BASIC RULES FOR TV! You don’t, I repeat, DO. NOT. kill the main character. I don’t care how badly you want your show to be special, especially at the low point it’s at with ratings, you just don’t do it. ITS CHEAP. ITS FUCKING CHEAP. You can’t just expect us to be interested in the other character’s emotional responses when we’re still fucking bawling our eyes out and throwing our remotes on the screen. I don’t know if you guys have realized this by now, but HEY! The MAJORITY. OF YOUR VIEWERS. ARE NOT. FUCKING. TV CRITICS! Guess what? We like our content to be satisfying. THATS WHAT NORMAL PEOPLE LIKE. You don’t have to appeal to us all the time, but buddy, you’ve CROSSED THE LINE NOW. Don’t you realize that some people grew up on this show? That It’s part of some peoples identity?
“Hey what kind of shows are you into?”
“Oh, I mean, I like the walking dead…”
“Ew, you mean the show that had to kill the main character to get attention?”
“Well I don’t really like it anymore…”
Do you really want that to be how people talk about your show? WAKE UP ROBERT. Listen, the acting is still great. In fact, the writing is not bad either. But here’s the thing. What made TWD so special was the ethereal feeling that came with it. This simple little group banding together, interacting with a fallen world. There were SIMPLE quarrels, with enough drama to satisfy the 10 million viewers an episode your show used to have, don’t you think? Just… stop trying SO HARD. SO HARD to be different. When you already are different, TWD! But you’re on a slippery slope. You’re falling. And it’s not to late to save it. Maybe this comment will just me lost in the vast internet abyss we live in, but just know that I still love you TWD. Like a family that always loves each other. But you need to start acting like you love me back.
If this is the way rick grimes dies……..falling off a horse……how stupid can you get?….I have zero writing experience and I could write a better show than this garbage they are putting on tv…..
I thought the same, like the first episode of this season, we have people being killed by walkers when they should know better by now. And I would think that Rick with experience in walker disposal and horse ridding would by now be able to handle his shit but nope falls off a horse… Crap.
Actually the horse reared, which even the most experienced rider would have quite a time handling. Horses are, regardless of training, unpredicable- especially when spooked.
That said, coming attactions seem to show Rick no longer impaled. Whatever that means. I had really hoped Anne was going to trade him to the helicopter/radio people. She always has surprises ( chloroform ) up her sleeve.
I wonder if Negan caves his own skull in before Maggie. And that fight between Carol and Jed with former Saviors and Kingdom residents, I wanna see that. Next week maybe.
Jadis could still show up & be the one to save him. Wonder if they’ll both end up in Fear the Walking Dead. That would just be one more slap in the face.
What a shame! Under ordinary circumstances the location of Rick’s injusry would have been able to be managed surgically and would have had an excellent chance of full recovery..oh well. I am still in favor of Negan being executed. I just want Jadis to git! Too weird and freaky!!!
I just can’t accept that this is the way Rick would go out. This is just not happening the way we are led to believe. No.
So Heath shows up at the most opportune time, for the “Ooo Value”, pulls him off the rebar, & takes him to whatever camp he’s been hiding out in. But we don’t ever see this camp… & Heath gets written out of the show as well.
Or Heath shows up in the second half of the season (I can’t even fathom the show being renewed for a new season) & indicates that Rick died or disappeared. All lame scenarios, but that’s what we can expect–lameness.
Thanks again, AMC, for letting me know that the upcoming ep is Rick’s last. Puts you on the same list as The Spoiling Fucktards you warned not that awful long ago. You gave me one of my all-time favorite shows but you’ll probably never sell me on another one.