‘The Walking Dead’ Sixth Season Premiere Recap: ‘First Time Again’

The Walking Dead kicked off its sixth season Sunday night with “First Time Again,” which showed Rick (Andrew Lincoln) calling the shots with a plan to lead a horde of zombies away from Alexandria.

‘The Walking Dead’ Recap

Deanna (Tovah Feldshuh), mourning the loss of her husband who was killed in last season’s finale, tells Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) that he was wrong about Rick, who she now completely trusts. Less trusting of Rick is Pete’s family, who, while knowing he was an abuser, can’t get the image of Rick shooting him dead out of their minds. The next morning, Rick and Morgan (Lennie James) are talking while walking about the town and come upon Gabriel digging graves for both Pete and Reg. Rick doesn’t think that Pete should be buried inside the walls of the city. Deanna agrees.

Listening on the other side of the fence is one of Pete’s kids, Ron (Austin Abrams). He ends up following Morgan and Rick, who have his dad’s body, to where they plan to bury him. In the midst of the burial, Rick hears the sound of thousands of zombies and follows it to the quarry. Rick realizes that the reason why the community has been able to stay relatively safe for so long is this trap, which features 18-wheelers as fences. While it once only held a dozen walkers, the sound they make has attracted more.

When he gets back to the community, Rick gathers the people of Alexandria and warns them that if the one truck falls into the quarry, then the horde will escape. Carter (Ethan Embry) is dubious about Rick’s plan. He makes valid points about where the plan is failing, but he ultimately agrees to help construct fortifications.

While building the walls, zombies approach. And since Rick wants the residents of Alexandria to learn to fend for themselves, he doesn’t rush to their defense. Though he, Morgan and Michonne (Danai Gurira) eventually intervene, Carter feels like Rick is trying to get them killed. He holds a meeting with a few close pals to say that his plan is to kill Rick and takeover the community himself. Eugene (Josh McDermitt) overhears the chat. When Carter finds Eugene he aims a gun at him.

Rick, Morgan and Daryl walk into the house to find Carter ready to kill Eugene. Rick puts a gun on Carter, but then stops himself and offers him the chance to get with the program. Talking to Morgan, Rick admits that he had wanted to kill him. He believes that Carter is the type of person who wasn’t meant to live through such a time and that he’s always going to do something stupid. Rick predicts that one way or another Carter is going to get himself killed.

With everything ready to go for their plan, Rick is trying to organize the troops for a dry run – until an 18-wheeler tumbles off the cliff and forces them to put their plan in motion immediately. Daryl (Norman Reedus), Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) get ready to lead the walkers away from Alexandria. Glenn (Steven Yeun), Nicholas (Michael Traynor) and newcomer Heath (Corey Hawkins) head to a local truck stop to take out the walkers inside so that the noise they make won’t derail the plan. Though Glenn doesn’t want to trust Nicholas, who recently tried to kill him, he’s forced to and the three of them manage to wipe out the group of zombies.

The master plan seems to be going smoothly. The walkers have stayed on the road and are successfully steered to make a right turn with the wall Rick had Carter had constructed. Watching from a wooded area, Carter acknowledges that Rick was right and that his plan is working. He then volunteers to go towards the front, but before he gets there, he confronts a zombie. Still unable to defend himself, Carter suffers a bite to the neck and starts screaming, distracting the zombies from the path. Rick eventually finds him and kills the zombie before putting Carter down.

With things back on track, Rick starts to calm down once again – but the feeling of success is short-lived. A horn starts to blare, pulling all of the zombies off the road. Michonne and Rick soon realize that the horn is coming from Alexandria.