This week’s episode of The Walking Dead followed Daryl and Rick on their respective quests to enlist more soldiers to join them in their eventual fight against Negan and the Saviors.

THE WALKING DEAD RECAP

Daryl (Norman Reedus) needs to convince Ezekiel to break his truce with the Saviors and to rally troops from the Kingdom to help fight. Daryl gets help from Richard, who suggests the only way to motivate Ezekiel is to kill one of his own and pin it on Negan’s group. The two come to blows when Daryl realizes that Richard wanted to target Carol.

Daryl and Carol finally reunite, but he can tell how tired she is of the fighting. When she asks how the original group under Rick are doing, Daryl lies to her and says everyone is alive, knowing full well that if he revealed that Glenn and Abraham were killed by Negan, that Carol would be up in arms in an instant. He wants to spare her that rage.

Daryl finds Ezekiel, by getting past his tiger no less, and tries to convince him to help. But Ezekiel cannot be swayed. Despite his tough demeanor, the King’s real goal is to remain peaceful and not stir the pot. Additionally, another Kingdom resident Morgan points out that if Daryl wished to spare Carol from heartbreak, even if it meant losing a soldier in the fight, that he should understand why he and Ezekiel do not wish to join.

Rick (Andrew Lincoln), meanwhile, found a very promising set of people who could be willing to help. He works with the Junkyard gang that he encountered at the end of last week’s episode, and ask them to join him against the Saviors. They are perhaps intrigued, but force Rick to battle a walker to prove himself, and this walker is covered in metal plating and spikes. Rick wins, but not without injury.

But with that, it seems Rick has formed a bond with the Junkyard leader Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh). We can expect to see more of her and her Junkyard Kids down the line, when the battle against Negan finally takes place.

Leave a comment

Read more about: