When we last left our heroes on The Walking Dead, they were scattering after an action-packed hour of wasting bullets and spending way too much time talking to the enemy. A Walker herd had descended upon The Sanctuary and Gabriel made a rookie move of trying to save a jackass while leaving the keys in the car. Tonight's episode is centered around the side missions needed to take out the non-Sanctuary Saviors, and the hour is even more battle heavy than last week's. With some surprises in store, we also revisit the moral conflicts that come when you declare war on humans instead of zombies. Here's what went down in "The Damned."
Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'
Aaron and Eric invade one of Negan's satellite locations in their armored vehicles with a gang of folks I don't really recognize, and Eric sure gets an "A" for effort in the way he tries to manage his machine gun. He is super brave in this attack, but Eric is shot in the gut and we don't find out in this episode whether he lives or dies. I assume he's toast and this opens up a Jesus/Aaron romance. I would be on board with that.
Though they are using a lot of gun power, Aaron's group doesn't actually move in on the Saviors and they begin to push back. For a second it looks as if Aaron and the rest of his company might be screwed, but turns out there was actually never a plan to full on invade the location. The idea was to let all of the dead Saviors turn into Walkers and attack their own. Nice! I'm so glad this worked. Aaron totally got the shaft with his army though...the other groups are way more stacked.
Love To Pretend That You're Good
Morgan, Jesus, Tara and Dianne (The Kingdom's resident badass bitch...at least before Carol arrived) are leading an assault on another one of Negan's satellite locations. Morgan is all too casual as he makes his kills and we've realllllly moved beyond "all life is precious" at this point. Well, he's moved on. Tara and Jesus encounter an unarmed Savior who cries and begs for his life. Tara wants to put a bullet in his brain immediately but Jesus is having moral difficulties (wouldn't have it any other way). He engages Tara in a "this can't be about revenge" discussion and they let their guard down for a moment. The Savior grabs Jesus and his gun and turns out he is a total douchebag. Jesus elbows the guy and gets his gun back but still hesitates to shoot him. Tara is losing her mind, but in the end, Jesus pistol whips the dude and ties him up. Sigh. How long is this going to take to come back to bite him? Jesus also orders his group to stand down when a group of Saviors surrenders their weapons outside. Morgan and Tara both say their mission was to come and kill and they are pretty pissed that Jesus is allowing these assholes to live. I imagine Rick would be just as angry.
Meanwhile, Carol and Ezekiel are having their own problems with a shit ton of Walkers near their assigned assault area. A Savior spy has seen the group and run off to alert a satellite site that the Kingdom folks are coming their way. Carol is anxious to find him and fortunately the blood trail suggests the Savior was hit by a bullet and he's moving slowly. As the group tries to locate him on their way to the compound, Ezekiel is being Ezekiel with his big talk and positive attitude. The faces Carol makes each time he speaks are priceless and she finally pulls him aside to give him a dose of reality. She reminds him they might not win the battle and not all of them may make it out alive. His response? "And yet I smile." Love. Him. They walk through the woods a bit more and we see Shiva slaughter a man who I assume is the Savior spy on the run. The Savior had a walkie talkie though and alerted his community that Ezekiel and his crew were coming. Not to ever be underestimated, King Ezekiel says they will press forward anyway to certain victory.
Got My Baby Cryin'
Rick and Daryl have their own group of men in another building as they look for guns and enemies. Well hell yeah they need guns...and ammo given the bullets wasted to shatter all the top story windows at The Sanctuary last week. Dwight had drawn a map of this building to indicate where the weapons are stored and Rick and Daryl decide to split up to cover the area quicker. Rick encounters a bedroom (people live here comfortably?) and when he gets ready to enter the next room, a man tackles him. They fight and the guy tells Rick there are no guns. Rick ultimately impales him on a pipe popping out from the wall and heads back toward the room he had previously been trying to get into. He walks into...a baby's room...with zoo animals and "Gracie" painted on the wall...and baby Gracie is alive and asleep in the crib. Rick, realizing he probably just killed her dad, begins to cry. I'm sure he's thinking about what would happen to Judith if he dies as well.
Rick collects himself and heads to another room (I assume he is going to go back for Gracie once the rest of the place is cleared) and he runs into Morales, who immediately aims a gun at him. Do you remember Morales from Atlanta? No? I barely do. He and his family were part of that initial camp back in the days where Carl wasn't annoying, Shane wasn't crazy (or dead), and Carol
The episode ends there and my first thought is - what really happened in this hour? Ezekiel's group did a lot of walking, Aaron's group did a lot of shooting, and Rick and Daryl took quite a bit of screen time exploring whatever building they are in. My only big takeaway tonight was Gracie. There is a fan theory (I wish I had come up with it) that Gracie is actually the little girl in Rip Van Rick's flash forward sequence last week...and that Judith will be among the dead after the All Out War is over. The stuffed animal in Gracie's crib looks a hell of a lot like the stuffed animal future Judith carries around in that scene. So does Gracie make it back to Alexandria? Will Daryl or Rick kill Morales or will Morales align himself with the Grimes gang once again? Why even bring Morales back now? Thank you for the Shiva sighting and the Carol/Ezekiel banter, but can we get to them actually doing something? And finally, what's going on with Gabriel and Negan in that trailer? For their sake I hope Gabriel did not, in fact, soil himself. That trailer is tiny and probably hot. The Walkers outside would probably smell better.
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