Things are calm in Alexandria. Carol swaps recipes with the women folk. Jessie fights with Ron over her friendship with Rick and the death of his father. Maggie teaches Deanna about farming. Eugene doesn’t want the biggest building in the new expansion to be a church. Denise, a psychiatrist, is trying to get used to her new role as the community’s doctor. Carol returns home, yells at Sam for sitting on her stoop, and goes inside to make a casserole. As she sets the timer (55 minutes) she notices a filthy – but very human – man attack her neighbor, out having a smoke. Carol chases down the guy and kills him, then puts her neighbor out of her misery.
On the wall, molotov cocktails take out several guards, and send Maggie and Deanna for cover. Outside, Spencer is in the sniper tower and he sees a big rig heading towards the community. He fires, and the truck slams into his tower. The driver falls onto the horn – the sound that Rick’s team heard last week. It takes Spencer a while to free himself, and when he does, he tries to gather the courage to kill the now-zombified driver. Luckily Morgan shows up and takes care of it. Spencer decides to stay outside and he is soon joined by Deanna, deciding she would be better off out of everyone’s way.
Inside Alexandria, the Wolves have descended and they are vicious. They attack the Alexandrians with a viciousness that is normally not seen outside of rabid dogs. The Wolves don’t have guns; they use axes and other blades to chop up Alexandrians into tartare. Morgan encounters one of these particularly ferocious killers, but before he can turn on Morgan, another Wolf kills him. The Wolf reveals herself to be Carol in disguise. Rather than thanking Carol for saving his life, Morgan is mad that she killed him and tries to lecture her. Carol can’t worry about hurt feelings; she has to get to the armory.
With Morgan on a chain, as her “captive,” the two head to the armory while shooting Wolves. She refuses to help Gabriel, which Morgan can’t abide by. He “breaks” his chains and runs to save Gabriel. Carol continues on to the armory, kills a couple Wolves along the way, gives Olivia a 10-second lesson on shooting a gun, and takes off with a sack full of weapons to pass out. On the way, she sees Morgan tying up the Wolf, and she takes it upon herself to shoot him, then hands both Morgan and Gabriel a gun. Morgan doesn’t want it, and gives it to Gabriel. He doesn’t want it, either.
Morgan continues patrolling, and is soon surrounded by five Wolves. He gives them one last chance to leave before hitting them with his big stick. He knocks out a couple of them, then warns that if they “keep choosing this life, you will die.” “We didn’t choose this life,” he growls, but he and his other Wolves leave. He does stop and take a dead man’s gun on the way out. With things quieting down, Morgan stabs a zombie then ventures through an open door to check on a residence. There is a Wolf hiding inside, and the two men fight. Morgan has the upper hand, but the Wolf realizes that Morgan can’t kill him. He charges Morgan, who trips him and beats him with his big stick. “I’m sorry,” says Morgan before landing the killing blow.
When sh*t hits the fan, Carol tells Carl to stay put and protect Judith. A noise at the door puts him on edge, but it is only Enid. She comes in to say goodbye, but Carl convinces her to stay and help him protect the house. She does, for a little while at least. Outside, Ron is being chased by a Wolf. Carl hurries out to help and shoots the Wolf in the leg. The Wolf howls – not like a wolf, but like a hungry infant. Carl inches closer, and the Wolf uses the proximity to grab Carl. Carl is strong and shoots the Wolf dead. He invites Ron into the house with him and Enid, but he declines. I think it is partly because he doesn’t trust Rick or his kin, but also partly because he is jealous that Enid and Carl are spending alone time together.
Meanwhile, Sam and Jessie are hiding in a closet. When things quiet down, Jessie slips out and makes her way downstairs. She shoots at the female Wolf but misses, and a catfight ensues. Jessie plays dead, and while the Wolf goes for her discarded gun, Jessie attacks with a pair of scissors. All sorts of emotions are released as she stabs the Wolf with the brutality that the Wolves showed to Alexandria. Ron comes in and sees this.
In the cold open of tonight’s show, we see what happened to Enid and her family. While trying to jumpstart a car, the family was attacked by zombies. Enid was the only survivor, and she had to watch the zombies eat her loved ones. After that she was constantly on the move, but wandering in a state of everlasting shock. At every turn, she wrote JSS. In the dirt, on a car window, with the bones of a tortoise she ate raw. Now, when Carl returns to the house and calls for Enid, he gets no answer. She has gone, but she has left him a note: “Just survive somehow.” The alarm goes off and Carl takes the casserole out of the oven. Almost everything in tonight’s episode happened in “real time.”
Also: Holly is brought to the medical office with internal bleeding. Denise is too scared to help, until Tara yells at her. She agrees to give it a go, but Holly flatlines and Denise takes it hard. Aaron brains a Wolf before he can turn, and notices he has a satchel on him. Rifling through it, Aaron discovers the fuzzy photos of Alexandria he used on his recruiting expeditions. That is how they knew where to find them.
Beautiful, violent, simple, terrifying. I hope we get more details on the Wolves. They are fascinating.
You can watch previews for the next episode of The Walking Dead, titled “Thank You,” by clicking here.
