The Walking Dead Midseason Finale recap
Sam, up in his room, has a half cookie left on a plate. A steady stream of ants filter in through the window frame and overtake the cookie. Ominous music plays, a metaphor for what is about to occur.
The tower collapses, bringing down the wall. When the dust settles, a steady flood of zombies overtake the town, like ants on that cookie. Rick jumps into action and sends everyone indoors. He starts shooting on his way to safety, a pointless effort because there are literally hundreds of walkers. The few he picks off don’t even make a dent. Deanna joins him, and the two are almost overwhelmed by walkers. Deanna is injured, but Rick saves her and gets her into Jessie’s house. Gabriel, Michonne, Carl, and Ron make it there as well, with Jessie shooting to distract the walkers long enough for the humans to get inside.
Elsewhere, Carol trips and is helped up by Morgan, and the two head into the “prison” house together where Denise is in the basement with the Wolf, terrified of him. Maggie just barely makes it up to the lookout post on the wall, but she is safe and calms herself by looking at those balloons. Eugene is hiding, terrified of the walkers that swarm around him. They seem to leave him alone until a nearby walkie-talkie starts crackling. Tara and Rosita save him before he can become zombie chow (or start to cry) and the three lock themselves in a garage that seems to double as a school house. Enid and Glenn watch from afar, and he makes a plan for getting into the community. Enid is especially fatalistic, and after another attempt to rally her fails, Glenn decides he is going to go be with his pregnant wife, with or without Enid.
Now that we know where everyone is, let’s start with Rick’s group. Sam, who is up in his room, listening to “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” on an endless loop (that song has never been so creepy, and that is a really creepy song) is shocked at the chaos that explodes up the stairs. Deanna is bleeding badly and everyone is in a panic. Jessie suggests he pretend he is someone who is not scared. That is some mighty fine parenting. Michonne finds a bite on Deanna’s abdomen. “Well… sh*t,” remarks Deanna. Rick tells Jessie, then starts on a plan of attack: to basically stay put until the walkers cluster up, then he will sneak out to the armory, shoot off flares, and try to lure the walkers out of Alexandria.
Carl follows Ron out to the garage. Ron is angry and depressed. “Enid’s dead, we’re all dead… your dad is just gonna get more people killed.” He points out to Carl that Rick is a killer (as if this is an insult) and Carl reminds Ron that his dad is too. A chill enters Ron’s voice. “Everyone is dead,” he mumbles and locks the door. Carl sees where this is headed and tackles Ron as he draws his gun. The boys fight, and Ron resorts to using a shovel now that he has been de-gunned. Ron swings wildly, breaking the window and drawing zombies to the sound. The kids fight, with Carl fighting off both Ron and the walkers. Rick and Jessie hear the commotion and Rick axes off the door lock, pulling the kids back into the house as the zombies make it through the outer door. With the lock broken, the adults try desperately to hold the door closed while others bring furniture to barricade the doors. Ron stomps upstairs and Carl covers for him, saying that they were fighting zombies the whole time, not each other. Carl follows Ron up to his room and takes his gun at gunpoint. “I get it, my dad killed your dad,” Carl reasons, “but your dad was an *sshole.”
Rick hears Judith cry and goes upstairs to quiet her. He notices that Deanna is no longer in bed. Creeping slowly towards the baby’s room, he sees Deanna leaning into Judith’s crib. He pulls out his axe, but she screams that she is still herself, and Rick backs off. “I just wanted to see the baby one more time,” she explains. Rick understands, but from now on someone needs to be with her. She agrees, and hands Rick notes she wrote: one for Maggie, one for Spencer. She asks that Rick watch out for Spencer, like he watches out for his own people. “They are all your people,” she insists, telling him that she went to help him not because he is a good man or because she likes him, but because he is one of them. Rick takes this to heart, but Jessie’s frantic cries bring him back into the here and now. He grabs the baby and runs downstairs.
The blockade is failing miserably. There are just too many zombies. Rick sends everyone upstairs and uses the sofa to block the path. It’s not much but it will hold for now. New plan: Rick and Michonne will each kill a zombie and use their innards as camouflage. Everyone will be camouflaged and they will all go to the armory together. “Anyone who stays here is going to die.” Michonne goes to tell Deanna what is going on and offers to end Deanna, but she isn’t ready, not yet. “I will be, soon. When I am, I’ll do it myself.” She has her gun, and is ready to take her life on her own terms. “Someday this pain will be useful to you,” she concludes, transcribing the Latin phrase that Reg used. Michonne clutches her hand and thanks her for believing.
Time to get ready. Rick and his group are covered in sheets and wiping zombie guts on themselves. Sam comes in and is very close to losing his mind when he sees his mom “becoming” the monster. She again reminds him to pretend that he isn’t afraid. Carl tucks the baby under his camouflage, and Rick moves aside the couch. The group slowly, slowly wades into the throngs of zombies. They make it to the porch, where the full horror of what is happening engulfs them. It’s a literal f*ck-ton of zombies. The group hold hands and slowly move into the crowd. The zombies don’t pay them any mind, until Sam starts whimpering and calling for his mom. The walkers notice and start to move in. Annoyingly, the show dips to black over a few seconds of the zombies’ hungry growls.
In the house, as Deanna is about to kill herself, she hears the zombies. She decides to shoot as many as she can – and I don’t think she left one for herself, so I am guessing we will see zombie Deanna at some point soon.
Next, let’s go deal with Carol and Morgan. She doesn’t trust him, but never thought he was a liar. She has a concussion from her fall and seems dizzy. “Whatever we have to settle can wait,” he assures her. She is drifting off, just “resting my eyes.” He peeks downstairs to see how Denise is doing with the Wolf, when the lights go out. Returning to the main floor, he finds Carol gone. She jumps out and knocks him over, pushing her way into the basement. Denise is down there, and has spent most of the time cowering on the opposite side of the room. The Wolf keeps espousing a belief that he and his kind are setting free the people they kill. “I’ve done my part. The world will take care of the rest,” he assures her. Denise, who believes he wasn’t born this way and can change, takes a look at his wound. Carol bursts in and tells Denise to move away from the prisoner, but Morgan is close behind. “This should have waited. Now it can’t.” Morgan still stands by his belief that they can do better than the Wolves by not killing. “They made us kill,” Carol reasons sternly. “I had to stop it.” Carol is dead-set on killing the Wolf, but Morgan won’t let her. Hell, even the Wolf believes she should kill him. Morgan is still anti-killing for any reason and the two start fighting, a dirty, balls-to-the-wall street fight. Morgan gets the upper hand and drops her on the floor, knocking her out. The Wolf then knocks out Morgan, grabs his knife, and holds it threateningly to Denise. She begs him not to kill them. “You said we were already dead – just let us die!” she reasons.
Eugene, Rosita, and Tara are locked in the garage. Eugene reads a history book; Rosita worries over Abraham’s fate, and Tara tries to remain positive. Her pep talk works, and Rosita decides it is time to stop moping and start acting. The door to the house is locked; luckily lock picking is within Eugene’s skill set.
As the Wolf approaches Denise with the knife, Eugene, Tara, and Rosita appear, guns in hand. The Wolf takes Denise hostage and forces them to slide their weapons to him. He switches out his knife for a gun. “You’re not going to make it out there,” Tara warns. “We’ll see,” says the Wolf and leaves – with Denise.
To wrap up the mid-season finale, we check in on Daryl, Sasha, and Abraham, and it sets us up for what the backend of the season will be. The trio are driving along when they are halted by a gang of bikers. The gang leader insists that they hand over everything they have – none of it is theirs anymore. “Your property now belongs to Negan.” If you haven’t read the comic books, meet the Survivors, a massive band of humans who are ruled with a barbed-wire bat by Negan, a major baddie who I have heard described as being worse than the Governor. Personally, I always thought that, in the comics, the Governor’s actions were far more despicable than Negan’s, but the Governor was, at least, doing something good for his community. Negan rules with brutal force and a dumb-jock attitude.
You can watch the prologue of the return of The Walking Dead in February by clicking here.
