The first thing we see is a focus on Rick with blood on the side his face, almost like he was gashed, but it doesn’t look like he was cut. Negan says “What? Was the joke that bad?” Rick says he’s going to kill Negan. Negan’s bat is bloody. Negan tells Rick to speak up, he didn’t quite catch what Rick said. Rick says he’s going to kill Negan, not today or tomorrow, but he’s going to kill him. Negan looks unimpressed by Rick. Negan calls for his right-hand man, Simon. You got to have one of those, says Negan. Then pretending to be sorry, Negan asks if Negan killed Rick’s right hand man. It’s awfully quiet in the background – Rick’s group is in shocked silence. Next, Negan wants the axe from Simon. Negan holds the axe up to Rick’s face, and then stands up. Rick is still on his knees. Negan drags him up and over to Rick’s RV.
In the RV…. Negan embeds the axe in the seat, and the RV won’t start. Negan says the RV is a piece of shit. He also tells Rick his best chance is to pick up the axe and try to kill Negan with it. Rick does, but Negan was ready for him and has an automatic weapon aimed at him. Wow, Negan is fast! Then he beats Rick with it. Negan hits Rick again and tells him not to make him get up again. He then tells Rick that dawn is breaking and it’s a new day. He wants Rick to think about what could happen. He gets the RV to start and they begin to drive away.
Negan plows into walkers as he drives – we know they are walkers (and not members of Rick’s group) because of the growling we hear, even if we can’t see them. Walker blood splats against the windshield, like bugs. As they drive, Rick has little flashbacks of his group. First Rosita and then Glenn. The flashbacks are little more than an image of them kneeling in the circle, and a little black and white montage with the character.
Negan tells Rick that the people in his group now belong to Negan. The axe belongs to Negan. Negan opens the RV door. It’s really foggy out there and he kills a walker. He throws the axe outside and tells Rick to go get it. Kind of like playing fetch with a dog, and Rick’s the dog. Negan kills another walker. Negan aims the bat at Rick and tells him again to get the axe. Rick doesn’t want to submit, but eventually does. Once outside, walkers surround Rick. He has to fight them in the thick fog. Nice image. Again we see flashbacks of his group – Eugene, Aaron, Abraham. Rick continues to fight. Maggie. Rick climbs to the top of the RV. Daryl. Rick’s on top of the RV and he can see that he and Negan are surrounded by walkers. We can finally see that Negan stopped the RV by one of the roadblocks that the Saviors had set up earlier – so they aren’t very far away from the group. Rick continues to stand on top of the RV. Michonne. Rick sees the hanging walker on the bridge – the guy that the Saviors bullied last episode. Carl. Oh, and Rick has the axe. Negan taunts Rick from the interior of the RV.
Rick on top of the RV, then remembering what happened back in the circle. We’re back to Negan’s eeny meeny miney moe, from Rick’s perspective. The thousands of commercials with the eeny meeny miney moe really cheapened the moment, in my opinion. This is supposed to be a shocking and sad moment, and it is, but those feelings are mixed with annoyance, for me, anyway.
Rick looks around the circle and Negan gets ready to hit someone with Lucille. We go around the circle again. He hits Abraham! Abraham says defiantly ‘suck my nuts’, and gets hit again. And again, and again. Rosita cries, as does Sasha. Glenn is still alive – for now. Maggie almost falls over. There’s nothing left of Abraham’s head at this point – very reminiscent of the photos that Glenn and Heath saw at the Savior outpost. Abraham’s head is completely smashed into the ground. Negan whips the bat around and Abraham’s blood gets splashed across Rick’s face – so that’s how Rick’s face gets covered in blood.
Negan puts the bat right in Rosita’s face. It’s a disgusting moment, with the bloody bat right in her face. Very phallic. Negan says it’s Rick’s fault, and taunts Rosita with the bat. He tells her to look at it. Take a good look at it. She resists, and Daryl leaps to her defense and punches Negan. And he promptly gets taken down by Negan’s men. Negan is not amused. Daryl is held on the ground by Negan’s men, and Dwight has Daryl’s crossbow, arrow aimed at Daryl’s head. Dwight asks if Negan wants him to kill Daryl. Negan doesn’t want him dead – yet. Daryl gets dragged back to the circle.
Negan saunters over to the circle, and says to remember, he said the first one is free, then he’s going to ‘shut this shit down’. He’s a man of his word, and first impressions are important. Then he turns around, and without warning, smacks Glenn in the head with Lucille. Glenn doesn’t die right off. He tries to say something to Maggie, but Negan hit him hard enough that his eye popped (like it did in the comic). It’s a wonder he’s even still alive given the damage the bat did to him. Glenn in very shaky on his knees and tries to speak. Negan leans over to him and asks ‘are you still there?’ He continues with (paraphrasing) ‘it looks like you’re trying to speak, but you took a hell of a hit.’ He then comments on how gross Glenn looks with his popped eyeball. Glenn slurs out an ‘I’ll find you’ to Maggie, but that’s all he can manage. Negan tells Glenn he’s sorry, he truly is, but he said no exceptions, and then he hits Glenn again many more times. The group is traumatized. As Negan continues to hit Glenn, he says he’s just getting started. He says Lucille is thirsty, and his bat is a vampire bat (hence the ‘was the joke that bad’ line). Rick looks like he’s in shock. Back to Rick on top of the RV – and Negan says he wants his axe.
Negan yells at Rick to give him the axe. Then he starts firing bullets through the roof of the RV. Rick runs to dodge the bullets and takes a flying leap and end up grabbing, and holding onto the walker hanging from the bridge. The walker starts to fall apart (gross) and then Rick falls into the mass of walkers. The walker falls apart and finally only his head and part of the neck muscles are left in the noose. Negan shoots enough of the walkers so that Rick can get away. Rick climbs over the pile of walkers to get to the axe. He kills a walker with it, and then back to the RV. We see all of Rick’s group get hit with Lucille, but it’s probably guilt speaking in Rick’s head.
Rick continues to fight the walkers, and then Negan takes out the rest of the walkers with his automatic rifle. Rick scrambles into the RV. Negan holds his hand out for the axe, which Rick gives him. The axe is bloody from all the walker kills. The two men are now in the RV, and Negan drives it back along the road.
The RV stops and Negan says ‘we’re here, prick’. He tells Rick he knows that this must be hard for him. He’s been king for so long, and then two nasty kills, and right in front of his boy! He tells Rick – you were in charge. You were probably addicted to it. Negan continues with, well, that’s over. He’s cleaning his axe with disinfectant. He hands the axe to Rick, blade first – a subtle impolite act amongst so many worse acts. Rick doesn’t take it. Negan says to take it. Rick starts to…
Now Rick and Negan are back to the circle. Negan asks him a question, and Rick is silent. Negan says to speak when you’re spoken to. Negan says that that their little trip was to deal with the way that Rick looked at him. Negan was hoping that the trip would change Rick, but Rick is still looking at him ‘in that way’. Negan wants to know if he should give Rick another chance. Negan says okay, it’s the grand prize time. Negan directs his people to put guns to the back of the heads of the people in Rick’s group. Negan calls for Carl to come to him. Carl gets up and walks slowly to Negan. Negan ties his belt around Carl’s arm, like a tourniquet, and directs Carl to lay down next to Rick. He asks Simon for a pen. Simon throws a pen to him. He draws a line across Carl’s arm. He’s going to force Rick to cut off Carl’s arm! If Rick doesn’t do it, then Negan will kill everyone in Rick’s group, including Carl. Rick will see it all go down and realize that it’s his fault that this happened. Michonne says Negan doesn’t have to do this, they all understand. Negan says he’s sure that they understand, but he’s not sure that Rick understands.
Negan tells Rick he’ll kill everyone on the count of 3-2-1. This is it, says Negan. Rick picks up the knife and Carl tells Rick to just do it. Rick is practically hysterical as he goes to cut off Carl’s arm. He hesitates just a bit, and Negan sees the fear and desperation in Rick’s face, is satisfied that he’s broken Rick, and so doesn’t require him to cut off Carl’s arm. Negan says that Rick answers to Negan, belongs to Negan, and provides for Negan. Rick repeats after Negan all of those things. Negan hopes that they all understand now. Negan says that whatever you had going for you that’s over now. Negan tells Dwight to load up Daryl in the back of a van, which they do. Negan tells Rick that Daryl has guts, not like some people he knows. Oh, and Daryl belongs to Negan now.
Negan is going to leave the group with a truck so hey can load up their stuff. And then he’ll be back to pick up deliveries.
Foggy morning and the group still sits on the ground. Negan’s group is just sort of meandering around, or that’s how it looks. Maybe they’re actually walking away. Really hard to tell. Rick’s group are uniformly despondent. Finally they’re left alone. Maggie is the first one to try to get up. She limps along. Maggie wants to fight Negan’s group. Rick tells her she needs to sit down. Rick says Negan’s group have Daryl, and they have an army. They’ll kill us all. Maggie is going to fight. She tells Rick to go home.
Michonne tells Maggie they aren’t letting her go. Sasha walks over to Maggie and tells Maggie she’ll keep her safe. Sasha goes to Rosita. She tells Rosita she’ll take care of Maggie. Aaron says they need to help Maggie. Carl goes to Maggie and takes her arm gently. Rosita and Sasha lift up Abraham. Carl hugs Maggie.
Rick and Carl pick up Glenn. We see Maggie alone in between the two big blood splotches where Glenn and Abraham died.
Then we see a long picnic table, outside in the green grass. Rick’s group are all eating, they’re all clean, and are wearing nice clothes. Clearly Thanksgiving in Fantasyland. Glenn and Abraham are at the head of the table, Glenn holding a small child, clearly his and Maggie’s. It’s probably there because Negan sarcastically asked Rick if thought they’d all grow old together. Back to reality, and Rick is standing by the RV, a lone walker shambling toward the RV. The next shot is Rick in the driver’s seat as he watches the forlorn walker shamble toward the RV. The walker drops to its knees and goes for one of the blood splotches.
Close-up of Rick’s face as he drives to go pick up the remaining members of his group. The beginning and the end of the episode focus on Rick’s face, it begins with Rick being defiant, and ends with him being broken.