Diane, Jerry, King Ezekiel, and a couple of other Kingdom members who are responsible for the tribute runs, load a single cantaloupe onto a truck bed and then close the truck bed door on it. They are quite solemn as they do this, and no one speaks.
Credits
Carol wakes up crying from a nightmare and lights a lantern next to her bed. She looks up to the ceiling, sits up, and lights a cigarette. She says “God dammit”. I think she’s putting two and two together about Daryl’s story about everyone in Alexandria being okay.
In the early morning, Morgan and Benjamin’s little brother Henry, are practicing Aikido. Benjamin comes up behind them and watches. It’s lighthearted. Morgan tells Henry he wants to be like his brother, and the boy smiles and says yes.
At the same time, Carol leaves her cute little house and walks onto the road, a couple of walkers behind her. Pretty sunrise in the background. She meets another walker on her way to the Kingdom and swats it down, immobilizing it, but not killing it. There are several walkers at the Kingdom’s gate, but she bangs a “One Way” sign to draw their attention to her. As she sits in a tree, she jams the post into their heads killing most of them. Blatant use of the One Way sign – One Way = Carol’s Way, or “Only Option is Participating in War”. Either way, Carol’s only got One Way to go.
Benjamin and other Kingdom folk greet Carol, but she wants to see Morgan. She wants to know from Morgan why Daryl was brought to the Kingdom. Morgan lies and says the Saviors want to see if they can work together. Again she asks if everyone is okay, and Morgan says to talk to Daryl about that. Morgan also goes on to say that he did as Carol asked – he told no one where she was. He also tells her that if she wants to go to Alexandria he’ll go with her, but she shouldn’t go alone. This is all fairly ominous since as far as Carol knows, nothing as changed since she went into self-imposed exile.
Morgan wonders, did she get what she wanted, being alone? Or was it too late? Carol looks like she’s going to cry. Morgan says they can go right now if she wants (to Alexandria). She’s probably conflicted – does she want to know the true state of things in Alexandria?
Carol walks out and is leaving the Kingdom, and Benjamin runs up to her. He wants to learn from her – she killed five walkers, and how did she do that? Carol refuses him. She tells him to do his job, and strides away.
Carol goes back outside the gates, and she sees the walker in the street that she smacked earlier. Its brain has been destroyed and it’s dead now. Richard watches her go. Hm, Richard probably killed it.
Richard views Katy’s backpack and starts to dig.
At the Kingdom, Ezekiel watches as a woman teaches an outside class of children, a dad walks with his kid, and another member harvests cantaloupes from the garden. Nabila walks up to Ezekiel. He says to her that Shiva likes her, and she says ‘that’s what I’m afraid of.’
She then tells him that they have weevils in his garden, and they have to slash and burn it if they want to keep the rest. She calmly and gently tells him that it will all grow back. Ezekiel tells her to do what she needs to do. Shiva roars and Nabila leaves. I hope we see more of Nabila, I liked her.
Random Kingdom guy rolls away a wheel barrel filled with twelve cantaloupes.
Morgan and Benjamin talk in Morgan’s room. Benjamin is still reading the book on Aikido that Morgan got from Eastman.
Benjamin found a painting of a Matador and a bull for Morgan. He was scavenging and found it. A girl helped him with the framing. Morgan asks about the girl and Benjamin shies away.
As they prepare to go to the drop off point and meet the Saviors, Richard looks over at Benjamin and Henry, and remarks to Morgan that Benjamin is too young to be a dad to his little brother. Then Richard describes his perfect family before the apocalypse. Morgan nods. Richard apologizes for how things are between them, and that he knows Morgan is a good man. He says the day is coming when he can’t be that good.
Just before they all leave to go meet the Saviors, Ezekiel tells Jerry to leave the cobbler that Jerry is eating, and Jerry looks stricken. The King relents, and Jerry smiles. In the truck, Morgan asks Benjamin who’s the girl, and Benjamin just smiles.
The group raise their guns because someone has blocked the road – and that can’t be good. There’s a row of shopping carts along the road. They all get out of the truck with weapons drawn.
Richard looks over at Benjamin and sees that Benjamin’s gun isn’t up in a ready position. He tells Benjamin to get his gun up.They walk past the roadblock and toward the building. They see a freshly dug grave with a tombstone (made of cardboard) that says “bury me here”.
Ezekiel says that this world drives people mad, and it’s luck that they aren’t all insane. Benjamin says that the world does drive them crazy, but the King has made them another world.
Now they’re at the drop off point, with Jared the Jerk swinging one of the staffs.
Gavin says there aren’t any kings when one of the Kingdom members refers to Ezekiel as the king. Gavin doesn’t want the Kingdom members to bring their unnecessary fairy tales and tension here. He didn’t sign up for this route for the stress. He asks for the offering. Gavin looks at the cantaloupes, and then says he wants their guns too. Ezekiel says we didn’t agree to that. Jared mocks them in a singsongy voice.
Gavin says that he needs Ezekiel to understand the gravity of this situation. What’s it going to be? Ezekiel eventually tells the kingdom members to give the Saviors their guns. Gavin then goes on to say that there are only eleven cantaloupes, not twelve. Ezekiel is surprised that there are only eleven – he counted them, and there were twelve. He goes to recount and sure enough, there are only eleven. Gavin says that they have to be taught a lesson.
Gavin is annoyed and says we’ve been over this again and again and again. Jared asks if they’re going to do this right now. Jared points a gun at Richard’s head, Richard says to just do it and then Jared randomly shoots some one else. A couple episodes back, Gavin said if there was trouble, Richard would be the first to die.
Benjamin has been shot in the leg. Gavin tells Jared to give Morgan his stick and to get into the truck right now. Gavin lectures Ezekiel, saying he needs to be present and understand what’s going on. Bring the cantaloupe tomorrow. Richard stands alone. Morgan tells them they have to go to Carol’s because Benjamin is bleeding out and they don’t have time to go to the Kingdom. He said that in the presence of the Saviors – are they going to go after Carol now?
The truck roars up to Carol’s, and they put Benjamin on the table. They all try to help Benjamin, but he’s bleeding out. Benjamin tells Morgan “if you endanger your opponent you endanger yourself.” His blood drips on the floor, and he dies.
Ezekiel apologizes to Carol fro coming to her, they had no choice. Morgan cleans off his knife and goes outside. There are two blood spots on the sheet covering Benjamin – one in the leg area, and one in the head area. Since Morgan is cleaning his knife, it looks like he was the one who had to put the knife in Benjamin’s skull.
Morgan is outside and is starting to go insane. He’s flashes to his ‘clear’ days. We see Benjamin, Duane, and his wife, Jenny, and it gets very loud. Then he finds a cantaloupe sitting by itself.
Richard walks up to him. Richard must have sabotaged the drop. Man!
Back in Richard’s room, Morgan confronts him about the cantaloupe. Richard explains to Morgan that it was supposed to be him that died, not Benjamin. Gavin told Richard that he’d be first to die and then something else happened.
Richard says that he was in a camp when it started. All the babies crying – there were always babies crying. He didn’t think it was his problem to solve (camp security). He’s not the smartest or fastest, so he did nothing – he left it to someone else to fix. Then there was a fight and a fire, and he lost his wife. After three days of running with no food, with horror and terror, he lost his little girl. Right in front of him. Because he didn’t do something. Because he waited. Morgan looks at him.
Richard tells Morgan to please listen to him. We can use what’s happened to show the Saviors we get it. We know how to go on. They need to believe us. We have to do something to make them believe us. Then when we gain their trust back, then we kill them. We join with Alexandria and the Hilltop and then we crush them in one fell swoop. He tells Morgan he has to kill or else he might as well just kill himself. Today someone had to die, and Richard tried to make it be him that died.
Now, Richard will be the one to lead the army to kill the Saviors. He’ll confess to Ezekiel what he did and then live the rest of his life making up for it. It’s not a half-bad plan – much better than his baroque plan with Daryl.
Morgan ponders in his room, while Ezekiel comforts Henry, Benjamin’s brother.
In the morning, as stone-faced Ezekiel watches Nabila working in the garden, we see the one cantaloupe in the truck bed from the beginning. So the cold open showed us the aftermath of Benjamin’s death, now we’re caught up and move on to the present.
In the parking lot, the Kingdom members meet the Saviors. Morgan asks Richard if he told them, and Ricard tells Morgan we’ll talk about it when we get back. Ezekiel says we’ll talk about it now.
Morgan sees the ground covered with Benjamin’s blood and picks up two staffs.
The Saviors drive up and Gavin and Jared drive up and ask after Benjamin. No one says anything and Gavin realizes Benjamin didn’t make it. He gets angry and tells Jared to start walking back right now or he’ll kill him. Jared rolls his eyes and saunters away.
Gavin asks if they have it. Richard brings him the cantaloupe. Richard begins with his “we get it speech”, and then Morgan knocks Richard down and begins to strangle him. He bangs Richard’s head on the ground while everyone (including the Saviors) watch in horror. Finally Richard is dead.
Morgan then says that Richard set it all up. Richard blocked the road and made them late. Morgan said they had the complete offering, but Richard took one of the cantaloupes and hid it. Morgan tells Gavin he wanted to show you that we get it. That we know how to go on.
Gavin says good. Next week, same time. Morgan nods and says ‘we understand’.
Morgan has essentially taken over Richard’s plan, using Richard’s own words. By killing Richard, he accomplished two goals – avenging Benjamin’s death, and hopefully winning back the Saviors’ trust.
The Saviors drive away.
Ezekiel asks if Richard really did this. Morgan says yes and that’s why Duane had to die. Ezekiel asks Duane? Morgan says he meant Benjamin.
Ezekiel says let us take our leave. Morgan says not now. He’s going to go. They all get into the truck and Morgan bends down to put a knife in Richard’s skull. He then puts his hands over his face.
Morgan drags Richard away, and digs a grave for him. He finds Katy’s backpack. He looks at it and dusts it off, realizes what he found, and covers it back up with dirt.
Meanwhile a bunch of walkers are headed his way, and he kills them all with his staff. Some he kills extra dead.
Then he knocks on Carol’s door. He asks her if she wants to know what happened in Alexandria. She wants to know what happened to him, since he’s covered with blood spray. He nonchalantly says he strangled Richard. ‘Do you want to know what happened in Alexandria?’
She says she does. He says Negan beat Abraham and Glenn to death with a baseball bat. He further explains Alexandria’s situation – that they are under Negan’s thumb. He tells her they killed Spencer and Olivia too. He explains how they’re now gearing up for a fight. Carol is beside herself. Morgan says he’s off to go kill Saviors one by one.
Carol realizes this is a bad move and tells him to wait. Then she uses the words that Ezekiel used with her – Morgan can go and not go. She begs him to stay at her house until he’s more himself.
Carol walks over dead walkers toward the kingdom. She’s got an overnight bag with her. The gates open and she strides in. She approaches Ezekiel and Henry who are both replanting plants in the garden. Smoke coming out of bins hopefully means they were able to clear out all of the weevils.
Carol apologizes to Ezekiel about Benjamin. She says she’ll be here now, they have to get ready to fight, and Ezekiel agrees – but not today. He leads her over to another section of the garden and begins to help Henry plant some plants. Carol sits down and helps the two of them, and we continue to see the burning bins.
Morgan sits on the porch of Carol’s house sharpening his bo staff into a point.