A walker’s face comes into focus for us and the scene shifts abruptly to a shot of the RV, Daryl on his motorcycle, and Aaron driving a van behind Daryl. The next shot is of the group crossing the lake in a boat on their way to Oceanside. Then Tara, Carl and Enid are on the shore discussing how many people they’ve killed. While all of this happens, Tara tells Rick in voice over about Oceanside.
The walker we saw at the beginning seems to be part of a shipwreck because we see a large ship half sunk just off the beach. It looks like the same beach where Tara washed up, so Oceanside can’t be that far away. Many of the walkers are waterlogged and falling apart and they’re meandering forward into view! Nice.
Credits
At Hilltop, Maggie and some random Hilltop guy are planting seedlings in raised beds. Maggie’s going to go outside the gates and get a blueberry plant and replant it in one of the raised beds. She gives the random guy some encouraging words about planting the seedlings. Gregory and Maggie exchange a glance.
Meanwhile, Rick helps Michonne up a tree to act as a lookout/maybe sniper. Rick asks if she’s good, and Michonne says she’s good enough, as she scales the tree.
Daryl and Jesus work on laying out a line of dynamite. Aaron and Eric discuss Eric being along with Aaron to help fight. It’s been awhile since we’ve seen Eric.
Jesus tells Daryl that he should have worked harder to stop Sasha and Rosita from taking off.
Sasha is in a cell at the Sanctuary. After storming in last episode, I’m kind of surprised she’s still alive. Random sanctuary guy asks if she’s okay, and she asks for water. He introduces himself as “David from last night”. He asks if she remembers him, and she doesn’t – he’s not surprised, “given everything that happened”, although he never tells us what “everything” means.
He comes on to Sasha and mentions “interesting things” that can be done with rope. If he gives her water, will she give him sex? He rips her shirt. He tells her to tell him how thirsty she is, and she says “go to hell”. You picked the wrong woman, dude. She head butts him, which doesn’t go over well with him. In fact, he’s getting ready to rape her, and Negan steps in to stop him – wow, was he outside the door all along? And if he was, why did David threaten to rape Sasha right in front of Negan, given Negan’s “no overt rape” rule? Negan isn’t going to allow David to rape Sasha, and tells David that he’s crossed the line. David apologizes, but Negan stabs a very large serrated knife through David’s neck which kills him almost instantly. Negan tells him “I don’t accept your apology”. Then Negan tells the guys to get Sasha a new shirt, and he tells Sasha that Sasha is a beautiful name.
Negan takes a close look at her and says he remembers her. She was there. And he gets it. He wants the truth – did Rick put her up to this? She says no. Negan says this could be the beginning for her. He gives her the knife. Her choices are killing herself, sit here to do nothing, wait for David to come back, or try to kill Negan. Negan says that making an attempt to kill Negan probably won’t go far because she’s sitting down and he’s standing up. Her last option is to use the knife to stop “Rapey Davey” from coming back.
Negan tells Sasha everyone has shit to get over, and he hopes that Sasha will join him. He says “we are not monsters”. He asks her to think it over, and locks her back in the dark room.
A little later on, the door is reopened and it’s Eugene with water and a pillow. Sasha asks him why he’s here and he says they’re keeping him safe. The pillow isn’t hypo-allergenic, by the way. He’s trusting that Sasha won’t kill him. He thinks that Sasha should accept Negan’s offer as he has done. He goes on to say that he was never as afraid as he was the night that Abraham and Glenn were killed. He thinks that being in the Sanctuary means he won’t have to be afraid again. Please say yes, he asks her. “They would want you to”, he says of Rick and the group. He quickly corrects himself and says they wouldn’t, but Eugene wants her here.
They look over at Rapey Davey, who is starting to revive, but Sasha tells Eugene to go. Sasha is alone again with the almost-walker. David opens his eyes and Sasha looks at him but makes no move to kill him.
It’s now morning and Maggie is outside digging up that blueberry plant beyond the gates. Gregory is standing nearby. She’s never seen him outside the walls, and he tells her he was hoping they could talk. “Where are your friends?” he asks. “They’re looking for something they need”, she replies. He says Carson is gone, and Maggie says she heard he was getting him back.
Gregory wants to present a united front. Maggie says that would be great and that it’s never too late to change. If he means it, she’ll come back and talk to him later.
Maggie has her back to him and he has his knife out – he’s keeping watch. Then he has a moment, and edges closer to her, and we can tell he’s thinking about killing Maggie, but then he shakes it off. He looks over toward the ever-present woods, and spots a walker heading in their direction. Gregory is going to kill it, but he looks nervous. Maggie says she’ll do it, but he doesn’t want to lose face in front of her. He runs up to the walker, but it hisses and growls at him and he can’t kill it. Maggie runs up to it and kills it, and while she is grappling with it, another walker stumbles out of the bushes and starts attacking Gregory. He screams at Maggie for help. She finishes killing her own walker and runs over to kill the walker threatening Gregory. She kills it instantly, and he’s embarrassed.
Several Hilltoppers stroll by and it becomes clear that Gregory has never killed a walker before.
At Oceanside, Rachel has caught a fish and is now going to clean it. Tara ambushes Natania inside one of the buildings, and holds a gun on her.
Tara tells Natania to be quiet, and Natania responds to Tara that they should have killed her in the village. Cindy walks in and Tara tells her to put her hands on her head. Tara searches her and then tells both of them the plan. Tara tells them they’re going to fight the Saviors, and they need Oceanside to help. She describes the situation with the Saviors – how they killed her friends – her girlfriend. She wants brave and good people to help them in their fight. Cindy, Natania, and Tara argue about whether or not Oceanside should get involved. Tara keeps looking at her watch and then says “it doesn’t matter, it’s too late.”
At that moment, Rick and his group are on their way toward Oceanside, exploding their bombs and firing weapons. Very shock and awe – very Savior-like. Michonne is not firing her gun to kill anyone, only to scare them into submission. Daryl, Jesus, and Eric come in guns blazing and tell everyone to stand down.
Tara thinks the bombs that are exploding are outside the walls – and hopes that no one was killed.
All the kids are running and Gabriel and Carl tell them not to do anything crazy because they need to fight later. Natania has a gun on Tara, but Michonne has a gun on Natania – even if Natania can’t see it.Cindy tells her people that Rick’s group want to fight the Saviors.
Some of the Oceansiders are clearly in the “fight the Saviors” camp, while others are not.
All of the guns and explosives have attracted the large group of decayed and waterlogged walkers, and they are now bearing down on Rick’s group and Oceanside. The combined groups form a line to kill the walkers. The people in the line continue to shoot walkers, but man, there’s a lot of them. Michonne is still not a great shot with a gun.
Many of the Oceansiders have knives and are quite good with them. The two groups work together and lo and behold, are successful in killing the entire herd. Together they can win! Natania still doesn’t want to fight. Party-pooper.
Back at the Sanctuary, Negan opens the door to Sasha’s cell and Sasha is standing over “Rapey Davey”, now very much dead. She says to Negan, you win, and Negan responds to Sasha that she won. Negan won’t let her keep the knife until he’s sure she’s on board. He likes how she surrendered to him though. It was a good first step.
Negan tells Sasha that tomorrow is going to be a big day. She doesn’t look like she’s on board.
At Hilltop, Gregory is at his desk, with a bottle of alcohol – probably tequila. He pulls out the note that Simon gave him and drinks a shot of the tequila. He then pulls out a map of Virginia and calls for Cal. Gregory wants Cal to drive somewhere and he wants him to pack a bag. Looks like someone is going to the Sanctuary to go visit Simon.
Eugene stands outside of Sasha’s door and tells her she’s doing well. She tells him that she’s trapped now. Eugene says he’ll help her. She’s desperate. She wants a knife, a gun, or a razor blade, even glass.. She’s not going to kill Negan, she’s going to kill herself. She begs Eugene to not let them use her to hurt their friends. She wants to die. Eugene says he’ll consider it. She’s playing him, in hopes of getting a weapon to kill Negan. She thanks him.
At Oceanside, Jesus carries a basket of guns. Gabriel says to Rick, “we don’t need all of this, do we?” Rick says “yeah, we do.” Well, alrighty then.
Carl and Enid are carrying something large and flat. Carl tells Enid he doesn’t think just of the people he killed, but of the ones he didn’t kill too. He’s probably thinking of when he failed to kill Negan.
Cindy wants to go with Tara. She thinks that many, but not all, of the Oceanside people want to help Rick’s group – and they all need to help. Tara thanks Cindy for the many times Cindy saved her life. Rachel wants to know if they’re leaving them any guns, and Tara says “no”, while flipping Rachel off. Just a little call-back to the Oceanside episode.
Sasha alone in her cell, with a plate of food, including pickles, a pillow and a lantern. Eugene is back and looks anguished. He’s going to grant her request. He slips something under the door. It’s the poison pills he made a couple of episodes ago. He doesn’t know if it’s painless, but he hopes so. Eugene tells her that she’s honest and brave. Eugene says that for the record he doesn’t want her to go. Then he leaves.
Sasha is left alone – and the poison pills are not what she wanted. She’s very disappointed.
Back at Alexandria, at night, the group returns. Rosita is out waiting for them. Rosita says there’s someone here. They go into the jail and see — Dwight. Huh. I guess that shadowy figure we saw last week near Rosita wasn’t Daryl, but Dwight? Which means that maybe he let Rosita capture him. Anyway, when Daryl sees Dwight he loses it, and is ready to kill Dwight on the spot. Rosita says that Dwight wants to help them. Rick asks if that’s true. “You want to help?” Dwight says “I do.”
They all look a each other and Rick pulls out his gun, clicks it into place and says “okay. Get on your knees.”