The Walking Dead S5E15 "Try" 3/22/15

Deanna, her husband and her remaining son sit around the house, mourning Aiden and listening to one of his "Run Mix" CDs.  You know, because Nine Inch Nails is such excellent bereavement music.  Elsewhere: Carol makes a casserole and writes a sympathy card; Sasha, looking more and more unstable, takes up her post in the watchtower and takes out a zombie.  Her aim is still good as ever.  After a knock on the door, Deanna finds Carol's casserole, left on the doorstep.  She picks up the card and goes back inside, leaving the casserole there, then takes the card to a candle and burns it, unread.  Also, outside the walls, Daryl and Aaron see the flicker of a campfire out in the distance.  There's someone else out there.

Deanna watches the tape she made of her interview with Nicholas after the disastrous run from last episode.  This interview is intercut with shots of Glen (talking to Rick).  Nicholas blatantly lies about what went down, claiming that Glen left Aiden to die and was actively trying to push him out the revolving door and into the waiting zombies.  Nicholas: "They did this! It was them ... these people have to go - they are not like us."  But Glen, he tells the truth, sadly, exhaustedly, tells the truth about Nicholas's cowardice and Noah's death.  He speaks earnestly when Rick mutters that [Rick's group] doesn't have to abide by the Alexandrian rules.  "We have to make this work!" - Noah wanted it that way.

That night, as she and Rick watch Jessie and her sons from across the way, Carol asks if he's thought about what to do about Pete.  She says that Sam told her that his mom put a bolt on the inside of his closet and told him to hide in there when the fighting gets bad.  Carol: "If walkers hadn't gotten Ed, I wouldn't be standing here right now."  Some time later, Pete comes up to Rick, who is standing in a small park, revolver in hand, staring into the middle distance. Pete is looking a little drunk and a little clueless and Rick growls at him to "keep walking."  A befuddled Pete stammers and then moves on.

In the morning, Michonne gets up, looks at her new constable uniform and sighs.  Rosita comes in and tells her that she thinks Sasha spent the night in the watch tower (Abraham is up there now) but then didn't come back home.  They grab up some weapons (a handgun for Michonne, a big knife for Rosita) and go outside the walls, looking for their friend.  It's the first time either of them has gone outside the walls since they got to Alexandria and Michonne thinks it already feels different - she says she feels like she was asleep in there.  They start finding a trail of dead zombies, all shot in the back of the head.  Michonne: She's hunting them.

Rick finds Deanna at some new grave sites.  He says that there's a problem with Pete; she says that she'd hoped it would get better.  Rick is incredulous that she knew about the situation and did nothing about it, but she points out that Pete is a surgeon and has saved lives.  Rick: "He's beating his wife."  He suggests separating Jessie and Pete but Deanna is like, what if he doesn't agree to that, decides to ignore it.  Rick's all, I kill him - you obey the rules or you die, that's civilization now.  Deanna is NOT having any of that: at worst they'll exile Pete.  Rick says you can't throw him out because he'll just come back and attack Alexandria.  She is adamant - they don't kill people here.

Everyone is out in the woods today, even the teenagers!  Enid calls out that she knows Carl is following her ("You're very loud.").  He thinks they should go back but she doesn't want to.  She likes being out in the world,  she feels like it's where she belongs, running through the woods, and as he chases her with a grin, Carl realizes he likes being out there too.  They come across a sole walker.  Enid has a trick: she winds up an egg timer and throws it near the zombie.  The ticking, and then the ringing, distracts the monster.  They run off to safety and sit down on a log to talk.  Except she won't talk about what happened to her before she got to Alexandria.  Then they hear a herd of walkers approaching and have to hide in a convenient hollow tree.  The herd moves past, unwitting; Carl touches Enid's hand and they almost kiss.  Some of the walkers that lurch past, they have the W carved in their foreheads.

Glen finds Nicholas washing out the van.  He says that the four people he and Aiden left behind, and Noah, are on him - Nicholas must carry those deaths.  Glen tells him that he had better not go outside the walls anymore.  He's not threatening Nicholas, "[he's] saving [him]."  Nicholas isn't having any of that shit, of course, and later goes outside the walls to collect that gun that Rick hid away in the jar before coming to Alexandria - that gun that was missing when Rick tried to retrieve it an episode or so ago.

Michonne and Rosita finally find Sasha - "I'm tired of playing defensive," she snarls - just a sizable herd of walkers comes up.  As Sasha starts taking them down, shot after shot, Michonne has some flashbacks to when she was still out on the road, wielding that sword, slaughtering zombies.  She raises her own gun and when Sasha complains that she doesn't need any help, Michonne tells her, "This isn't for you."  And then the zombie-carnage begins in earnest, Rosita stabbing skulls, Michonne and Sasha efficiently taking shots.  Sasha pauses to reload and a zombie knocks her down; as she reaches for her knife, Michonne takes the walker out.  Sasha shoves the body off her, slaps Michonne's outreached hand away and cries out, "I don't want your help! You can't help me- nobody ..."  She trails off, tears shining in her eyes, then stalks off into the woods.  After a brief pause, Michonne and Rosita follow her.

Somewhere further out, Daryl and Aaron track a trail of zombie parts strewn on the ground.  Daryl notes that whoever did this seems to be taking parts with them - and it happened not very long ago.  A little ways on, they find a naked dead woman tied to a tree.  She had been tied there, alive, and left for the zombies to tear apart.  Again, Daryl notes that this just happened not long ago.  Daryl grabs the body by the hair, lifting the dead woman's hair.  There's a W carved in her forehead.  And then she opens her eyes as a zombie.  Without flinching, Daryl punches his knife into her skull.

Oh fabulous: back in Alexandria, Rick finds Jessie working in her garage and confronts her about Pete beating her.  She says that she can "fix it."  Rick's like, no, but I can.  She protests and says that Rick will only make things worse.  Rick points out that anything "worse" means Pete kills her.  She asks him why he cares, why is this so important to him.  "I'm married," she reminds him, saying that she can take care of herself.  Then she goes inside, closing the garage door on him.  Rick walks away, stopping in the middle of the street.  He looks vaguely unhinged, like he's just barely holding himself together as he watches the Alexandrians go about their business, walking dogs, chatting on porches.  Then he whirls and goes back to Jessie's house.  He tells her about Sam asking for a gun to protect her.  Now she's in tears.  And, for some reason, she starts acting like she likes him too, asking, "Would you do this for someone else? Would you do this for anyone else?"  And when he says no, she whispers that yes, she wants him to take care of her.

And then Pete comes in, disheveled and drunk.  He is not pleased to see Rick there, so close to his wife.  He tells Rick to leave and Jessie stands up to him, telling her husband that he's the one who needs to leave.  Pete starts shouting and Rick tries to get him to leave with him.  Pete gets more riled up and the punches start flying - and a grappling Rick and Pete fly through the front window, bounce off the porch and crash into the street.

This is an ugly, brutal fight: attempted eye-gauging, throttling, smashing of heads on asphalt.  Everyone comes running, sprinting - Glen, Carol, Nicholas, Rosita.  Rick and Pete are like animals.  Jessie tries to pull Pete off Rick and he shoves her away; Carl tries to pull his dad off Pete and gets shoved away as well for his trouble.  Finally, Deanna runs up and screams at the two men to stop.  Rick staggers away, pulling his illicit pistol out.  Everyone backs up a few steps.  [Note: while all this is going on, a herd of walkers swarm part of the walls and Sasha, back up in the tower, methodically takes them out.]  Rick, blood-soaked and sounding like a lunatic, rails at the Alexandrians, saying that they don't know how to deal with the reality of their situation, that they pretend like they know what's out there but they don't.  He says, if you want this place to stay standing - starting right now, they have to control who lives in Alexandria.  Deanne, tensely:  "That's never been more clear to me than right now."  Rick all but giggles, "Me? Me?  You mean me?"  My god, this man is teetering on the edge of insanity, isn't he?  He keeps ranting and raving ... until a uniformed Michonne comes up behind him, unseen, and clobbers him over the head, knocking him unconscious.  Good lord, woman, what took you so long?

Some of my friends are floating theories on what's going to happen on Sunday's 90 minute finale.  Their consensus is CARNAGE.  The internet has been thinking Glen's going to bite it - in which case they ought to just kill Maggie off too, because she'll have lost a fiance, sister and father in short order, not to mention all the rest of her family back in S2, plus she's hardly ever onscreen anymore - but my friends are thinking it'll be Carol.  I hope it's not Carol: she and Daryl (and Michonne and sometimes Glen) are my favorites.  And if they kill Daryl off, I will quit this stupid show.  The comics apparently have Carl losing an eye at some point around now, and some horrible outside people (the Wolves? the Wolverines? I dunno, I gave up on the comics because they were just way more gory and horrific than I could handle) kill Glen quite gruesomely.  I truly have no idea what's going to happen, other than what little was shown in the "next time" tag.  I don't suppose they'll kill off Rick - I wouldn't really have an issue if they did.

Previously on The Walking Dead / next time on The Walking Dead