Just so's you know, there's a LOT of running in this episode. It starts with Rick, Glenn and Michonne running through the woods with a bunch of Alexandrians as the horn blares in the distance. They are trying to (a) redirect the walker horde back onto the road and (b) stay alive. Rick is on the radio to everyone, checking in, giving orders. Daryl wants to go back to town to help with whatever is going down but Rick is adamant: they have to stick with the plan, they have to get the walker horde away. New plan: Rick will run back a mile to the RV to help redirect the horde; Glenn and Michonne are to head back to home with the Alexandrians. Rick points out that some of the Alexandrians aren't going to make it and he tells Glenn and Michonne not to wait, not to get held up by the weak and wounded. Some of the Alexandrians try to rebel a little - tired, scared - and then some of them get munched on. "Just get back safe," orders Rick.
In Glenn and Michonne's group, one girl has a twisted ankle and then, when they have to fight a small group of walkers, one of the Alexandrians panics and ends up shooting another Alexandrian in the leg. Also, a third Alexandrian has been bitten on the shoulder just a little and he'll succumb eventually - he just wants to get back to town to say goodbye to his wife. So out of the five Alexandrians with Glenn and Michonne, three are injured, one fatally. The other two are Heath and Nicholas, and Nicholas is just barely holding his shit together.
Out on the road, Daryl is all conflicted, wanting to go back to help out in town. Sasha and Abraham say that they need him there with them, helping keep the horde on track. "Nah," says Daryl, "I got faith in ya." And rides away as Sasha and Abraham shout after him. But they have to let him go, continuing the sloooooow drive, leading the walker horde away from their home.
Glenn and Michonne's group come to the remains of a town that Nicholas claims to be familiar with and which is "halfway home." [Here's an issue I have: I don't know the geography here. I don't know how far away the zombie-filled quarry was; I don't know how far this group is from Alexandria; I don't know how far out Daryl, Sasha and Abraham were; and, quite frankly, it takes Rick an inordinately long time to run one fucking mile back to the RV at the bend in the road. It all seems a little off to me.] Glenn tells Michonne that he NEEDS to get home [so don't they all, Glenn, drama queen] but he's not about to abandon any of the
In the store, Glenn has a plan: he's going to find a building in town and set it on fire so that the inferno distracts the gathering walkers, allowing the humans to escape. He tells Michonne that if he doesn't get back in a certain amount of time, she's to take the Alexandrians and go on without him. Nicholas says that he knows where a feed store is which should burn quite nicely. They head out. Michonne and Heath have a tense moment when he accuses her of planning to dump the Alexandrians and run and then she awesomely gets in his face and is all YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN OUT THERE ON YOUR OWN YOU DON'T HAVE A FUCKING CLUE HOW HARD IT IS OUT HERE. Just as they get ready to leave the pet store - all of them, by the way, even the wounded ones - more and more walkers show up. Lots of walkers.
Rick runs and runs and runs on his ridiculously long mile down the road, stopping to battle a few zombies along the way. He also manages to slice his left hand quite badly in the process. But he keeps on running. And running and running and running. FINALLY he finishes that damn mile [I mean, it takes me ten minutes to run a mile. Rick is probably in better shape than I am, cut hand notwithstanding, plus he's got zombies chasing him. Should have been quicker, is all I'm saying.] He climbs into the RV and heads off, chasing the horde.
Finally, Michonne's group makes a run for it. The Alexandrian girl with the twisted ankle goes down and gets eaten almost immediately. Michonne pauses, looking back, and Heath grabs her, dragging her away. Meanwhile, when Glenn and Nicholas get to the feed store, it has inconveniently already been burned down. And a huge herd of walkers is heading their way. Glenn's all, where do we go? Nicholas is on the verge of panic, looking around wildly before finally heading off down an alley. Unfortunately, this alley is blocked with a chainlink fence with walkers behind it. For some reason, they don't quickly scamper up a nearby and visible fire escape and are soon trapped as walkers close in on them.
Across town, Michonne's group is in another alley which is also blocked by a chainlink fence. There are no walkers on the other side, however, and they all climb up and over. Well, the one guy who'd been bitten didn't quite make it: he gets pulled down into the herd and slowly, horribly, pulled apart. For some reason, the group all just stand there and watch him suffer and die instead of putting him out of his misery. Seems like a strange reaction. Finally, the three remaining humans run away, heading home.
In Glenn and Nicholas's alley, things are super dire. They are completely trapped and the number of zombies closing in on them is insurmountable. Desperate, they climb up on a dumpster and stand there, just barely out of reach of the clutching hands. They pick off a few zombies but it really doesn't do any good. There are just too many of them. Nicholas is freaking the fuck out. I mean, Glenn is scared too because there really doesn't seem to be a way out. But Nicholas is losing his goddamn mind. He looks right into Glenn's eyes, says "Thank you" and then puts his gun to his head. Glenn screams at him to snap out of it but Nicholas pulls the trigger, splashing blood across Glenn's face. Worse - and I mean SO MUCH WORSE - his body collapses into Glenn, knocking them both off the dumpster and into the arms of the ravening zombie horde. The sad music swells as Glenn silently screams in slow motion, the zombies chowing down on intestines and other nummy innards.
Rick pulls over at some possibly predetermined place [I missed that part of the plan] and tries to radio Glenn, anybody. He raises Daryl, who is still heading back to Alexandria. Gunfire is heard in the distance and Rick is all, even though we don't know what's going on at home, we've got to stick with the plan, keep the herd away from the town. Daryl considers these words, turns around and heads back to meet up with Sasha and Abraham, keeping the herd moving.
Rick has some additional excitement to contend with, however: the Wolves who Morgan chased out of town without killing have found the RV. Two of them rush inside, attacking Rick. They battle and he manages to kill them. Then he can see in the sideview mirror more Wolves sneaking up so he goes full Rambo, shooting through the side of the RV and putting them all down. That's good, of course, but afterwards, the RV won't start. And the zombie herd, the portion that Rick was supposed to lead back to the main herd, it has arrived at the RV, swarming around it, surrounding it. Rick cannot fucking believe it.
Of course, by now EVERYONE has read all the internet theories that Glenn is not actually dead, because we didn't actually, incontrovertibly see him die, like we have all the other major character deaths, because The Talking Dead didn't do an in memoriam segment for him, like they have done for all the other major character deaths, because etc. etc. People are all, those were Nicholas's guts the zombies were eating and perhaps Glenn managed to drag himself to relative safety under the dumpster. Maybe. I certainly am not eager or happy to say farewell to Glenn as his character was a much needed counterpoint of sanity to Rick's increasing madness. But his escaping from that situation would be SO improbable that it would be a cheat, the writers bending the rules of the show's world just to spare him. I don't know. I don't want him dead but I don't see how he could have made it. And since it looks like we're getting a Morgan-centric episode next, it may be a while before we are shown what happened.
Previously on The Walking Dead / next time on The Walking Dead
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