The Walking Dead S6E5 "Now" 11/8/15

Just so you know: I was unimpressed and largely uninterested in this episode.  You've been warned.

In case you were on the edge of your seat, wondering how Rick was going to get out of the RV when he was surrounded by the splinter herd of walkers, there's no reason to worry: apparently he simply got out of the RV and ran really fast back to Alexandria.  Of course, the splinter herd followed him there so once he's safely inside the walls, it doesn't take long until the town is surrounded by zombies.  Um, way to go?  (And seriously, he just outran the hundreds and hundreds of zombies?  Why doesn't everyone do that?  Ugh, this show.)

In the aftermath of the Wolf attack and with the town surrounded, the sheltered Alexandrians are freaked right the fuck out.  They have never encountered anything like this before, not the violence, not the sheer numbers of hungry undead slobbering for their flesh.  The townsfolk start to freak out, getting all "the end is nigh" and doing things like that rationing their limited food is pointless.  It is amazing to me that these people have lasted as long as they have, even sheltered by their walls.  They are, almost to a man, entirely useless and stupid people.  Maybe Rick's group is scary and off-putting and a little crazy, but at least they have learned how to adapt.

Aaron, one of the few capable Alexandrians (where's his boyfriend? we haven't seen him all season), admits that the Wolves found Alexandria because he lost his pack on a recruitment mission.  He feels guilty.  Rick gives him a sympathetic look, saying that there will be more for everyone to talk about.  Deanna can't deal with any of this and just walks away, dazed.  Jessie goes back to her house and drags the dead Wolf out of the kitchen, so at least she's got that much presence of mind.  Her younger son Sam, however, is not having any of this, refusing to come downstairs because upstairs he can pretend none of the recent horribleness has happened.  Jessie tries to coax him downstairs but finally gives up.

Someone who is not giving up is Maggie.  Despite overhearing various peoples' suspicions that Glenn is dead since he hasn't come back or sent up the flare like he was supposed, she has decided that she is going to go outside the walls to find him and bring him back, or otherwise confirm that he is dead.  Aaron sees her preparations and tells her that he can't let her go by herself - he'll go with her and, even better, he'll take her out through some old sewer tunnels that should get them out beyond the assembled walker herd.

In Alexandrian stuff I don't care about: Deanna starts drawing up plans for new gardens and crops and solar power plants and reinforced fortifications, as though she's starting to get her groove back.  Her son Spencer is losing his shit, however, getting drunk and despondent and yelling at his mom for living in a dreamworld of Alexandria being safe.  Also, Ron and Carl get into the lamest fisticuffs EVER when Carl says he's going over the wall to look for Enid and Ron's all, I'm going to tell your dad and you'll get in trouble.  Later, Ron does tell Rick about Carl's plan and then, weirdly, asks Rick if he (Rick) will teach him (Ron) how to shoot.  Rick's all, yeah, I'll teach you.  For what it's worth, I don't trust Ron and I think if Rick teaches him to shoot it's going to be Carl who ends up getting shot.

In Alexandrian stuff I slightly care about: Dr. Denise is freaking out a bit because Whatsisname who got shot in the leg a couple of episodes ago is running a fever from his infected leg wound.  Tara stops by the infirmary and gives Denise some moral support; Denise hits the books and figures out how to draw the pus out of Whatsisname's leg; later, Denise finds Tara to thank her and ends up planting a big ol' smooch on her.  Tara looks surprised and happy.

Jessie walks by a neighbor's house and is dismayed but not surprised to find a zombie battering at the windows from inside: the woman had become despondent and slit her wrists, forgetting that she would turn into a walker after death.  Jessie puts the zombie down and then turns and gives a Rick-esque speech to the horrified Alexandrians watching from the street: blah blah blah, this is what life is now, we have to fight, if we don't fight then we die.

Down in the sewers, Maggie and Aaron have to pull some debris out of the way.  The metal snaps, hitting Aaron in the head. dazing him and cutting him badly.  While he tries to pull himself together, two extremely disgusting and rotting zombies come out of a tunnel.  One comes after Maggie and although normally she would have no problem putting it down, this zombie is too squishy and rotten for her to get a grip: her hands keep pushing right through its body.  GROSS.  The second zombie crawls towards Aaron.  He puts it down and then manages to get the one attacking Maggie before it can bite her.  His head is pouring blood and she tells him he needs stitches and should go back.  He protests, "I was just there for you!" and tells her that he's sticking with her.  They push on through the tunnels.

When they get to the end/exit, where there's a grate across, Maggie sighs, saying that they didn't get out far enough - there are too many zombies milling about.  Aaron ignores her at first, saying he can do it but Maggie shouts, drawing the walkers' attention.  Aaron stares at her as she cries.  She's pregnant, she should have gone with Glenn, she doesn't even have a photo of him because she swore that she'd never be apart from him.  "I don't know if he's alive ... I don't get to know what will happen, I don't get to know why it happened, right or wrong.  I have to live with that."  Aaron grabs her, pulling her into a hug.

After night falls, Deanna walks along the dark streets, taking supplies back to the food bank.  She is surprised by a loose zombie - which used to be a Wolf and which must have been hiding under a nearby porch - and fights back when it comes after her, stabbing at it with a piece of broken bottle.  But she's useless at it, only stabbing it in the chest, covering herself with blood and gore but being entirely ineffectual.  Rick comes to her aid, putting the walker down efficiently.  She looks up at him and says she wants to live.  Rick tells her that she needs to lead but she shakes her head, saying that what Alexandria needs is him.  She asks him if what she wanted for the town and its people was "just pie in the sky?"  He says no, gently.  Later, Rick finds Jessie hanging up laundry in her garage.  He's a little sad, worried about Glenn and Daryl and Sasha and Abraham.  And then they make out, so that happened.

WTF, TWD?  First you ambiguously kill off/don't kill off Glenn, then you subject us to ninety minutes of Morgan turning into a zen master, and now you give us an episode focusing on the cannon fodder redshirts Alexandrians, almost all of whom are unnamed and completely useless?  We don't care about most [any] of these people and are just waiting for them to get killed off.  You know, at this point I don't even care if Glenn is alive or dead - I just want it confirmed one way or another so we can move on.  I do not care for this trolling of the audience.  Yes, you've gotten your fans to talk about nothing else since the infamous dumpster but it's just not cool.  Plus, you stick us inside Alexandria for a whole episode and there's no Carol?  I just can't even.

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