The Walking Dead S6E6 "Always Accountable" 11/15/15

Any yet ANOTHER episode in which we don't know what happened to Glenn.  But, as a consolation: Daryl's arms.  Thank god.

Sasha, Abraham and Daryl have reached the twenty mile mark, having led the bulk of the walker herd away.  They turn off, heading back towards Alexandria.  But almost immediately, as they drive through the remnants of a small town, they are ambushed and shot at.  Sasha and Abraham crash their car and then get out and shoot the shit out of a small sedan that was chasing them; Daryl lays his motorcycle down pretty hard, hurting his arm, but gets back up.  He manages to lose the cars chasing him by driving into the forest.  He goes in a ways, to where the forest is all burned, and falls over, from exhaustion or pain or relief.

A little later, he gets up and starts to push his 'cycle through the woods.  It's hard and exhausting work, however.  He tries raising Sasha and Abraham on the walkie - they don't answer - and then notices the blood dripping from his left hand.  Daryl takes off his leather jacket WHEREUPON HE REMAINS SLEEVELESS FOR THE ENTIRE EPISODE and my lord Norman Reedus has great arms.  He hides the motorcycle and starts to explore on foot, crossbow at the ready.  He comes upon a couple of young women who are startled to see him, exclaiming that they earned what they took.  And then a guy comes up behind him and knocks him out.

When Daryl comes to, the other three have tied his hands.  They force him at gun point to come with them, traipsing through the woods.  They're fairly clean and seem a little clueless, and they think he's with some group.  Daryl keeps his head down and his mouth closed, listening as they exposition to each other about setting the forest fire to burn out a bunch of zombies.  They walk a while until they come to some trucking depot where they had left someone.  The place is overrun with zombies and they get a little despairing and while they're distracted, Daryl grabs the duffel bag they put his crossbow in and makes a run for it.  Out in the woods, he gets his hands free, tries to radio for Sasha and Abraham again (no response) and then almost gets bitten by a random walker when he has difficulty getting his crossbow out of the bag.  He kills the walker, however, and then takes a look at the duffel bag: inside is a small Igloo cooler marked "Insulin - keep cool."  Oh, Daryl is almost always cool.

Back in the town, Sasha and Abraham try to raise Daryl on the walkie (no response) and debate what to do.  Abraham thinks that Daryl has likely already headed back to Alexandria but Sasha doesn't think he would have left them behind.  "The best way to find a tracker," she says, "is to stay put."  They find a place to hold up for a while - an insurance agency with one resident walker, banging around inside a glass walled office like a moth on a porch light.  They talk some, back and forth, Sasha worried about Abraham's state of mind (in light of how reckless he was a couple of episodes ago, jumping out of the car and tussling with the moving walker herd) and Abraham noting that she's maybe not all that stable herself.

Out in the burned forest with Daryl and his arms: he has gone back to those three morons to return the insulin to them.  He takes their gun and a little carving the guy was whittling, giving them the cooler back.  When he turns to go, though, a truck crashes through the trees.  A bunch of men jump out and call out, "It's over! You owe us what you took and you're coming back with us."  Paraphrasing.  The three are scared, calling back that they won't go back, and then Daryl grabs them and leads them further into the woods.  When they pause to hide, he gives the gun back to the guy.  They watch through the trees as the other men search for them, and as they are hiding, one girl collapses and the other gives her a shot of the insulin.  One of the searchers gets bitten on the arm by a walker and the leader of the group (Wade?) chops his arm off with a machete to try to save him.  After the searchers have given up and left, the guy turns to Daryl: "We thought you were with them.  We knocked you over the head and tied you up.  Why did you come back?"  Daryl shrugs, "Maybe I'm stupid."

In town, Abraham goes out on a scavenging mission.  He finds a Humvee with a rocket launcher/bazooka/RPG shooter (?) and a box of cigars.  He also finds the former soldier, now a zombie, hung up on a fence with another RPG warhead thing on its shoulder harness.  Because Abraham is a little crazy himself right now, he tussles with the zombie, getting awful close to getting himself bitten.  Then he comes to his senses and backs off.  As he sits on the tailgate of the Humvee, puffing on a cigar, he watches the zombie fall off the fence all on its own, leaving the weapon in its harness behind, caught on a bit of fencing.  Well, huh, goes Abraham, and collects the rocket launcher thingy.

When he gets back to the insurance agency, there's more back and forth between him and Sasha, where he says that he's had a bit of an epiphany: their lives are difficult but there is hope, he has hope for the future.  Also, he kinda fancies her and he "can tell" that she's into him too.  [??!??!?]  She laughs, pointing out that he's "got some stuff to take care of" first - which I took to mean he's got to break it off with Rosita before she'll hook up with him.  He grins at her.

Daryl and the three dipshits walk through the woods again.  They find a burned out house which they recognize and when they get up to it, they find two bodies burned in the wreckage.  They knew those people and realize that they must have died when the forest fire swept through.  They feel guilty for causing the deaths.  But they're still stupid and when Tina, the diabetic girl, goes up to place flowers by the bodies, she is too stupid to realize that these dead people are actually undead.  The zombies tear out Tina's neck and she bleeds out by the time Daryl can put the two zombies down.  Later, when Daryl and the guy are digging graves for the dead people and Tina, Daryl asks Rick's three questions: how many walkers have you killed, how many people have you killed and why? He's decided that, stupid or not, he should bring them back to Alexandria to be safe.

When they get back to where Daryl hid his motorcycle, they turn on him because they're awful people.  While the guy holds his gun on Daryl, the girl takes his crossbow (noooooo! not his crossbow!!!!!) and they both get on the 'cycle.  They say they're sorry.  Daryl:  "You're gonna be."  They ride off on his 'cycle and he stares after them for a moment before starting to walk.  Luck is with him for once: he comes across a truck and, after clearing out the walker trapped in the cab, is able to get it started.

The final scene is Daryl, Sasha and Abraham in Daryl's new truck, driving back to Alexandria.  And when Daryl gets on the walkie, reaching out to "Rick? Anyone copy?", this time someone responds.  Just one word: HELP.

Everyone on the interwebs thinks the "Help" on the walkie was Glenn although in an interview Norman Reedus said it definitely was not.  Taken as a whole, this was a decent Daryl-centric episode, welcome because we really haven't seen much of him this season.  The Sasha and Abraham stuff seemed sort of filler-ish but did I mention the gun show?  Daryl should just give up on long sleeves forever.

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