Oh dear holy humping hell - why the FUCK are they doing all these extended episodes? Negan talks and talks and talks and talks and fucking talks and a few other things happen around the edges but there is NO WAY that it merited 90 minutes. I've bitched before that Andrew Lincoln/Rick isn't a strong enough actor to carry a whole episode. Well, Chandler Riggs/Carl is soooooooooo not good enough an actor to lift so heavy a load. At least Jeffrey Dean Morgan/Negan is around to talk and talk and talk and talk ....
Michonne goes out on her own. She whistles to attract walkers, calmly slices their heads open with her sword and then drags them off. From the bloody smears on the road, it's apparent that she's done this before. Rosita drags Eugene off to that workshop he and Abraham found however long ago: she is going to force Eugene to make a bullet for her. Spencer and Father Gabriel try to get them to come with on a scavenging run but Rosita is focused and tells Spencer to leave her the hell alone. Spencer is too busy whining about how much Rick sucks to worry about her too much.
As the truck nears the Saviors' Sanctuary, Jesus tells Carl how to jump out of the truck and roll into the driver's blindspot so as not to be seen. Carl's like, cool, you go first. Jesus jumps out, rolls away and hides; Carl gives him a little wave and then fades back into the truck, picking out a choice semi-automatic rifle as he hides. When the truck stops for unloading, Carl fires at will, killing two guys and shouting that he's only here for Negan. Negan strolls up and Carl is quickly tackled, Daryl warily watching from behind a chainlink fence.
Negan decides that he will try to turn Carl to the dark side because it'll be fun. He walks him through the complex, an old factory of some sort, showing off as people kneel before him, being benevolent as he promises fresh vegetables for everyone for continuing to follow the rules. He shows Carl his harem - eight or so attractive women that Negan calls his "wives,' all wearing little black dresses, sitting in a fairly well-appointed room. Dwight and Daryl stop by, having prepared a crudite tray (I shit you not). Negan sends the two of them off to fire up the furnace and fetch a mop, then has Carl carry the crudite tray off to his private rooms.
Spencer and Gabriel drive and Spencer can't stop talking about how much Rick sucks. So Gabriel tells him he's a shithead and that he's walking back to town. Spencer: ??? Then Spencer hears something, runs out into the woods and finds a zombie - a former survivalist/hunter, still wielding a compound bow and stuck in a tree in a deer stand. Spencer tugs the zombie out of the tree, collects the weapons and discovers a list in the dead man's pocket of all the supply caches hidden in the woods. Score!
Negan talks and talks at Carl. He makes the boy take the bandage off his wounded eye socket, makes Carl "sing [him] a song" while Negan dances around, swinging Lucille like a maniac, switching from menacing to cajoling to jovial on a dime. Carl still has a little backbone in him but all he can do is tread water here, wondering WTF is coming next. What's next: Negan brings Carl down to the furnace room. Everyone is there, including a bound man ("Mark") who broke the rules and is due for punishment. In this case, it's like how Dwight got punished: by having Negan press a red-hot iron into the side of Mark's face while he screams and then passes out. Carl and Daryl trade quick looks, like holyshitomigoddidyoujustseethatpsychoshit. Negan has made his point. I suspect the people living at the Sanctuary will toe the line, at least for a while.
At that workshop. Eugene doesn't want to enable Rosita in her seemingly suicidal quest to kill Negan. She yells at him and says some mean but true things and repeats, over and over, "Make me a bullet." Eugene makes her a bullet.
Negan talks and talks at Carl some more, then decides to take him back to Alexandria. Just before they leave, Daryl is all, "If you do anything to [Carl] ..." and Negan's all, "Dwight, Daryl needs a time-out. Put him back in his box for a while." But while he is in his box, someone slips a piece of paper under the door. There are some keys (?) taped to it and it reads, GO NOW.
Michonne has dragged enough walker corpses into a pile in the middle of the road that one of Negan's people (a red-headed woman) can't drive past. Michonne ambushes her, taking her gun and her knife and forces her back into the car. "Take me to Negan," says Michonne.
Back at Alexandria, Negan makes Carl take him to his and Rick's house. Olivia is there, babysitting Judith. Negan bullies her, makes her cry and then suggests that they go bone a while, just to pass the time. Shocked, she slaps him in the face. Negan just laughs, then leans in and tells her, "I am about 50% more into you now." He tells her to go make him and Carl some lemonade. After she scurries off, he makes Carl take him on a tour of the house. Carl tries to avoid his little sister's bedroom but Negan isn't to be put off. He seems quite taken with the toddler, picking her up and cuddling her. He and Carl sit on the porch, drinking lemonade, Judith in Negan's lap. Negan is finding this suburban life all quite pleasant, actually, and he muses that maybe he should just kill Rick and Carl and move in. Carl just glares daggers at him.
What, you ask, has Rick been doing all this time? He and Aaron are out on a scavenging run. They find a place with a big sign basically telling people to go away or they'll be shot ... and at the bottom, if they've read this far, then [the guy whose place it is] is dead and they can "have at it, assholes." Rick and Aaron climb the fence and walk in, thinking they might find guns and ammo. What they find is a pond with a houseboat moored in the center and dozens of walkers floating and moored around it. Pretty clever, actually - still protecting the supplies, even after death. Guess they'll go after it next episode.
I mean, I get all this. Negan is an asshole, a sadist, an utter lunatic, but he verges on charming as well. He's certainly the closest thing this show has to someone who is interesting - which is awful because he's a bad person. But he's more interesting than Rick, certainly, so even though he is a crazy, scary, sadistic motherfucker, so he's almost becoming the main character. I just find his schtick exhausting.
Previously on The Walking Dead / next time on The Walking Dead
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