The Walking Dead S8E6 "The King, the Widow and Rick" 11/26/17

The episode title references Negan's instructions to his Saviors to capture "the King, the widow and Rick" alive ... but to be honest, this damn episode should actually have been titled "The King, the Widow, Rick, Carol, Carl, Michonne and Rosita, with some Daryl and Tara for good measure."  If the intent had been to focus on Ezekiel, Maggie and Rick, the writers lost their focus a bit.  And in case you were wondering, this is another talk-heavy/place-setting episode.

The good guys have set up a nifty little message system, hiding notes for one another in various roadside trash heaps.  As we check in with Carol/the Kingdom, Rick/on the road and Maggie/at the Hilltop, the ponderous voiceovers talks about how the plan is working even though we're losing people.  Only there are a LOT more words - but it's all kind of pointless because it's just rehashing everything we've just seen over the last couple of episodes.

Rick:  On foot and on his own, Rick walks to the Garbage People's compound to try once again to enlist their help.  Jadis and her weirdos hear him out and then turn him down, throwing him into a hot storage container.  Jadis:  "[He] talks too much."  Word, sister.

Maggie:  The denizens of the Hilltop are conflicted about the Savior prisoners Jesus has brought back.  At first, they are tied up along the outside of the wall, guarded by Jesus and other gun-bearing Hilltoppers.  This is dangerous for Maggie's people, however, with the exposure to walkers and non-imprisoned Saviors.  Gregory thinks they should build a gallows.  Maggie instead builds a barbed wire enclosures within the Hilltop's walls.  The prisoners are ushered inside; Gregory, who has been driving Maggie up a fucking wall, also gets roughed up a little and thrown in with the Saviors.  Maggie tells Jesus that she's only holding onto the prisoners on the off-chance that they can be exchanged for any of their people that Negan takes captives.  Otherwise, after this is all over, they're going to have to be killed.  Afterwards, Aaron (who delivered the baby Rick found to Maggie) heads back out, with Enid tagging along.

Carol:  Even though "The King" is in the title, Ezekiel is too busy being sad so most of the focus is on Carol.  They're supposed to meet up with Rick and since she is unable to roust the King, Carol goes alone.  She is followed by some little kid (Henry?) and has to rescue him from a couple of walkers he is trying to fight.  She snaps at him, then hands him a gun and leads him back to the Kingdom.  Over Jerry's protests, she forces her way into the theater where she finds Ezekiel sitting on the floor beside his throne, clutching a length of Shiva's chain in his hands.  He is very sad.  Carol gives him a rousing speech about how his people need him to lead them as he has done up until now and if he's struggling, to just fake it 'til he makes it.  They have a nice little bonding moment (and both these actors are so good together) over how he helped her when she isolated herself in that house but ultimately Ezekiel says he just can't be the King now.

Carl:  For reasons, Carl goes out into the forest, looking for that dude he and Rick came across a few episodes ago, the one Carl tried to befriend and Rick chased off by shooting rounds into the air.  Carl finds the dude who is engaged in setting up walker traps - his parents thought that killing zombies released their souls and he is trying to honor his parents by offing the undead.  Intrigued, Carl asks the three questions (remember those).  Sadiq says he's killed about 237 walkers (nice!) and only one person, putting him out of his misery after a walker attack.  Carl's all, let's be friends and then they both almost get killed when a small group of walkers comes out of nowhere.  They finally put down the walkers and Carl's like, come with me, I can't take you to my community because my dad's kind of touchy but maybe I can put you somewhere else.

Michonne and Rosita:  After basically being absent for the first five episodes - they have been "healing" back at Alexandria, Michonne and Rosita go against orders and leave Alexandria because of reasons: they want to "see the Sanctuary."  Whatever.  Like they would do that.  This is just an excuse for the writers to get them on the road where they hear some music coming from a warehouse.  Worried that the noise will draw the herd of walkers away from the Sanctuary, they go to check it out.  The warehouse is storing a TON of weapons, like military grade, and there are two Saviors inside, getting a truck laden with speakers blasting opera to go to the Sanctuary, specifically to draw the herd of walkers away.  Michonne and Rosita get into a gunfight with the two Saviors.  Rosita AWESOMELY blows one dude up with a fucking RPG but the woman gets away, driving off in the speaker truck.  Fear not - read next paragraph.

Daryl and Tara:  When Daryl gets back to Alexandria, Tara goes looking for him.  She says he was right to not kill Dwight because they couldn't have gotten this far in the plan without him, but after this is all over, she's gonna kill him.  Because he killed Denise, yes?  Daryl, still holding a grudge for his Sanctuary treatment at Dwight's hands, says maybe the two of them could kill him together.  Later, whilst driving their big ol' garbage truck, they broadside the speaker truck and hook up with Michonne and Rosita.  Daryl's like, we got a lot more work to do - all of us.  They drive to where Michonne and Rosita can see the herd of walkers swarming the Sanctuary.  Daryl's like, we're gonna end this thing, right now.  I think he's still not on board with Rick's plan and wants to blow some shit up.  And frankly, with Rick stuck in a Garbage People's storage container, sweating his ass off, Daryl may have a point.

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