Holy moly - here I am, back again. I promise that it's not a mouse who cried wolf with respect to the cable cutting ... just not yet. And another plus: this episode was only half bad (Rick and Negan, Daryl's neutering (metaphorically speaking) and the crappy writing for Michonne, Maggie et als).
As Negan smirks, Dwight frets and Simon looks disapproving, the Saviors goop up their weapons and prepare to attack the Hilltop. Negan is holding firm to his plan to gross out/infect the Hilltoppers rather than just massacre them all. A caravan heads out with the goopy weapons, Simon and Dwight driving one truck, and Negan pulling up the rear in a sedan, Lucille marinating in a bucket of walker guts on the seat beside him. The whole gooping up scene is all sorts of gross.
The good guys all reconvene at the Hilltop. Maggie, Enid and Michonne are a bit at odds with Enid sad about Carl and being all, KILL THEM ALL, and Michonne sad about Carl and being all, THERE MUST BE SOMETHING MORE. Boring. The Hilltoppers know that the Saviors are coming to retaliate for the Sanctuary being shot up, so they set up a series of look-outs. Daryl checks in with Rick before they head out and whereas Daryl used to be a rough, gruff, scruffy anti-hero type, now he's all, "Are you okay?" and "It's sad that some people are gone when others are here." Look, I love me some Daryl but ugh. Can he and Carol just go hang out and be badasses together?
After the look-outs are in place, Rick spies the goo-caravan en route. He makes to contact the next look-out as planned and then stops cold because he recognizes that Negan is alone in the last car. Instead of sticking with the plan, Rick jumps into his SUV and ambushes the Savior caravan, broadsiding Negan's car. There's a bit of a car chase so as to separate Negan-and-Rick from the rest of the Saviors and then there's a car crash. When Negan climbs out of his wrecked car, clutching Lucille, Rick shoots at him. As has been said before, for someone who can put a walker down at 50 yards with a pistol, Rick is a crap shot with an actual semiautomatic rifle. Negan flees into a warehouse. And here is where I just began to fast-forward through all the Rick vs. Negan scenes. They stalk each other, fall through rotting floors, dodge zombies and shout at each other about their various points of view. They each take turns bludgeoning each other and zombies with Lucille, who at one point catches fire - and then the zombies catch fire, which is kind of cool. In the end it is all for naught, though, as Negan gets away.
While all this is going on, Simon has halted the Savior caravan in the middle of town. He instructs the rabble to stay put while he and Dwight go see if they can find Negan. Simon has been testing the waters with Dwight a bit: he says that he's not convinced that Negan has it right, that the Hilltoppers (and Alexandrians and Kingdomites) have survived everything that has been thrown at them and have not gotten scared by the Saviors. He seems to be trying to get Dwight to say something disloyal about Negan and Dwight is clearly unsure about where this is going. They find Negan's burned out, shot up car and continue their conversation. Simon is all, we need to just move on with [the Hilltoppers] and if Negan is out there dead, or not quite dead, then maybe they need to just move on without him. He presses Dwight, asking if Dwight hasn't ever wanted to fight back against Negan. Dwight's voice is saturated with sarcasm when he replies, "When he stole my wife and burned my face? No, I never once wanted him dead." Simon's like, well, let's see what we can do about that. A sliver of hope crosses Dwight's ruined face.
While all this is going on, the sentries at the Hilltop notice a crate with a banner in the field outside the walls. They all think this is weird but they bring it in to check it out: it's a message with coordinates, saying that if they bring the crate filled with food and/or records, they'll get "a key to [their] future." Since the Hilltoppers are on the verge of starving, Maggie thinks that they can't pass this up, even if it may be a trap. She, Enid, Rosita and Michonne head out to the coordinates on the note. There's a van waiting for them there and three women: Georgie, Hilda and Midge. They seem a little odd but they are clean and well-fed. Georgie sets forth her deal again: something valuable for food or music (no spoken word). Michonne is inclined to take whatever she's offering but Maggie feels the need to stretch things out a little longer and instead they bring Georgie and her crew back to the Hilltop for further discussion. After seeing the Hilltop, Georgie amends her deal: she has noticed that people are looking a little scrawny so in exchange for their record albums, she will give them two crates of food, plus this binder of plans for medieval-level technology like windmills, watermills, etc. This gets through Maggie's hardened shell, because it was she who always saw the Hilltop's potential, she who wanted to grow things and build community. She takes Georgie's deal with a small smile and Georgie promises that she will come back once they've started to rebuild, to see what they've done and see what else they can barter.
Simon and Dwight return to the Saviors, saying that they can't find Negan. There is some worried muttering but Simon says that it's not a problem - they're all Negan and together they can continue, can move on. And, as Dwight stares in disappointment and horror, by moving on, Simon means they are going to slaughter the fuck out of the Hilltop - they're going to kill them all, not just scare them like Negan wanted to do. Simon is even scarier than that blowhard Negan, IMHO.
Speaking of that blowhard Negan, he is passed out in the front seat of a car. When he wakes up, he - and we - sees that the car is being driven by Jadis and she's holding a gun to his temple. "Well, shit," he grins. Jadis snarls, "Shut up" and clocks him in the head with her gun.
Previously on The Walking Dead / next time on The Walking Dead
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