The Walking Dead: Crossed Recap

The Walking Dead: Crossed (5×07)

Synopsis: We check in on everyone – and I mean everyone – to find out where each group stands. Gabriel loses it, Abraham gets it back, and the Ricktatorship is KO’d by the Daryl-Tyreese non-violent one-two approach to saving Carol and Beth…

Rating: ★★★☆☆

In a rare occurrence, we actually get a look at what everyone is doing this episode – and I mean everyone. We open on Rick’s group breaking down the church and fortifying it against the walkers. This is the day after Daryl came back and, though we get no confirmation, we clearly know he came back with Noah those few days ago. Once the church is set up, Michonne, Judy, Carl, and Father Gabriel are left behind as the rest of the group heads towards Carol and Atlanta.

Meanwhile, on the road, Abraham’s group – GREATM, as Tara has decided to christen them in solidarity – is still dealing with the fallout of Abraham’s freak-out and Eugene’s confession. They can’t move Eugene until he wakes up and Abraham hasn’t moved from his kneeling spot on the ground. He almost gets into a fight with Rosita and Maggie threatens to shoot him. Things are tense with this ragtag group.

Rick is about to introduce the hospital to the Ricktatorship, as he explains an elaborate plan to Tyreese, Noah, Sasha, and Daryl. It’s a relatively quick and quiet plan, but it doesn’t come without casualties and Tyreese questions it. In a surprise move, Daryl backs Tyreese’s less-than-lethal plan to capture two cops and make a hostage trade for Carol and Beth. Rick points out that the plan might work, but that his will work. If I’ve learned anything from the resurgence of The Governor and Gareth more than once, it’s NO HALF MEASURES – which, surprise, this is a half-measure that’ll definitely come back to bite them in the ass.

Gabriel, who has been having a difficult time since they started tearing down the church (and even before that, when they massacred Gareth in the church), is frantically scrubbing blood from the floor when Carl approaches him with a bag of weapons. He makes a big speech about how Gabriel will need to be able to defend himself, giving a graphic description of how to hold a machete to better get through the skull and Gabriel couldn’t look more put off by the interaction, excusing himself accordingly.

At Grady Memorial, Beth is doing chores and listening to Dawn argue with another officer over Carol’s status and their inability to recapture Noah. He wants to pull the plug on Carol and Beth buts in with her opinion of the man and his careless waste of resources. Because of her outburst, Dawn has to side with the officer and tells him to pull Carol off the machines. Once he’s gone, she points that out to Beth and gives her the key to the drug locker to let Beth care for her off the record.

Abraham’s group splits off, with Maggie staying to defend Eugene and keep an eye on Abraham, while the rest of the group goes to find water. Tara tries to reason with Glenn and Rosita about how Eugene used the only skill he knew he had and that they all need to get over this DC quest already, despite the short amount of time it has been. At the truck, Maggie uses a ladder and blanket to shield still-passed-out Eugene from the sun while Abraham continues to be catatonic.

Beth, given the job of keeping Carol alive, has no choice but to go to Dr. Edwards and ask him how he would treat her. He warns Beth that there are underlying motives to what Dawn did, but he still tells her how to treat Carol and wishes her luck.

Rosita shows off a method of filtering water, which Eugene taught her, and she shares with Glenn and Tara how she hooked up with Abraham and Eugene. They met in Texas and Abraham asked her for help with his mission that he’s now disillusioned from. On top of that, after noticing fish in the stream they were filtering water from, Glenn’s group manages to work together to catch some for food.

Two of Dawn’s officers are following the sound of gunshots, only to find Noah limping along. They manage to zip-tie his hands before Rick’s group comes out and easily overpowers them. Lamson, the man (also known as AGENT SITWELL DON’T TRUST HIM), immediately pegs Rick for a cop and plays that angle for sympathy – but Noah also tells Rick that Lamson is ‘one of the good ones’ right before another cop drives up, allowing for the two potential hostages to escape with him in his vehicle.

A gunfight erupts and the group chases the car around a corner to find it crashed and the officers gone. While the rest of the group rushes off towards where they think the officers went, Daryl stays behind at the napalm bombing site to investigate. He’s nearly strangled to death by the rescuing officer, but actually shoves his fingers into the eye-sockets of a walker, ripping its head off, and bludgeoning the officer with it to gain the upper hand. It may be one of the most graphic scenes of the series so far.

With three hostages (better than two, in Daryl’s words), the female cop tries to reason with the group. She doesn’t think Dawn will want to trade for them because they’ve been quietly working to overthrow her and put Lamson in charge. Lamson himself claims that this can work, but they have to talk to Dawn – he wants to help them so that things end peacefully and Daryl makes the call to bring Rick over to hear the plan.

Back at the church, Michonne checks in on Gabriel, who has shut himself in his office. He thanks her for her attempts to help, but when he shuts the door again it’s revealed that he has been removing floorboards with the machete he took from Carl. When there’s enough room for him to get through the hole, Gabriel drops down and crawls outside under the church. He almost immediately steps on a nail, showcasing how well he’s going to make it on his own in the apocalypse.

Armed with a strawberry bribe, another man in the hospital creates a distraction for Beth while she raids the drug locker for the medicine to help Carol. He only keeps it up long enough for Beth to walk back by and that was really convincing, dude. Thankfully, she makes it to where she can treat Carol, although she doesn’t follow the doctor’s orders completely. It was supposed to be a drip that she injected – so we’ll see if that was a continuity error or a deliberate choice made by the writers…

In the woods, Gabriel starts to hear noises and is attacked by a single walker. He struggles with her, ultimately body slamming her onto the ground, where she gets impaled and stuck, but fails to follow through with crushing her skull with a rock after noticing her cross necklace.

Maggie finally manages to breakthrough to Abraham just as Eugene wakes up from his KO. Glenn, Rosita, and Tara return from their scouting trip and Tara reveals a yo-yo she found in one of the bags they picked up.

Lamson was left behind with a still-grieving Sasha as the rest of the group went to negotiate with Dawn. He tells her that he knew one of the rotters (this group’s name for the zombies) that was down on the street, his partner when they were first sent to Grady Memorial, Tyler. Wracked with guilt about Tyler getting caught in the napalming when it should have been Lamson, Sasha offers to shoot him for Lamson. She takes him to point out where his former partner is melted to the ground, stepping back to allow her to get a good sight on him. As she positions herself, Lamson charges her – knocking her out against the window – and making a run for it.

Next week is the midseason finale and I just really want Lamson to survive it. Also, if we’re hanging out in Atlanta, I would really love an update on Felipe, Miguel, and the people of the old folks’ home that they were taking care of way back in season one (Vatos continues to be my favorite episode).