The Walking Dead: Try Recap

Synopsis of 5×15: Rick’s group continues to feel divided on whether or not to assimilate to the Alexandria Safe Zone, while Deanna seems to be coming to some conclusions of her own in the aftermath of tragedy.

Rating: ★★★★☆

The only ones missing Aiden and his terrible taste in music are his family, who sit in the dark and subject us all to that terrible Run Mix he made. Carol, in a kind of overbearingly normal way, sends the family a casserole with a note – which Deanna promptly burns.

Later, she’s watching the recorded interview with Nicholas, who spins a tale of his and Aiden’s heroism before Glenn tried to kill him in the revolving door. This is interspersed with Glenn telling his side of the story to Rick on the porch. Nicholas is adamant, just as Gabriel was that Rick’s group has to go, while Deanna assures him she needs to look into things more. Rick thinks Glenn made a tactical error by bringing Nicholas back and reminds Glenn that they don’t play by the rules of Alexandria.

Rick’s going a little off the deep end here (really he’s just turning into Shane 2.0) and Glenn starts to take notice because he has to explain to Rick that they are “them” now – there’s no divide. He leaves Glenn for Carol, who is really not helping the assimilation by telling him more stories of abuse by Pete. Later, when a drunken Pete finds him, Rick commands him to keep walking.

When he confronts Deanna with the news of Pete beating Jessie, she’s pretty nonplussed about the whole thing. Pete’s the doctor and the surgeon of the community and she’d ‘thought it stopped.’ Rick is still whole heartedly on board with killing Pete and Deanna has to talk him down off that ledge – or attempt to anyway.

Sasha, up in the tower, is clearly starting to lose it and even goes so far as to leave outside of the walls after her shift is over, forcing Michonne and Rosita to go after her. Rosita is slowly getting comfortable with Alexandria and is pointing out to Michonne that it’s not a bad thing, even remarking that Michonne left her sword inside the walls.

Daryl and Aaron continue their bromance as Daryl points out a light far off in the distance to him. How did Aaron and Eric manage this before Daryl? How many times was the poor guy sucker punched by strangers?

Carl is following Enid through the woods when she confronts him about it. He tries to tell her that they should go back inside the walls, but somehow end up running through the woods instead. These dumb teens and their risky apocalypse behaviors. When a larger herd of walkers catch up to them, they hide inside of a hollowed out tree. Be honest, who was waiting for one of the walkers to pop up, box them in, and eat the girl? Me too. But even more disturbing, one of the walkers clearly had a ‘W’ carved into their forehead.

Glenn later confronts Nicholas, telling him that people like him are supposed to be dead already. He forbids Nicholas from going outside the walls again because that’s how he’s going to survive. Nicholas doesn’t seem too convinced over the scare tactics and later heads out to dig up a gun from inside of a coffee can. Specifically, Rick’s gun from the blender that disappeared a while back. Well, well, well Nicholas…

Michonne and Rosita finally catch up to Sasha, who is gleefully and carelessly hunting walkers. She refuses to leave with them and begins shooting into a large herd. After taking in the chaos around her, Michonne joins in, but promises Sasha that it’s not for her. When she saves Sasha, Sasha has another meltdown about how things have worked out for everyone else. She tearfully admits that she told Noah he wouldn’t make it – at least she was right?

Aaron and Daryl catch up to the camp they saw in the distance, only to find a lot of severed limbs lacking torsos and heads. They find a woman tied up to a tree, having been recently disemboweled by walkers. Daryl finds a ‘W’ carved into her forehead and quickly dispatches her as she turns. Side note, do the Alexandrians know that everyone’s infected? Regardless, Aaron is shaken and Daryl is not pleased.

Rick catches up to Jessie and confronts her about the abuse. She brushes him off and says that Rick will make things worse if he causes waves, storming off and closing her garage in his face. He stops to look around at how normal it is inside the walls of Alexandria before storming back into her house and telling her about how Sam asked for a gun. He urges her to let him keep her and the boys safe, which she finally relents to. Drunken Pete decides to show up at the exact wrong moment and demands that Rick leave. Jessie says that Pete’s the one who needs to leave, which sparks off a gnarly fight between Rick and Pete.

They actually crash through the front window while Jessie looks on crying. She tries to separate them and is thrown off by Pete, and when Carl tries the same thing, his dad shoves him back. After Pete’s been subdued, Rick pulls out a gun and threatens the small crowd that has gathered – including his own people and Alexandrians. Rick’s bleeding from his face and makes a big speech about how none of the Alexandrians get it. He lays out a militant plan to keep everyone safe that really just makes him sound even crazier. In the heat of it, Michonne knocks him out.

Next week is the extended-to-90-minutes season finale where it all might come to a head? What’s up with Rick’s full-on Shane freak-out? Too little, too late. Or too much outdoors, not enough civilization? We’ll find out and see where the showrunners want to take us next week. My vote? WOLVES WOLVES WOLVES NEGAN PLEASE.