Team Family regroups after the loss of Hilltop on The Walking Dead. In “Look at the Flowers,” Beta (Ryan Hurst) deals with the ramifications of Alpha’s (Samantha Morton) death. Carol (Melissa McBride) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) seek redemption. While Team Family moves forward, Eugene (Josh McDermitt) prepares for his date.
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It’s clear now that Carol let Negan out of his jail in Alexandria so he could kill Alpha. She did so with the intention of helping Negan reconcile with the residents of Alexandria, but Negan clearly took too long. Carol puts Alpha’s head on a spike on the Whisperer border. She says she’s not returning to Alexandria right away, but Negan can’t go back without her. She tells him to either wait for her or do whatever he wants. Carol needs to be alone.
SOMEWHERE OUT THERE
The survivors of Hilltop regroup at the rendezvous point. Everyone is happy to see Magna (Nadia Hilker) alive. Rosita (Christian Serratos) is hurt pretty bad, so Eugene thinks he has to miss his date with Stephanie to take care of her. She encourages him to go to his meeting. And to tell everyone about Stephanie. Eugene tells everyone in the room about the communication with Stephanie and the meeting they set up. At first, everyone is concerned and they have a lot of questions. Eugene explains that he’s willing to take the risk to find new allies.
Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura) tells Magna to go with them, but Magna wants to stay put for once. She tells Yumiko to go because there’s nothing for her to fix right now. Ezekiel (Khary Peyton) is going as well and Jerry (Cooper Andrews) thinks it’s a bad idea. Not because he’s sick, but Jerry would miss him too much. Ezekiel tells Jerry to watch over the Kingdom and make sure their legacy lives on. The two say goodbye to each other like it’s their final goodbye.
Eugene leads Yumiko and Ezekiel on horseback. Along the way, the trio finds something strange. A cage with two walkers. They are sure if it’s a warning so they split up to search the area. Ezekiel finds three walkers, which should be easy to take care of. He has a hard time fighting them off because he starts coughing and stumbling like he can’t catch his breath. Once he is able to kill the three walkers, he hears Yumiko call for the all-clear.
Later that night, Ezekiel’s horse falls over in pain. He finds a walker bite and puts the horse out of its misery. He takes this as a sign that he shouldn’t have made the trip. Ezekiel thinks he’ll only put Eugene and Yumiko in danger so he tells them to leave him behind if he falls. Yumiko won’t do it though. They all took the risk of finding out what’s possible on this trip. And they need the man who built a kingdom with them.
HALF MOON
Beta and two companions find Alpha’s head on the border. Companion #1 declares Beta is the new Alpha and Beta gets upset. He says Alpha can hear the man and tells him to take off his mask. Beta makes Companion #1 get close to Alpha’s head so he can hear what she has to say. So close that Alpha bites the companion’s face. Companion #2 runs away when that happens. Beta takes the head and walks away.
Beta and his remaining companion walk to a nearby town and the man starts coughing. A walker hears him and walks toward the Whisperers. The companion prepares to kill the walker, but Beta stabs him for trying, making his companion fall to the ground for the walker to eat.
Beta listens to Alpha’s head and goes inside of a hotel, that kind of looks like a saloon. He finds a note, “These 2 eyes see 1 truth.” He also finds a shotgun and a trail of blood that lead to a poster for a concert by Half Moon. Beta gets angry and starts throwing things around and destroys a guitar.
Beta finds a record by Half Moon..it’s the same album from Fear TWD. He puts the album on the loudspeakers. Walkers hear the music and surround the hotel. Beta stands on the balcony of the hotel to watch the walkers gather before him. He pulls half of his mask off and reveals that he is Half Moon!
THE NEW ALPHA
Negan goes back to the cabin where he left Lydia (Cassady McClincy) and finds Daryl and his crossbow. Daryl wants to know where Alpha is and Negan admits he killed her. He pulls out Alpha’s mask as proof. He tells Daryl that Carol let him out of his jail cell just to kill Alpha. Negan can prove it by taking Daryl to the border where they left her head.
Along the way, Negan tries to reason with Daryl, but Daryl isn’t having it. He admits that he’s mad, mostly because the Whisperers almost killed a bunch of children at Hilltop. That makes Negan feel bad. They get to the border and Alpha’s head is gone. Negan wants to wait for Carol, but Daryl is ready to kill Negan now.
Negan says he put Lydia in that cabin to keep her safe. He used Lydia as bait to get Alpha alone. Daryl says he took long enough to carry out his plan. Negan obviously took too long. He explains that he had to get close to Alpha. Daryl says it’s because Negan liked killing Alpha.
Three Whisperers show up and declare that Negan is the new Alpha. They kneel to him and hold Daryl hostage. Negan takes control and talks his way around killing Daryl. The Whisperers give him Alpha’s shotgun. He tells Daryl to kneel to the Alpha and holds the shotgun to his face.
Negan admits that he did like killing Alpha. Daryl tells Negan to shoot him and Negan shoots a Whisperer instead. He and Daryl are able to handle the other two. Afterward, Daryl demands Negan untie him and Negan laughs. Their first team-up is a success!
LOOK AT THE FLOWERS
Carol makes her way through the woods and hears Alpha talking to her. Alpha is always watching. It’s actually Carol’s thoughts. Alpha taunts her with talk about losing Henry and Sophia. She tells Carol that she respects her because it was her plan to send Negan in to kill her. But something about it is making Carol feel guilty.
Alpha starts talking about Carol being on her own. She’s tried it before but they always pull her back in, wanting something more. Alpha asks Carol what she really wants. Carol says she wants to be alone. Well, that’s not true. Alpha says Carol went to sea and still thought about her. She even wrote a letter to Maggie (Lauren Cohan) about Alpha.
While Alpha is talking, Carol made her way to an abandoned cabin in the woods. She takes a look around and climbs to the roof to pull something down. The entire roof comes down on Carol, trapping her. Carol is trapped there overnight. The next morning, she still hears Alpha talking to her as a walker approaches the cabin. Alpha taunts her saying it’s finally time. There’s no one there to save her. Ezekiel isn’t there. Daryl certainly wouldn’t save her after what she did to Connie (Lauren Ridloff). Carol tries to get out from under the debris, but can’t move one arm.
Alpha names off everyone she has lost. If Carol goes back to Alexandria, she could lose Daryl next. Carol would never let that happen. Carol doesn’t want to die, but Alpha says it’s inevitable. All she can do now is look at the flowers. Carol has to dislocate her shoulder to get out from under the rubble. She gets out in time to fight off the walker. When Carol is safely outside of the cabin, she says it’s never too late and Alpha disappears.
MOVING ON
Negan and Daryl sit and wait for Carol to come back, but she’s a no show. Negan says he’s telling the truth and Daryl believes him. He continues saying he lost everything when he was locked up and it sucked. When Alpha took him in, he liked it. Negan liked feeling like he mattered again. She took things too far. Negan doesn’t like killing people that don’t deserve it and he doesn’t kill kids. That doesn’t make Daryl like him anymore though. They leave. And shortly after, Daryl opens the gates for Carol when she returns home.
Yumiko, Eugene, and Ezekiel ride into a city that appears abandoned. Someone dressed up the walkers and set them up in scenes. There is a walker tied up in a rocking chair outside of an antique store. Two walkers are tied up in the window of a cafe, holding teacups, as if they are talking to each other. They see a walker tied to a scooter in the road with groceries. They find a walker tied to a steering wheel, with a cop on the hood dressed like a police officer.
Ezekiel is amused and starts laughing. Eugene and Yumiko don’t know what to make of all of it. They keep going and turn down an ally. A woman appears. She is dressed in a fuzzy pink jacket and is carrying a shotgun. She’s very excited to see them and screams hello at them. They look at her with caution. (It’s Princess played by Paola Lazaro)
Beta looks at the note again. He pulls out Alpha’s head. Beta thanks Alpha and says he sees now. Then he sticks a knife in her head. Beta leaves the hotel, and the walkers let him walk past. The walkers surround Beta, following him as he walks out of the town. He replaced half of his mask with Alpha’s face.
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THOUGHTS
Sooo, Carol wrote a letter to Maggie about Alpha. I’m really hoping Maggie shows up in the next episode. That was interesting to watch Alpha tell Carol her thoughts. Carol has been carrying around a lot of guilt that I thought she had dealt with, but it never goes away. This isn’t the first time she acted alone for the sake of her people. But I do believe its’s the first time she’d had to deal with multiple consequences.
That was definitely Ryan Hurst singing as Half Moon. He’s got a distinctive voice when he talks normal. And I can hear that distinctive quality in Half Moon’s voice. I wonder if he’s been singing on the side. If not, he should. Speaking of Beta, it looks like he’s going to avenge Alpha’s death in some way. Most likely with a lot of walkers. I really hope Daryl went home to warn everyone.
I knew we’d see Princess before the end of the season, but I didn’t expect she would appear so soon. It’s always good to see the comic book come to life. She looks like a lot of fun!
The Walking Dead announced the season ten finale is delayed. With one more episode this season, I’m really hoping to see some closure in the next episode.
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