Spoiler alert: This story contains spoilers for The Walking Dead.
And so it begins: the march toward the inevitable confrontation between the Saviours and everybody else on The Walking Dead.
The mid-Season 7 premiere picked up pretty much where we left off in December, with Rick and his crew attempting to drum up recruits to put an end to Negan and his followers once and for all.
The good news for viewers still traumatized by the violence in the first half of the season is that no one died in Sunday’s episode, and Negan and his baseball bat were nowhere to be seen.
The bad news is there were still enough plot contrivances and hokey speeches to make it uncertain the season can be saved from its showrunners, let alone Negan.
Here’s what we learned in episode 7.9, “The Rock in the Road.”
Whither Father Gabriel?
The episode begins with Gabriel on lookout, just as he was at the end of the mid-season finale, but he abandons his post to ransack Alexandria’s already scarce supply of food and weapons, loads up a car and drives away while the community sleeps, leaving his Bible behind. And he is not alone as the car pulls away.
Is Gabriel selfishly saving himself before the Saviours return? Is he in league with his mysterious passenger (presumably the guy with the fancy boots)? Has he been kidnapped? A clue left behind in a notebook suggests Gabriel hasn’t just run away.
The Hilltop represents
Hilltop leader Gregory, perhaps the most selfish human left alive after the zombie apocalypse, not only refuses to help Rick’s group fight the Saviours, he wants them all to leave and pretend they were never there. But as they slink out of his mansion, a group of Hilltop residents has conveniently gathered. They’re so impressed by Maggie’s and Sasha’s mad zombie-fighting skillz they’re ready to take up arms . . . well, once they figure out how to become warriors instead of “sorghum farmers,” in Gregory’s words.
Chuffed by the news, Rick and Michonne, and Carl and Enid exchange affectionate glances. But Rick notes, “We need more hands, another group,” which provides an opening for Jesus to propose a meeting with King Ezekiel at the Kingdom.
But what about the Saviours, who surely by now have noticed that Daryl killed Fat Joey and escaped, and will head to Alexandria to look for him? Why, Jesus just happened to pick up a long-range radio at the Saviours’ compound, so the good guys will have warning that the Saviours are coming and can head to the Kingdom with impunity.
About that rock
Thanks to Jesus’s good standing with the Kingdom crew, Rick is granted an audience with King Ezekiel and his tiger.
Rick’s group is also reunited with Morgan, who tells Rick and a crestfallen Daryl that he found Carol, killed a man to save her and brought her to the Kingdom to have her Saviour-inflicted gunshot wound patched up, but now she’s gone again — omitting the fact she hasn’t gone far. Morgan, in turn, learns that Abraham, Glenn, Spencer and Olivia are all dead at the hands of the Saviours and Eugene kidnapped. But when Ezekiel turns to Morgan for advice on whether to join Rick in kicking the Saviours’ butts, Mr. Pacifist suggests they find another way, maybe just kidnap Negan.
Rick tries to salvage things by telling Ezekiel a story that his mom told him when he was a tyke, about a rock in a road en route to a kingdom that kills the peasants’ horses and destroys their wagon wheels, causing their possessions to spill into the road, yet nobody does anything about it. And then a little girl decides to dig it up — quite a feat considering it must have been quite a big rock — and finds a pot of gold underneath. So in case you haven’t figured it out, the Saviours are the rock and everyone will be rewarded if they dig them up — or blow them up, which is Daryl’s suggestion.
But Ezekiel isn’t buying it, at least not yet, despite the fact his confidantes Richard and Benjamin are all yeah, let’s help Alexandria kill Saviours. Ezekiel throws Rick a bone and agrees to offer asylum to Daryl since “the Saviours do not set foot inside our walls.”
“How long you think that’s gonna last?” asks a contemptuous Daryl.
Not long is my guess. Richard accurately notes that the more food and other stuff communities like his give the Saviours the stronger they become and the harder to beat. Tick, tock, Ezekiel.
And on a side note, man, did Daryl look sad as Rick walked out and the gate of the Kingdom closed behind him. Bromance thwarted.
Dynamite!
Rick and the gang drive home while listening to Negan’s eulogy for Fat Joey on Jesus’s radio. (It includes the line, “We were just joking about oral sex with Lucille the other day.” Seriously.) The Saviours have blocked the on-ramp to the highway with a bunch of cars, so Rick makes a plan to move the cars, drive through and move them all back again to cover their tracks, but look! On the other side of the highway: a walker trap consisting of steel cable strung between two cars studded with dynamite.
“We need these explosives,” says Sasha.
“Yeah, but we have to figure out how to disarm it first,” says Rick.
Rosita manages to dismantle the detonator in less than a minute. Talk about hidden talents.
But oops, Negan is sending a search party to Alexandria to hunt for Daryl, so Rick et al are racing against the clock to untangle sticks of dynamite and RPGs from the cable. And then a herd of walkers appears and they haven’t even replaced all the cars on the on-ramp yet.
As the herd closes in, Sasha and Jesus head back to hilltop on foot; Tara, Rosita and Carl barely make it back to their SUV; Rick and Michonne hot-wire the two cars holding the zombie trap together and drive at the herd, the steel cable slicing through zombies like a knife through butter.
Then they fight their way through what’s left of the herd to the SUV. Phew. Zombies set off the remaining dynamite and blow up as they drive away. And somehow they make it back to Alexandria, after first hiding the vehicle full of dynamite, just as Negan’s search party arrives.
It’s during the search that Rick finds out the pantry has been looted. Aaron and Tobin break the news that Gabriel is missing, presumably with all their stuff.
A hunt of Gabriel’s home turns up his Bible and the notebook with the word “boat” written in it, i.e. the houseboat where Rick and Aaron scavenged supplies earlier in the season. How would Gabriel know about it, Aaron wonders.
Rick and Aaron return to the boat scene with Michonne, Tara and Rosita, and follow footprints to a clearing behind a dilapidated factory. Suddenly, they’re surrounded by dozens of men and women carrying guns, swords, axes, pitchforks, you name it. And for the first time all episode Rick smiles, a big, toothy, eye-crinkling grin.
Who are those people? Why is Rick smiling? All will presumably be revealed.
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