The Walking Dead aired its twelfth episode of the season on Sunday, “Not Tomorrow Yet”, and officially has us on the edge of our seat from here on out.
If you somehow made it through this one without holding your breath at some point, kudos to you! I wasn’t as good.
The episode opens with Carol. She’s in the pantry gathering cooking supplies, then we see her in the woods finding acorns. A walker comes up behind her and she kills it. In the process, she gets blood on her shirt. She looks disgusted, not like the Carol we know. When she gets home, she changes clothes and goes back to baking. She makes beet and acorn cookies, and starts handing them out to all the kids.
She finishes up at Tobin’s house, where she gives him some cookies. The whole exchange feels loaded. Like something has happened that we don’t know about yet.
Finally, Rick and the others arrive back at Alexandria and tell everyone they have food, and they need to have a meeting. When Carol asks what’s going on, Rick tells her they have to fight. She looks resigned about the prospect of another battle.
We follow Carol again, this time we don’t know where she’s at, but Morgan approaches her from behind and asks why she didn’t tell Rick he had kept the Wolf locked up. He tells her that holding that in makes her responsible, too. She says that it doesn’t and to go away, but it seems like the words shake Carol more than she’s willing to admit.
Once he leaves, she lays the final cookie on Sam’s grave.
Later, Rick gives his pitch for taking out the Saviors. He wants everyone to understand that they have to strike first before the Saviors come after them. This way they’re fighting when they’re strong and on their own terms.
Several people look uncomfortable, but Morgan is the one to speak up. He asks Rick if he’s sure they can beat them. When Rick says they can win, Morgan tells him then they don’t have to fight. They can settle this without death.
“Where there’s life, there’s possibility.”
Rick and Morgan get into an argument about life and what it means. How everyone comes back as both walkers and bad men always seem to keep coming. Aaron steps in and says that he won’t let what happened to Alexandria with the Wolves happen again.
With that, Rick says that the plan is in place. They will kill all the Saviors. Not everyone has to participate, but if they plan on staying in Alexandria, they have to accept those deaths. This is a direct shot at Morgan.
Later that night, Carol can’t sleep and she sits up in her bed and writes down all the names of the people she’s killed. Her list ends with a total of eighteen.
Maggie and Glenn can’t sleep either, but they’re spending their time talking about how she should be going on this mission, too. I don’t understand why they think this is a good idea, but okay.
Since Carol is awake, she goes for a walk and runs into Tobin. They talk and he tells her that she’s still a mom. It’s not the cookies or the smiles, but the hard stuff and the strength she has. He tells her she’s a mom to most of the people here, and when she presses him for what she is to him, he says, “No, you’re something else to me.” Then Carol kisses him.
Yes, you read that right. Carol kisses Tobin, and I don’t know what’s happening anymore.
Cut to Abraham packing and Rosita walking in on him. He tells her that he’s leaving, and Rosita gets in his way and yells at him to tell her why. She screams and pushes on him and finally Abraham cracks.
“When I met you, I thought you were the last woman on Earth. You’re not.”
The words are like a slap in the face to Rosita. She’s in tears and turns to find Eugene outside the door eating a cookie. He tries to talk to her, but she shuts the door in his face.
Next, we’re taken to Rick and the others talking to the guy from Hilltop, Andy, about Negan’s group and compound. He gives them a layout and it’s pretty basic.
While that’s happening, Tara and Denise have their goodbyes. Tara tells Denise she loves her and then asks her to come on the run with her and Heath, but Denise says she can’t. She’s the only doctor in Alexandria and they need her here. Denise tells Tara that she’ll tell her that she loves her when she comes back.
The scene cuts back to Andy giving more insight into Negan’s compound. A plan is established to get the armory and if they get it, they’ll win the fight. There’s some doubt as to how they can just walk in and get that far, but Rick tells them that the Saviors will let them walk right in. They wanted Gregory’s head, so they’ll give it to them.
The next day, they start out early and take the R.V. and several other cars to a location where they plan on looking for suitable walker doubles for Gregory’s head.
A few minor characters are featured heavily in this episode and one of those is Father Gabriel. He goes with them on this journey, and Rick even asks him why he’s still wearing his collar. “I’m still who I was. I think.” After a pause, he adds, “And it will be harder for them to see me in the dark.”
And he said he didn’t have jokes.
Rosita walks over to Carol and admits that she almost told everyone that Morgan had been holding the Wolf. Carol says that maybe Morgan was making sense. He doesn’t like to kill. Rosita tells her that they don’t like to kill, but it’s something that happens.
Carol continues to look uneasy and stares at Maggie.
The scene cuts to Glenn and Heath who are killing walkers. They find one that looks like Gregory. This prompts Heath and Glenn to talk about taking human lives. Neither of them has ever done that before, and this mission into Negan’s territory is scary for them. They know that they’ll end up with blood on their hands.
Back at the R.V., Rick tells everyone the plan. They’ll go in a couple of hours before dawn because the guards will be tired and everyone else will be asleep.
Carol watches from afar, taking in Rick’s words, and you can see the hesitation on her face. When he’s finished, she tells him that she’s going to stay with Maggie and that Maggie shouldn’t be out here in the first place.
Rick leaves her and looks at the walker heads that were brought back. He picks out the best one that looks closest to Gregory. When they say it’s still not right because of the nose, Rick picks up the head and punches it in the face. He tells Andy to tell the Saviors that Gregory broke his hand so he broke his nose.
Jesus and Andy look so uncomfortable, and finally Andy says, “The Saviors are scary, but this prick’s got nothin’ on you.”
At night, they travel to the building with the satellites that we first saw in the 6B photo art before the midseason premiere.
Andy gets out of the car and shows the two guards the head. Everything is tense as they inspect it. The Saviors are crude, but they say they’ll accept the head, so they’ll give Andy back the other Hilltop guy.
When the first guard goes back inside to get him, Daryl slips up behind the second guard and slits his throat and stabs him in the head. The first guard brings out the Hilltop guy and Michonne stabs him through the back.
For a brief second, the scene goes back to Tara, Gabriel and Jesus. She asks if Gabriel is still a priest, and he explains that Carl and Rick taught him enough to contribute, but he’s also still a priest. This is when Tara confesses to having lied to Denise earlier that day.
Back at the compound, everything is insane. It’s so quiet, and there’s very little dialogue but the music behind everything is crazy scary. Almost like a pulse.
They separate inside the building and go into rooms. They creep up on the guys that are sleeping and quietly stab them through the head. It’s unsettling the way they all seem to manage this with such efficiency.
When it comes to Glenn’s turn, though, we all know the gravity of this situation. This is the first time Glenn has taken a life, but he knows that it’s either him or them. So, with tears in his eyes, he slides the knife down into the man’s head.
Heath watches and when he seems like he’s about to do it, Glenn takes his hand and does it for him. He keeps Heath’s slate clean for a little while longer. That’s when they notice the polariods on the men’s wall. It’s of multiple people with their heads bashed in. We all know that’s Negan’s M.O.
Of course, it can’t all go as planned. Soon all hell breaks loose when one of the men attacks Abraham, slashing his arm. Sasha kills him, but not before he pulls the fire alarm and alerts everyone in the building that someone’s inside.
Carol and Maggie hear the alarm from the outside and rush to help. Carol yells at Maggie and tells her to stay. That she shouldn’t be out there anyway. They stare each other down, but Maggie doesn’t go to the compound.
The alarm also has Tara’s group out of their vehicle. She tells Jesus that Andy and the guy they saved need to get back to Hilltop. After Andy drives away, Jesus tells Tara he’s going to help inside.
The next few minutes are chaos. It’s a shootout as people search for a safe place. In my opinion, it’s by far one of the best action sequences ever shot in The Walking Dead.
This is when the characters who’ve never killed humans start taking lives. Aaron and Tara take down people. Heath and Glenn make a run for a room and end up in the armory where they take the guns and fire them through the door, killing several people at once. When they open the door, one guy isn’t dead and raises his gun, before they can kill him, Jesus does it for them and says,
“So, this is the new world.”
The whole time the others are busting in doors and taking out Saviors with no hesitation.
The scene shifts to outside again, and Gabriel is walking up on a wounded Savior. He quotes scripture and seems so calm as the Savior lays defiant.
“You’re just as dead as me. You’re all dead. Blood’s comin’.”
Gabriel fires his gun, killing the Savior and says, “Amen.” after the echo dies. I’m not sure what happened to Gabriel, but I love his character development. He’s been amazing the last few episodes.
When the battle ends, the group walks out in the early morning light. Heath and Tara head out on their two-week run.
We get a flash of Morgan in Alexandria welding what looks like a cell and then he breaks down into tears.
Still at Negan’s compound, Rick and Michonne talk and she asks, “We don’t know which one was Negan.” That’s when a guy escapes from the building on Daryl’s bike. They shoot at him and he falls off the bike. Daryl tackles him to the ground, punching him and asking where he got the bike.
Then a women’s voice comes through the walkie talkie on the man. She tells them all to put down their weapons. To get their attention some more, she tells them that she has a Maggie and a Carol and that’s probably something they want to chat about.
We’re left wondering who these people are and just how big Negan’s group reaches.
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Here’s the preview for 6.13 “The Same Boat”. The trailers don’t give us too much, and as of right now, there are no stills to share. Check out the trailers and get your theories ready for what’s coming up!
In the scene from The Talking Dead, it’s more of Carol and Maggie’s kidnapping. They use the walkie to tell Rick they’re alive, but we see Carol has managed to break her not hurting people streak by cutting open a guy’s arm.
We know who’s coming. Negan. The only question is, when will he get here? Next week is 6.13, so counting it, we have four episodes left this season, and it doesn’t seem like we’ll be getting any relaxing episodes between now and then. Especially with Carol and Maggie being held hostage.
“The Same Boat” airs Sunday, March 13 at 9/8c on AMC.
