Well.

That was messed up. Daryl is going to come back from his first recruiting trip like:

You can’t leave them alone for a minute, Daryl.

We open with fucking Father Gabriel. What’s up with the wax paper? My first thought was that he was going to try to repair the torn page in the bible, since most things don’t stick to wax paper. That, or he was going to start using his bible to press wildflowers. One of the two.

We see that someone has left him a note telling him how blessed the community is to have him along with a basket of strawberries. A note about strawberries in art: “The flowers and berries together symbolize righteousness and spiritual merit in Christian art.” Interesting to ponder. Especially because GABRIEL IS NOT RIGHTEOUS AND HAS NO SPIRITUAL MERIT. Which might be why he ends up tearing a part a bible after seeing them. Let’s just say that Gabriel is not particularly good at his job.

So there’s that.

Roll credits.

Next, my notes read: “Daryl. Bike. Fuuuuuuck.” I think that’s really all that needs to be said about this:

The Walking Dead people were nice enough to provide those of use with a Norman Reedus + Motorcycle kink a whole video. It’s pretty much just porn. So enjoy the nice thing before everything goes to shit. Sigh.

Noah meets with Mr. Deanna (I really should learn his name) and asks him to teach Noah how to be an architect. Mr. Deanna gives Noah his notebook and tells him to document the evolution of Alexandria. During this scene, I commented to my husband, “I really like Noah. I like his character a lot.” Yeah, I should know better. Sorry, dude.

We see Abraham looking a little lost in the bathroom with Rosita sleeping in the room behind him. I’m assuming he hasn’t a clue what to do now that he doesn’t have a mission. He’s a man who needs a mission.

Next we see Noah, Glenn and Tara getting ready to head out with douchey Aiden and Nicholas. Noah is trying to talk Eugene into taking a gun for self-defense. They are dragging a completely unwilling Eugene along because they need to pick up parts for him to use in repairing the solar grid, which has gone down. Eugene is not psyched. Tara and Noah are joking around and being cute. Tara is teasing Noah about someone named Holly. No idea who that is, but apparently Noah has a budding romance. Maggie tells Glenn “You got this”. EVERYONE SHUT UP. Everyone loads in and Aiden starts up the van with his gawdawful music. I love this moment between Tara and Noah, though.

Very subtle, Oh Writer Gods.

Then Rick stumbles upon Jesse and her newly trashed owl statue. Vandalism in Mayberry! Call in the Sheriff! Rick starts telling her about the whole Broken Window Theory and she basically tells him to chill.

Once Glenn and co get to the warehouse, Aiden and Nicholas start out as cocky douchebags, but then Aiden actually agrees with Glenn saying that they should scope out all of the exits instead of just running with Nicholas’ plan of running out the front door.

Tara and Eugene are doing their check and Eugene once more reminds Tara that he shouldn’t be there because he’s a big chickenshit. Tara has no time for his shit and looks pretty disgusted at his level of cowardice. Let’s just say they have a fundamental disagreement about who got whom to Alexandria. Oh, Eugene. Hush.

So, obviously, this means Eugene is either going to die a horrible, cowardly death, leave someone else to die a horrible death, or he’s going to nut up.

Noah and Glenn do a check together and discover that the front of the warehouse is crawling with walkers. Good thing you didn’t just go with Nicholas’ plan, boys!

Once they are inside, they’re all flashing flashlights all over the place, which I hate. It always makes things 20 times scarier. I’m just waiting for the walker to jump into someones beam and go “boo”. Glenn realizes that there are walkers, but they’re stuck behind something. Aiden says “You know your stuff”. Since he’s being so nice, I think we all know what’s going to happen to him. Just throw him in a red shirt, already.

A soldier walker in armor and a helmet comes toward Aiden and he manages to shoot him straight in the grenade, blowing everyone back, freeing the stuck walkers and blowing himself straight onto a couple of pieces of rebar. Tara has a major head injury and is bleeding tons. They get everyone into an office and realize that the med kit is in the van. Then Aiden starts moaning. Because OF COURSE he’s still alive out there. Eugene tells them to go save him and that he will keep Tara safe. Yay, Eugene! Let the nutting up commence!

Meanwhile, back in Mayberry, Sam breaks into Carol’s house and start scrounging for cookies. Does this kid have a death wish? Does he not remember the scary lady threatening to leave him out as walker bait? I love that he asks her to teach him to make cookies so that he can have a never-ending supply. So Carol tells him to go steal chocolate and figures she’s done with him. And we have another fine example of Carol’s excellent influence on children.

Abraham is out with a crew gathering supplies for an extension of the wall. He looks like he’s unraveling out there. Panic City, Population Abe. Then a bunch of walkers show up and Abe discovers that the rest of his crew (including the foreman) are chickenshits with terrible aim. Someone shoots Francine down from her perch on the bulldozer bucket and then they’re all ready to leave her as walker food. Abe, of course, grabs her, sticks her inside the bulldozer cab, turns to the walkers and says the best line of the night….

Oh, Abe. You scamp.

So Abe goes gleefully medieval on the walkers with an axe and takes pretty much all of them out singlehandedly because he is Abraham Fucking Ford. And he is BACK, baby.

Cut to Porch Dick Pete coming to “offer” Rick a beer. And get creepy and alpha-y. He says “I saw you at the party”….having a drink (“and kissing my wife”, says the subtext). Then he quotes Jesse back to Rick “It was just an owl…” So there’s a little dick swinging going on and Pete letting Rick know that he knows that Rick has an eye for Miss Jesse. Sadly, Porch Dick Pete chose the wrong dog to try to out-alpha. 

I also loved the drunken invitation to bring the kids in for a check up. Yeah, everyone wants to take their kids to the creepy drunk doctor.

Back at the warehouse, Eugene completes his nutting up process and tosses Tara over his shoulder to get her back to the van and stabilize her. GO, EUGENE!

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” – Nelson Mandela

OK, the Mandela quote is a little highfalutin for The Walking Dead, but I’m just so proud of Euge.

Glenn, Nicholas and Noah go to try to help Aiden, but after a couple of token attempts, Nicholas chickens out. As he goes, he whispers to Aiden, “You left them. We both did. That’s who we are.” Wow, your mother must be so proud, you waste of space. Aiden completes his martyrdom turn by telling Glenn to go and that the others who had died didn’t panic. That he and Nicholas did. Then he gets seriously one of the worst deaths ever on TV. Ever. I’m not giffing that shit. It was brutal. He was a douche, but he certainly didn’t deserve that.

Back at the construction site, Abe tells off the foreman for being willing to leave people behind. Francine pops him one. Abe steps up and takes over the team.

God, isn’t Nicholas dead yet??? This time the fucking moron gets them all trapped in a revolving door. Glenn and Noah have guns. Nicholas has ammo. They’re in separate sections with no way out. Goddamnit.

In “Not Everyone is Awful” news, Abraham’s foreman goes to Deanna and resigns, saying that Abe should be foreman. That he is already leading the crew well and that Deanna won’t regret it. What a nice guy!

After he goes, Deanna expresses concern that she has just put another member of Maggie’s posse in a position of power after Maggie vouches for them. I fear that she will throw Maggie under the bus when shit goes pear shaped.

Like, say, when Deanna’s son gets killed on a run on Maggie’s husband’s watch.

Crap.

Congratulations, Carol, on introducing Sam to the exciting world of petty theft! My theory is that Carol is scared of getting close to another kid. She had to shoot the last one. Sam asks if he can have one of the guns and Carol figures out that all is not well at Sam’s house.

Back in the revolving door, Eugene and his huge new balls drive the van over to draw away the walkers out in front of the door.

Bravo, Eugene.

The problem isn’t totally solved, though. The minute that one of them gets out the front, the other section is open to the zombies inside the building. Glenn tries to break the glass on the door and Nicholas starts freaking out.

God, can I just say again how much I hate Nicholas?

Nicholas freaks out and squeezes out the front, leaving Glenn and Noah exposed to the walkers inside. The walkers grab Noah’s legs, he has time to say “Don’t let go” to Glenn, and the walkers yank him out. Glenn has to watch as poor, poor, sweet Noah is ripped apart in front of him. I couldn’t watch. The sounds may have been worse, though. My notes here read:

nicholas freaking out – PIECE OF SHIT
don’t let go
MOTHERFUCKER
literally could not watch

Poor Glenn. I fear that he is in danger of joining Sasha in the clock tower, if you know what I mean.

Nicholas gets to the van and tries to bully Eugene into taking off and leaving Glenn and Noah. Eugene and his giant new balls turn the van off, take the keys out and confront Nicholas. He gets his ass kicked, but he keeps Nicholas around long enough for Glenn to get there and pound on him. Pound on him far less than he deserved.

Carol goes over to check on Jessie and Sam. Porch Dick Pete blows her off. Oh, Porch Dick Pete. You have no idea what’s coming for you…

Meanwhile….

I am pretty sure that Eugene would shoot Nicholas for just breathing too loud at this point.

Then we come to Gabriel. Fucking Gabriel. Who spent the beginning of Act I slowly unraveling and has come to Deanna to unravel all over her. I hope she takes his sweaty crazy satan talk with a boulder of salt, because…

hypocrite
noun hyp·o·crite \ˈhi-pə-ˌkrit\
: a person who claims or pretends to have certain beliefs about what is right but who behaves in a way that disagrees with those beliefs

‘Nuff said.

Except that Maggie heard what you said, Father Gabriel. Maggie sees through your shit. Maggie will not let this stand.

Actually, I’ll be really happy if Maggie gets to go all wrathful. She has spent a lot of time lately sitting in corners and listening to other people talk. Remember this Maggie?

I miss that Maggie.

Carol tells Rick about the Jessie and Porch Dick Pete situation.

Carol’s recommended course of action?

Well, we all saw that coming, right?

Let’s pour one out for sweet, sweet Noah and even for Awful Aiden who became kind of less awful at the end.

So, after this there are two episodes left. I’m exhausted after this one. I feel like I need to visit a shaman and have my energy cleansed. Maybe I’ll burn some sage. Send Noah on his way to the next world. Or maybe I’ll just look at gratuitous hair porn. Join me.