The Walking Thread

"Neat cat! That will really spice up Grimes Jail!"
(Spoilers are lurching around undeadly herein. CN: Violence; racism.)

Previously on The Walking Dead: Clues to what will happen in this episode of The Walking Dead! Can you guess what things will happen in this episode, based on the scenes just shown to you? Unless your brain has been devoured by zombies, I BET YOU CAN!

Grimes Gang is gearing up for war with Unpleasantville, so they need more weapons. Grimes decides to drive all the fuck way back to his old police station to raid its arsenal. Even though it seems like Grimesville is fully one thousand miles away and one hundred years past, it's actually only a short drive. Neat!

So: ROAD TRIP!

Michonne is behind the wheel of the Chevy Volt or whatever, which once served as Andrea's and Shane's fuckmobile, because the only time Grimes cedes control of anything to anyone ever is when he wants to catch some shut-eye. "I mean, there isn't even any Lady Antebellum on the radio!"—Rick Grimes, probably. So the black lady gets to be his fucking chauffeur. Ugh this show.

On the road, they fly by some random white dude screaming for their help, because he's all alone in the middle of a zombiepocalypse and that shit is scary. Michonne, Rick, and Carl the Hat give the backpacker the side-eye as they zoom by so quickly that the backpacker doesn't even time to appreciate their "Eat My Dust" and "I'd Rather Be Patriarchin'!" bumper stickers.

The trio comes across an old car wreck, and naturally their car gets stuck in the mud. As they kill the zombies who converge on them and then search for some junk to stick under the tires to free the fuckmobile, we are reminded of the terrific traffic jam of Season One in which cars full of dead but non-zombified people totally undermined the later reveal that everyone who dies automatically becomes a zombie. Whoooooops!

Michonne gets an earful as Grimes and Carl the Hat shit-talk her while busily rooting around the fuckmobile's back end. Windows! Michonne isn't one of them blah blah yawn fart. This is called FORESHADOWING, and we know that by the end of the episode, we will be treated to a colossally clunky scene of Grimes and Carl the Hat welcoming Michonne into the bosom of their group. "Here, we got you a gift basket full of pandering and racism!"

They finally get the car unstuck, just as the backpacker comes running over the crest of a hill in the distance, again begging for their mercy, which they do not offer. "Seeya, wouldn't wanna be ya!" They drive off and arrive moments, or possibly hours, later at Grimes' old deserted police station, only to find the armory has been ransacked. Only a single bullet remains LOL.

In good news, Hershel's Yell Therapy still seems to be working, as Grimes is unusually lucid.

They walk into town, which has some really great spray-painted signs reading AWAY WITH YOU and NO GUILT YOU KNOW THAT and JUST LISTEN. Normal stuff. In the middle of town, they come across Stick City, which is a section of street cordoned off with a bunch of barbed wire and pokey sticks on which zombies impale themselves. No one quips, "The walkers really get the point around here," because Merle is back at Grimes Jail.

Suddenly a masked rifleman on a rooftop is shooting at them and shouting at them to put down their weapons and GTFO. There's another no-hit shoot-out, until Carl the Hat gets a hit at close range, just knocking out the shooter because he's wearing wooden body armor OBVIOUSLY, and lo and behold the shooter and architect of Stick City is Morgan, the black man who saved Grimes' life at the very beginning of the series and for whom Grimes promised to return but never did.

Grimes decides they need to carry Morgan back into his building and leave him in safety, so he and Michonne thread their way through Morgan's series of booby-traps, including a spear pit hidden under a welcome mat LOL. They easily drag his not-corpse over a tripwire and dump him in his studio apartment, which is full of billions of weapons and has a cool blog on the wall.

They're just about to steal some shit and depart when Grimes finds Morgan's half of their walkie-talkie pair and gets all Grimesy about it. Michonne tries to convince him they need to leave, because Morgan is dangerous, but Grimes insists that they stay until Morgan wakes up. Proving that Michonne is right and Grimes is stupid, Morgan wakes up and immediately stabs Grimes, right after Carl the Hat takes off on some important hat business and Michonne leaves to babysit him.

Morgan and Grimes shout at each other because MEN! and Morgan begs Grimes to shoot him, but Grimes won't because shooting someone with their consent makes Grimes really uncomfortable. YELLING! GUILT! MEN FAILING IN THE PATRIARCHY DRIVES THEM TO INSANITY! Grimes wants Morgan to come with them, and Morgan makes a pretty strong case for staying put when he tells Grimes, "You will be torn apart by teeth or bullets!" Grimes responds by accusing Morgan of too much optimism LOL THIS SHOW LOL.

Meanwhile, Carl the Hat is being a total brat to Michonne, but Michonne saves his stupid life anyway. They use the old nutria subterfuge to distract zombies while Carl the Hat retrieves a picture of his happy family that's hanging up in a café. RIP Lori. They almost get away, but Carl the Hat drops the picture just inside the door. That fucking kid. "We have to go back!" he yells, because of course the writers of this show would steal an iconic line from Lost. Michonne goes back for the picture and comes back with it, along with what looks like a papier-mâché cat fashioned from Rip Taylor's confetti scraps. They are friends now.

After giving Grimes lots of sensible reasons for not wanting to join his group of knuckleheaded survivors, all of which Grimes rejects, Morgan tells him, "I have to clear," and somehow that is the magic combination of nonsense words that make sense to Grimes, and he stops badgering Morgan. He hooks back up with Michonne and Carl the Hat, and they leave Stick City, toting guns and a crib.

Carl the Hat apologizes to Morgan for having shot him, and Morgan tells him, "Son, don't ever be sorry." Which is a perfect lesson, obviously. If only every little tenderfooted young white patriarch in America had a sage black gentleman to tell him he should never be sorry about anything.

As they're packing up the fuckmobile, Carl the Hat tells Grimes that he thinks Michonne "might be one of us." Fuck you, kid. You'd be lucky if YOU were one of HER. (That doesn't make any fucking sense, but you know what I mean!)

Predictably, Grimes and Michonne have a great bonding moment over talking to dead people. Jokey-jokes! Clear the air! BFFs! Nothing says détente like a meet cute after months of seething hostility!

On the way back to Grimes Jail, the merry trio pass the mangled body of the backpacker. They stop to grab his backpack off the verge, then carry on their way. Important symbolism and shit, ya dig?

Discuss.