The Walking Thread

[Content Note: Descriptions of violence. Spoilers are lurching around undeadly herein.]


This is the expression on your face after one million years of Rick Grimes' leadership.
When last we left our totally trepid band of zombie slayers, Maggie and Sasha were approached by a handsome white stranger in clean clothes who asked to speak to their leader. At the beginning of this episode, Maggie and Sasha bring the man, whose name is Aaron because he is a messenger of god hope, to the barn where the rest of Grimes Gang are hanging out, looking suuuuuper bored.

Aaron introduces himself by saying his community would like them to audition for membership, and he makes a normal human friendly joke about how audition is a terrible word, because they're not a dance troupe, except on Friday nights. Grimes punches him in the face, because OF COURSE HE DOES.

Aaron is tied up, and there's a long, suspicious exchange in which Grimes grills Aaron on how many people are with him (one, says Aaron) and why he's been following them (because people are the most important resource in the world) and where his and his companion's vehicles are parked (a couple of miles down the road, because the storm left the road unpassable further than that).

Grimes is Very Dubious and Distrustful, but Michonne has (AT LONG LAST) had it with Grimes' fuckery and gives him whatfor:

Michonne: I'll check out the cars.

Grimes: There aren't any cars.

Michonne: There's only one way to find out.

Grimes: We don't need to find out.

Michonne: We do. You know what you know, and you're sure of it, but I'm not.

[Maggie pipes in: "Me, neither."]

Grimes: [shakes his head] Your way's dangerous. Mine isn't.

Michonne: Passing up someplace where we can live? Where Judith can live?! [incredulously] That's pretty dangerous!

Oh Maude, how I loved this scene! I only wish that Michonne would have punctuated the whole exchange with: "You want the truth? You want the plain truth? You're over." YOU'RE OVER LIKE HARDY JENNS, GRIMES! LIVE WITH THAT!

Anyway.

Michonne goes to investigate whether Aaron's story about the vehicles, taking Maggie, Glenn, Sgt. Redbull, and Rosita Espinoza with her. Grimes sends everyone else out to keep watch around the barn and make sure they aren't being ambushed or whatever.

He stays back in the barn with Judith, aka Baby Zombie Whistle Grimes, who is starting to cry because she's hungry. He balances her on one knee while he tries to smash some acorns for her (OMG LOL), and Aaron tells him to feed her the applesauce in his backpack. Grimes is all YOU EAT IT FIRST, and Aaron is like NO MY MOM MADE ME EAT APPLESAUCE AND I HATED IT SO MUCH and then acts fucking surprised (?!) that Grimes might think the applesauce is poisoned. Really, Aaron? Has Rick Grimes seemed like an eminently reasonable dude to you up until this point? And, frankly, asking the bearer of an unknown food source to eat a bite himself before feeding it to your infant child is basically the most reasonable decision Rick Grimes has ever made!

Aaron takes a bite of the applesauce, Grimes tastes it, and omg enough with the fucking applesauce. SYMBOLISM FOR TRUST.

Aaron tells Grimes he knows that Grimes won't kill him, because Grimes Gang are "good people." And Grimes tells him, "Just because we're good people doesn't mean I won't kill you," and that is a real thing that actually got said in this garbage show, which pretty much sums up absolutely everything I hate about it! Wheeeeeeeee!

Yadda yadda yadda the group searching for the vehicles find them where Aaron said they would be. The dude with whom Aaron is traveling keeps his distance, watching them. They return and report that Aaron was telling the truth. Everyone is all, "Huzzah! Let's get the fuck out of here and follow this nice, clean, non-sweaty white man to his community full of food and showers!"

But Grimes is still Very Dubious and Distrustful. Michonne is all: "We're GOING, unless any fools have anything to say about it!" And Daryl says (and this is for real dialogue): "This barn smells like horseshit."

And then no one replies, "That's the smell of Rick Grimes' terrible decision-making!" so they can all have a laugh. A real missed opportunity, there.

So, it's resolved; they're going. But Grimes isn't quite finished producing bad decisions like Henry Ford personally built him a moving assembly line for the mass production of bad decisions, so he insists that they will delay the trip to Aaron's community until nighttime, via a route that Aaron's community has not cleared of zombies. PERFECT.

Privately, Michonne quite understandably asks Grimes if he's serious about going at all, and Grimes is all, "I don't trust this guy. He talks to women like they're his equal and barely sweats and also doesn't go around punching people for no good reason. I DON'T LIKE IT!"

Cut to that night, when—quelle surprise!—Grimes' plan actually turns out to be a huge disaster, and the car he, Michonne, Glenn, and Aaron are in is immediately overrun by zombies in the goddamn pitch black night. Zombies zombies zombies kill kill kill stalled car. Later, they meet up with the others at a town just down the road, where they discover the others had rescued the man with whom Aaron was traveling, who turns out to be his boyfriend.

(Cue the entire world saying that these guys are The Walking Dead's "first gay characters," as if Tara doesn't even exist. She is a lesbian, but I guess she doesn't count! NEAT.)

Grimes doesn't want to allow Aaron to sleep near his partner, Eric, and Aaron tells Grimes he'll have to shoot him to keep them apart. Glenn steps in and tells Grimes to STFU, basically, because being Totally Over Grimes is as contagious as zombieitis.

So Grimes relents, and they all go nighty-night, and get up in the morning and make their way to Alexandria, where Aaron's and Eric's community is. Outside the gate, they can hear the sounds of children playing. Which means, somehow, that Aaron can't possibly be lying, because they didn't hear any happy sounds outside of Captain Murder's Murdertown or Cannibal Terminus Hell.

In what has to be the most amazing fucking line ever said on this show, Carol says to Grimes, "Even though you were wrong, you're still right."

HOLY SHIT.

Even though you were wrong about this place, Rick Grimes, just like you are wrong about everything ever, you're still right. Why? Because you are a white man with a delicate ego, which must not be destroyed, no matter how dangerous its tiresome maintenance is for everyone around you.

MAUDE SAVE ME FROM THIS SHOW.

Next week: They enter Aarontown and find out what's up.