‘The Walking Dead’ Season 7 Episode 12 Recap and Review: Say Yes

Walking Dead Season 7 Episode 12 Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira
Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes and Danai Gurira as Michonne in ‘The Walking Dead’ Season 7, Episode 12 (Photo Credit: Gene Page/AMC)

“You’re leaving me with eight,” says Michonne (Danai Gurira), referring to the group of walkers they plan on splitting up and taking out. “You can handle eight,” replies Rick (Andrew Lincoln), flashing a friendly smile at his girlfriend in AMC’s horror/drama series, The Walking Dead, season seven episode 12.

It’s date night in zombieland as Rick and Michonne are out scavenging for weapons and supplies. As the episode begins, there’s a short montage of the couple entering abandoned places, finding canned goods, picking up a pistol here and there, stealing some batteries, and getting intimate every night before Michonne falls asleep and Rick stands watch. After a few days of this, Michonne suggests they head back, but Rick is really enjoying this little excursion. Since he seems so happy, Michonne agrees to stay out a few more days.

Back at Alexandria, Tara (Alanna Masterson) shows up to to help Rosita (Christian Serratos) take her stitches out but is too late. They, of course, start arguing about looking for guns with Rosita giving Tara grief mostly because she feels horribly guilty about Eugene being taken by Negan as well as Spencer and Olivia being murdered due to her actions and missed shot. Tara, not in the mood to put up with her bullsh*t, tells Rosita to save her fight for the Saviors and leaves.

Rosita visits Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) in his church and starts in on him, saying, “I’m here because I was stupid enough to listen to you,” referring back to Gabriel talking her out of her original plan. “It’s easier to be dead than alive,” says Gabriel, adding that if she needs to blame him for her being alive, he’ll have to just live with that and that the group still needs her. He tells her to think about how she’s going to make what needs to happen actually happen.

Back on the road, Rick and Michonne are tracking a deer and come across what looks like a camp. It’s actually an old carnival that looks pretty good considering it’s been quite a while since the fall of civilization. The two lovebirds notice all the walkers mulling about used to be soldiers and they are still armed…jackpot!

Rick and Michonne decide to climb up on the roof to get a better look around. They spot lots of zombie civilians and soldiers and have just decided to attempt to take them down and secure the guns when the roof they’re standing on gives way. They fall inside and start laughing, obviously not injured from crashing through the roof.

Back at Alexandria, Tara is talking to little Judith, bouncing ideas off Rick’s daughter who’s obviously too young to understand what she’s saying. She wonders if she should tell Rick about Oceanside and all the guns they have stocked up. She knows if she spills the beans, Oceanside will fight them instead of joining them to fight the Saviors. Tara also doesn’t want to go back on her word to Cyndie who saved her from being killed not once but twice.

Spending the night in the building they crash-landed into, Rick once again seems to be in no hurry to take on the walkers outside and hurry back to Alexandria. After a candlelight dinner, Michonne tells Rick that after it’s all over and Negan is dead, he should be the one to unite the different groups and lead. “You’d be good at it,” says Michonne. Rick isn’t interested but tells Michonne that he’s up for them building a future together and leading as a team which makes her blush and smile. Later, Michonne sleeps as Rick once again takes the night watch.

In the morning, Rick and Michonne head outside and make a plan to split up and take on the walkers. They decide to use a nearby abandoned car to block a hole in the fence to keep more walkers from joining the ones inside the fence, thus allowing them to slowly and systematically put them down. It doesn’t go as planned because Rick discovers too late that the car’s brakes don’t work and the car travels through the hole in the fence instead of blocking the hole. “I think we overshot it,” says Rick to Michonne who jumped in the trunk as it went through the fence.

Rick and Michonne exit the car via the sunroof and jump over a short temporary fence, still determined to split up the hungry walkers and put them down. It’s working out fine until Rick climbs what’s left of a Ferris Wheel to get a better look at something and sees the deer they were tracking. Wanting to get it for Michonne, Rick climbs a little higher for a better angle, and the pole he’s standing on gives out. He falls to the ground, and part of the group of walkers breaks off and comes at him. He scrambles for his gun and Michonne, who saw him fall but didn’t see the immediate aftermath, quickly makes her way over to him while taking down walkers.

Walking Dead Season 7 Episode 12
Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira in ‘The Walking Dead’ (Photo Credit: Gene Page/AMC)

Michonne is just a few steps away from where she believed Rick landed when she sees the group of walkers kneeling down eating something. She assumes it’s Rick, and in shock, she drops her sword and stands there, tears in her eyes. It’s a few seconds later that Rick emerges from his nearby hiding place and tosses Michonne her sword. He uses his now empty pistol to bash in the heads of walkers as Michonne snaps back into action. (Rick, knowing he was almost out of ammunition, shot the deer and let the walkers feed on it while he hid.) They continue putting down the walkers and afterward Michonne gives Rick a big hug.

On the drive back to Alexandria, Rick admits he hasn’t been sleeping because he’s been thinking about everything and everyone they’ve lost. He brings up Glenn and saving his life early on, even before they actually met, and how he couldn’t save him from Negan. Michonne tries to comfort Rick but also tells him she can’t lose him. Rick reminds her they’re going to lose people when they fight Negan and his Saviors and if he does fall, she has to be ready to lead everyone. That’s obviously something Michonne does not want to hear. (It’s clear in this scene why Rick wanted to stretch their scavenger hunt a couple of more days. He’s half expecting not to survive the big battle with Negan and is trying to enjoy what time he has left with Michonne.)

Rick, Michonne, Tara, and Rosita meet with Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) and her group. Jadis tells Rick the guns he’s delivering are not enough to honor their deal. Rick and Jadis go back and forth and finally agree on a new deal. He’ll head out and find more guns, taking 20 guns with him for protection and scavenging and leaving the rest. Rosita is noticeably annoyed, but Michonne tells Rick it’s fine and that they still have time.

Later in Alexandria, Tara heads out to see Rick who has shown up at her door asking if she knows why Rosita didn’t show up to take her watch. Tara suggests she went looking for more guns and tells him she needs to talk to him about something.

The final scene is Rosita visiting Abraham’s grave to talk to Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green). Rosita brings her up to speed about the group needing to deliver more guns, telling her she’s had it with waiting. She reveals a high-powered sniper’s rifle and the two agree to go on a suicide mission to assassinate Negan.

The Walking Dead Season 7 Episode 12 Review:

Slow, dialogue-heavy, and fairly uneventful, episode 12 titled “Say Yes” was nothing more than a rather boring filler installment in the horror/drama series and perhaps one of the worst episodes of the series, period. It should have been titled “Date Night in Zombieland.”

The casual and cutesy dialogue between Rick and Michonne came across as forced between two actors who have shown they have solid chemistry together in earlier episodes. The deer looked horribly fake, and there was zero suspense during the ‘carnival walker close-call because of it being Rick in supposed jeopardy. The only real solid scene in this episode is between Rosita and Gabriel in his church when he tells her he’ll carry the blame for keeping her alive and forces her to focus on how she is going to help take down Negan.

With Tara about to tell Rick about Oceanside, it will be interesting to see if they can convince the ladies who lost so much at the hands of the Saviors to team up and hopefully stop them once and for all.

GRADE: C-