‘Tales of the Walking Dead’ Season 1 Episode 1 Recap: “Evie/Joe”

Tales of the Walking Dead Season 1 Episode 1 Recap
Terry Crews as Joe in ‘Tales of the Walking Dead’ season 1 episode 1 (Photo Credit: Curtis Bonds Baker/AMC)

Joe (Terry Crews) is in a bunker watching an old football game with his dog, Gilligan, as AMC’s Tales of the Walking Dead episode one opens. Every day is a repeat of the previous one – until one day it’s not. His dog’s getting older and has an accident inside, so Joe’s forced to take Gilligan out one night. He doesn’t mind; it’s obvious Gilligan is treated as a well-loved family member.

Zombies arrive as Gilligan’s outside doing his business and to Joe’s horror, they kill his dog. Joe loses it for a while and is grief-stricken, but then he reads old conversations between himself and a woman he used to chat with online. Because he no longer has to take care of Gilligan, and being at home is a constant reminder of his death, Joe decides to leave his safe bunker to track down his online friend.

After piecing together clues as to her whereabouts, Joe hits the road on his motorcycle (complete with a sidecar full of supplies). He rides for a few hours and night has fallen when he runs over a spike strip. Forced off his bike, he heads out on foot only to quickly get caught in a trap.

A woman named Evie (Olivia Munn) offers to cut him down since the bell on the trap is attracting what she calls toe tags (zombies). But first, she makes him put on handcuffs.

Evie tapes him up in a chair and rambles on about how he couldn’t have come at a better time. She’s a spiritual person and claims her prayers have been answered. She plans on stealing his bike and heading off, although she assures him this place isn’t that bad and he should be just fine.

However, Joe’s motorcycle has a kill switch. Instead of hitting the road alone, Joe becomes her reluctant traveling companion. Joe drives but Evie knows the roads in this area – and which ones have traps – and that, along with a gun, means Joe has to follow her instructions.

After a day of traveling through Ohio on their way to Michigan, they stop and make camp. As they sit around a fire, she begins to go through his stuff. She claims it’s to see who he is and since he’s handcuffed, he can’t stop her. She comes across his private journal and he becomes angry and yells at her, “Put that away, you nosey b*tch!”

Evie doesn’t listen and reads out loud something he wrote. “Puppies and poetry…who are you?” she asks, genuinely interested.

Tales of the Walking Dead Terry Crews
Terry Crews as Joe and Olivia Munn as Evie in ‘Tales of the Walking Dead’ (Photo Credit: Curtis Bonds Baker/AMC)

The following day is uneventful but their second night on the road ends with the dysfunctional travel companions awakened by toe tags. He begs her to take off his cuffs so he can fight. She doesn’t oblige but does hand him two weapons.

After saving each other, Evie finally realizes she can trust him. She tosses Joe the handcuff keys and he asks her if she studied martial arts because of the moves she was using while fighting the walkers.

They make it to Michigan and while taking a break, he asks where exactly it is that she’s heading. It turns out their destinations are only 10 miles away from each other. What are the odds?! A night of fighting toe tags/zombies/walkers has turned them into actual friends.

Evie opens up about her life pre-zombie apocalypse and talks about her husband. (They separated before the apocalypse.) She explains she was lost prior to all this but now she’s gotten herself together.

Joe asks about her husband and Evie says he used to paint people who made him mad to get rid of the bad energy. She thinks he might have painted her because they said a lot of mean things to each other before they split up. It’s been a year since the end of the world as we know it, and she’s going to see if he’s still at the cabin he went to when they separated. Evie thinks if he survived, they should try again.

“I’ve been waiting for a miracle to take me there…and then you came,” says Evie with a smile.

Joe hands over his journal, hoping she can pinpoint the woman he chatted with online’s location. The writings are personal, but their relationship has shifted and now he thinks he can trust her.

The next morning Joe starts his motorcycle but abandons it when Evie calls for him while still inside the building. She thinks she knows exactly where the lady lives that he’s looking for, and Joe believes they can be there in less than 12 hours.

Joe admits this is the most time he’s spent with anyone other than Gilligan in years. As they begin to walk outside, they discover someone riding off on Joe’s bike. The thief left a goat behind with a note around its neck that reads: “Thanks for the bike.”

Joe grabs Evie’s gun and runs after the person that stole the bike. He pulls the trigger, but it doesn’t fire. Joe stares at Evie, angry she was holding him hostage with an unloaded gun.

They’re forced to walk and Evie carries the goat as they argue. Everything they own was in the bike or the sidecar, and Joe’s pissed they even took his autographed football helmet.

Everything’s gone but Joe notes at least they have dinner. Evie immediately reacts with, “That’s not even funny! Look at her face…look at her face!”

Joe’s done with Evie, calling her naïve, and declaring he’s on her ex-husband’s team at this point. Evie accuses him of being lonely and pathetic, and he stalks off.

Joe follows the map and after walking for a while, he spots a house that matches the photo the woman sent him. Walkers appear from all sides as he stands in her yard. Spotting a camera he yells, “You should be scared” – something they wrote to each other.

A trap door opens and he falls in, hurting his leg. He sees the woman, Sandra (Kersti Bryan), and they can’t believe it’s really each other.

Meanwhile, Evie finds her husband’s cabin. She steps inside and calls out her husband’s name, but all she finds are paintings he’s done. She looks through them and finds one he painted of her. It’s obvious he didn’t paint it out of hate.

Back to Joe and Sandra… Joe compliments her and says the apocalypse has done her well. Sandra appears genuinely happy to see her long-distance friend.

He’s limping and she helps him into her home. She gives him a brownie to eat while she talks about how she can’t believe he came looking for her. He explains he lost his dog and that’s what pushed him to leave his bunker to look for her.

She says it’s getting late and asks if he’s spending the night.

She excuses herself to freshen up and by the time she returns, he’s extremely high from the brownie. She suggests he think of something happy like Gilligan or football.

He’s hallucinating as she zip ties his hands together and demands to know why he’s really there. She’s put on an incredible amount of makeup and her crazy appearance matches her actions as she cuts his neck. Sandra asks again why he’s there. He explains, again, that he’s there to find her.

She accuses him of trying to steal her place and screams, “I don’t believe you!” and cuts his neck again.

She stops cutting him for the time being and just talks. He’s high as a kite so her voice sounds disjointed. She explains a man got in and she feared he was going to steal all that she had built. She kept his watch after killing him, glancing at a cabinet full of watches as she says, “One is never enough.”

Sandra takes Joe’s watch for her collection and then tries to kill him with a meat cleaver, but the crystal Evie gave him saves his life. After briefly chasing him, an alarm goes off and she zip ties him to a pole.

The new visitor is Evie and Sandra welcomes her into her bunker.

Sandra offers Evie a brownie and asks how she knew her screen name, wondering if they chatted online. Evie reveals she knows who she is because of Joe. Sandra tries to act like she doesn’t know Joe but then changes and suggests maybe he didn’t make it.

Sandra notices the brownie hasn’t affected Evie yet and suggests she should have some more. But this isn’t Evie’s first rodeo and she calls her out, warning Sandra she shouldn’t give someone an edible without telling them.

Sandra seems surprised she knew and attacks her with a meat cleaver. Fortunately, Evie is too fast and dodges the cleaver. They fight and after Evie knocks her down, she goes to retrieve her goat that’s tied up nearby. She’s about to untie it when she hears Joe’s muffled cries and rescues him first.

Sandra comes running at them with a different knife and after Evie cuts off his zip ties, Joe takes the meat cleaver and throws it at Sandra’s chest, killing her.

The goat pees, Joe laughs, and they struggle to make it up to the surface. Just as they emerge through the trap door, the freshly created Zombie Sandra tries to grab them. They’re able to close the door, shutting her in her bunker.

After everything is said and done, Joe is still high and can’t stop laughing. “Why am I so hungry?” he asks. “What is happening? That was f**king traumatic!”

They crash for the night on a bridge littered with zombie bodies. In the morning, Joe thanks Evie for saving him. They hug and he wonders what to do next. He’s spent all this time making sure he didn’t get close to anyone, which ultimately made his life worthless. Evie tells him to start now. There’s a person right in front of him and maybe there are others still out there, too. Evie insists he’s a part of this screwed-up beautiful place and can start anew.

The episode ends with the friends walking off together along with their new pet goat, Skipper.

Thoughts on Tales of the Walking Dead episode one:

This first episode was very slow going and, to put it bluntly, there wasn’t a whole lot to it. There was some humor sprinkled in here and there but if you blinked, you might have missed it. It’ll be interesting to see if episode one reflects the tone of every episode in season one of the anthology series or if each episode stands apart. The previews for episode two appear to indicate it’s not only more action-packed but also funnier.

AMC’s Tales of the Walking Dead airs on Sundays at 9pm ET/PT.