AMC’s The Walking Dead season eight episode 13 was one of the show’s most frustrating episodes. Logic was thrown out the window, the Hilltoppers wasted hundreds of bullets, and the Saviors were able to infect Hilltoppers without anyone noticing until they’d turned and started eating their friends. Season eight episode 14 was only slightly less frustrating to watch, and this episode it’s due to Jadis’ ridiculous choices.
The episode begins with Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) pretending to be dead inside her compound as gunfire is heard close by. She covers Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and then pretends to be dead, fooling the one Savior who passes by her hiding spot. After the fight’s over, she strips out of her bloody clothes and returns to her sparsely decorated bedroom. It’s clean and contains her few belongings. She packs her guns, cries, and then picks up Lucille.
Bat in hand, she opens the storage container where she’s keeping Negan lying down and chained to a moving cart. She pulls him out, using his chains while he asks, “What the sh*t?”
Over at the Hilltop, Ezekiel (Khary Payton) wants Carol (Melissa McBride) to accompany him to find the escapees and Henry. He’s sure the escapees are on their way back to the Sanctuary, and Henry’s probably chasing them. Carol says she needs to stay and help Maggie in case there’s another attack. Ezekiel realizes Carol thinks Henry is dead.
Tara (Alanna Masterson) hasn’t gotten sick yet, so it’s clear she won’t turn like the others who were injured. She knows Dwight shot her with a clean arrow, and Daryl (Norman Reedus) wonders why Dwight didn’t tell them what was going to happen if he was truly on their side. Tara believes if she had killed Dwight earlier, she’d be dead now. She doesn’t want Daryl to go after Dwight.
Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira) share a quiet moment, and Rick admits he still doesn’t want to read Carl’s letter to Michonne. He also hasn’t read the one Carl wrote to him. Michonne reminds him Carl wrote these letters because he wanted his dad to read them. She attempts to convince Rick to stay and deal with it instead of heading out to find food.
After Michonne leaves the room, Rick takes the letter out of a drawer.
Morgan’s heading out and Carol tells him he doesn’t need to go looking for the escapees. Morgan (Lennie James) claims he has to, and Carol decides she needs to go with him.
Maggie (Lauren Cohan), Rosita (Christian Serratos), Dianne (Kerry Cahill), and Daryl meet about the early warning system. Daryl thinks the Saviors are low on ammunition and that’s why they resorted to hand-to-hand combat. Rosita reminds them the Saviors have Eugene and he can make more bullets.
Negan tries to convince Jadis he didn’t order her people to be killed. He blames it on one of his flunkies, but he’ll own what happened. He apologizes for the murder of her people but believes he can help her get it back. Jadis quiets him by aiming Lucille at his face, stopping just an inch from hitting him.
Carol and Morgan head out through the trees, sticking near the road. Carol finds a partially eaten turnip and knows they’re heading the right way. Morgan thinks he sees Henry up ahead and takes off running, yelling, “Henry!”
It’s not really Henry. Morgan’s having another vision of a dead person telling him he knows what it is and that he was “supposed to.” Morgan agrees that Henry is dead, and Carol admits she’s not looking for Henry. She just came along to watch over Morgan.
Morgan and Carol follow the tracks left by the escapees.
Rick watches over Judith and stares at his old hat that Carl loved so much. He finally can’t take it any longer and heads outside with a gun. He demands to know where the prisoners went, and Alden (Callan McAuliffe) says they probably headed to the Sanctuary. Rick wants to know how Alden would get back to the Sanctuary if he wanted to. Alden describes an old dive bar and Rick takes off. Before he leaves, Alden asks him to please not kill anyone he doesn’t have to. Alden thinks some of the escapees probably didn’t even stop to consider what they were doing before they fled.
Back at the salvage yard, Negan wants to talk and continues to say he had nothing to do with the deaths of her people. Jadis leaves him for a few minutes and he wheels himself over to a nearby bag of guns. (Seriously?! A bag of guns within reach of her prisoner? She thinks Negan gave the order to kill her people, yet she leaves a bag of guns out in the open and accessible to her prisoner.) The bag also contains photos from Jadis’ past and a flare. Jadis was going to use the flare to start a fire in a wheelbarrow and to burn up Lucille.
Negan, now armed but still tied up, tells her he wants to have a chat. “Let the healing begin,” he says, holding a gun in one hand and a lit flare in the other thanks to Jadis being an idiot.
Morgan and Carol continue to follow the trail. They see a walker with Henry’s stick through his chest, and Morgan takes the walker out while Carol watches with tears in her eyes. Carol thinks if they take the other road they may find Henry. She wants Morgan to go with her but he says, “You save people. I watch them die. I have to. I’m supposed to.”
Carol, crying, reminds him he saved her. She thinks he can still be saved, too. Morgan, now also crying, claims he’s not as strong as her. He also believes what he has to do is kill the escapees. He heads off toward a herd of walkers who, thankfully, don’t see him.
Jadis warns Negan to leave her photos alone. She wants him to move the flare away from the pictures, reminding him he’s already taken everything from her. Negan explains his wife’s name was Lucille and she got him through regular life. Lucille the bat got him through this new life. It’s the last piece of her he has left. (If Jadis doesn’t set Lucille on fire, he won’t burn her photos.)
Jadis decides to go on the offensive, wheeling a zombie over to Negan and hiding behind it as he fires the gun. She jumps on top of his prone body, still strapped to the moving cart, and they tussle over the flare. It falls into a nearby small pool of water just as a helicopter appears overhead. (Because of course there’s water right there. Why should that part of this storyline make sense when the rest doesn’t?)
Jadis gets another flare and waves it in the air, desperately, while crying out, “I’m here.” The helicopter flies away.
Jadis is about to burn Lucille with the flare as Negan begs her not to. He swears he can settle it. Jadis drops the flare and cries.
Rick heads into the woods and spots walkers. He also comes into contact with Morgan who doesn’t seem to realize it’s Rick in front of him. Morgan admits he’s not right, and Rick seems fine with that. He wants to team up with Morgan to finish off the escapees.
They come across a hand and a foot in the road and the next thing they know, they’re knocked out.
Rick and Morgan come to in the dive bar. The escapees are there and some are in bad shape. Hacking off arms and legs hasn’t saved the disease from spreading, and the healthy ones debate about whether to leave the sick ones behind. Now that they have Rick, they think they will be welcomed back to the Saviors with open arms.
They discuss ditching the dead weight and heading back to the Sanctuary. Rick assures them the Hilltop doctor can help their sick and if they come back, they can become part of the group. He gives them his word that they’ll be accepted into the group. Rick also warns them there’s a herd heading this way, but Jared (Joshua Mikel) tries to take control and tell the others that Rick is lying.
Morgan breaks with Rick and admits he’s there to kill them all. He also assures them the herd is indeed on its way. One of the escapees stops Jared from shooting Rick and then they hear walkers growling. The building is surrounded and the walkers head into it unimpeded. They begin feasting on the injured first while Jared makes a run for it as other escapees free Morgan and Rick. Rick and Morgan join the escapees in killing the walkers and then turn on the remaining escapees.
Morgan hunts Jared, and Jared gets the jump on him when Morgan hallucinates Henry. Morgan’s able to fight him off and pushes him into a room full of walkers where he’s quickly bitten.
One escapee is still struggling for breath and Rick assures him he lied when he said they could all return to the Hilltop and live happily ever after.
Morgan and Rick are the only survivors of the Great Dive Bar Massacre.
Rick reminds Morgan that he saved him all those years ago when he didn’t even know him. He wants to know why and Morgan said he did it because his son was there.
Jadis frees Negan and gives him back Lucille. (I’m about ready to give up on this series.) He wants to know about the helicopter and invites her to come with him back to the Sanctuary. She declines, and he says he’ll swing by some other time to see if she’s changed her mind.
Carol’s by herself in the woods at night and hears Henry yelling for help. A few walkers have him pinned inside a tree trunk and Carol’s able to rescue him. They hug and apologize.
Carol and Henry return to Hilltop and Henry makes a run straight for Ezekiel. They also hug.
Morgan returns to Hilltop and is happy to see Henry. He tells the boy that he killed the man who killed his brother. Henry says, “I’m sorry,” and Morgan tells him not to be.
Morgan sits by himself and cries. (Definitely a lot of waterworks in this episode.)
Jadis unpacks her bag and returns to her room inside a storage container.
Negan drives back to the Sanctuary, picking up someone who looks like crap on the way. He tells the guys at the gate not to let anyone know he’s back.
Rosita and Daryl spy on Eugene’s bullet-making factory. They decide their plan of action is to take out Eugene – not the machines.
Rick’s back in his room, cleaning up after a day of killing walkers and escapees. He opens the drawer once again and removes Carl’s letter. He tells Michonne he loves her and they kiss. She leaves him alone to read the letter. He settles on the bed and stares at himself in the mirror before reading Carl’s last letter.
More on The Walking Dead:
– Recap of The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 1
– Recap of The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 2
– Recap of The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 3
– Recap of The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 4
– Recap of The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 5
– Recap of The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 6
– Recap of The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 7
– Recap of The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 8
– Recap of The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 9
– Recap of The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 10
– Recap of The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 11
– Recap of The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 12
– Recap of the Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 13
– Recap of The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 15
– Recap of The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 16
