“Hey, the ones who took you and Maggie…what did they do to you?” asks Daryl (Norman Reedus). “To us, they didn’t do anything to us,” answers Carol (Melissa McBride) as episode 14 of the sixth season of AMC’s horror/drama series The Walking Dead begins.
Life in Alexandria is getting back to normal – or what amounts to normal in a zombie apocalypse. The pantry is full of food, Morgan (Lennie James) has finished building a jail which he tells Rick (Andrew Lincoln) will give them options for next time. Rosita (Christian Serratos) has taken to spending her nights in Spencer’s bed trying to bury the pain she feels over Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) walking out on her.
One day during this quiet period, Denise (Merritt Wever) asks Daryl and Rosita to go on a run with her. It seems when she was on the road before she first got to Alexandria, she saw a strip mall not too far away that had an apothecary which should have a pharmacy and medicine. Daryl tells her that he’ll go but Denise is insistent that it’s her idea and she’ll go alone if she has too. So, off the three go on a pharmacy run.
Abraham and Eugene (Josh McDermitt) are off on an adventure of their own. The two men arrive at an abandoned workshop with Abraham asking Eugene what they’re doing here and Eugene telling him that he believes he can make bullets for everyone at Alexandria. Abraham is impressed with what he calls Eugene’s “outside the box thinking” and as they start talking about informing Rick and focusing on what bullets they should make, Abraham notices a walker coming up behind Eugene. He tells Eugene he’ll take care of it but Eugene calls dibs, eager to show Abraham he’s ready and able to kill walkers. Eugene backs off to let Eugene to take down the walker which ends up turning into a death struggle between zombie and Eugene. Abraham steps in and puts the walker down which upsets Eugene and causes the two men to start insulting each other like a pair of teenagers. The verbal battle concludes with Eugene telling Abraham he’s no longer needed to keep Eugene alive. Abraham leaves Eugene alone in the workshop telling him to find his own damn way home.
Daryl, Denise, and Rosita are driving along in an old beat-up pick-up truck when they come to a downed tree roadblock. With no way to go around it with the truck, the trio set off on foot. Rosita and Denise want to follow the railroad tracks saying it should be faster, but Daryl says he’s going to stick to the road. Denise follows Daryl telling Rosita they shouldn’t split up, but Rosita keeps following the tracks. Daryl and Denise get to the strip mall with Rosita waiting for them, greeting them with, “About time.” Denise tells Rosita that she wasn’t choosing Daryl over her, which seems to fall on deaf ears. The unlikely trio make it to the apothecary and break in, looking for the pharmacy. It’s locked up but they’re able to break in, finding the shelves pretty much fully stocked. Daryl and Rosita start packing up all the drugs when they hear a noise coming from a backroom. “Sounds trapped,” says Daryl as he and Rosita continue to pack up the drugs. Denise goes to investigate and finds some children’s toys, other supplies, and a decomposed walker with a cast on its leg lying on the floor. On the walls the words “Hush” are written over and over, and Denise discovers blood and a baby’s shoe. Sickened by the sight, Denise rushes outside to wait for Daryl and Rosita to finish.
When Daryl and Rosita meet with Denise back outside they can see she’s upset about whatever she saw and Rosita tells her they tried to tell her she wasn’t ready for this. The bonding trio head back to Alexandria but this time Daryl is up for following the train tracks back to town. On their way back Denise sees a station wagon with a walker trapped inside seated next to a cooler. She tells Daryl and Rosita there might be something in the cooler they can use but Daryl tells Denise it’s not worth the trouble. Denise, for some silly reason, feels the need to get the cooler and deal with the walker. She opens the passenger-side door of the car and tries to pull out the cooler but the walker hangs onto it and ends up on top of Denise. Daryl and Rosita rush to help her but she says she’s got it and kills the zombie. Daryl and Rosita are a bit upset with Denise and begin yelling at her about being stupid and that she risked her life for some sodas. Denise finally admits, rather loudly, to Daryl and Rosita what this trip was really all about. She invited Daryl along because he reminds her of her dead twin older brother and she feels safe with him. She invited Rosita along because for the first time in a long time Rosita is alone. Both of them give her hope because they are stronger than they know and good people. Denise is in the middle of telling Daryl and Rosita they need to wake up when she is shot in the back of the head and through the eye with an arrow. She collapses, dead, as Daryl and Rosita raise their weapons to quickly see they are outnumbered by men coming out of the woods with automatic weapons and Eugene as a prisoner. Daryl recognizes the leader of the men…it’s Dwight who stole Daryl’s crossbow and motorcycle back in episode six.
Dwight, horribly scarred on the left side of his face, tells Rosita and Daryl – who he admits he was actually aiming for with the crossbow but missed – that he wants them to let him and his group into Alexandria. If they don’t, he will kill all three of them. Eugene, who is down on his knees with his hands tied behind his back, tells Dwight if he is so anxious to kill someone that he should kill their friend hiding behind a stack of barrels over to the side. Dwight signals for two of his men to go investigate and as everyone, including Dwight, are looking that way, Eugene turns and bites Dwight hard in his private area and doesn’t let go. Daryl and Rosita quickly pick up the weapons they were forced to drop and start firing into Dwight’s men. Eugene won’t release Dwight who’s screaming in agony and falling to the ground. Abraham fires from the woods into the men who were approaching the barrels. Eugene saw him earlier behind the barrels, giving him the idea for the distraction. Eugene is finally forced to release Dwight when he gets shot but it’s not a deadly wound. Dwight yells for his men to retreat back into the woods and he follows after them but not before taking a few shots at Daryl who he clearly hates and blames for all his misfortune. Daryl grabs his old crossbow and begins to go after Dwight but Rosita calls him back to help with Eugene. Rosita, Abraham, and Daryl carry the unconscious Eugene back to town.
Back at Alexandria, Eugene is recovering partly thanks to the medicine Denise had Daryl and Rosita get. Abraham and Eugene apologize to each other and reaffirm their friendship. After making sure Eugene’s okay, Abraham goes to see Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) and she invites him into her house, which seems to indicate the beginning of a new relationship between the two of them. Meanwhile, Carol helps Daryl bury Denise.
Speaking of Carol, one Alexandrian is not staying in town. Carol leaves a note for Tobin (Jason Douglas) telling him that she never meant to hurt him but this is the way it has to be. She writes that they have it good at Alexandria and that once they get past this threat of the Saviors, there will be another because people will always want what they have. Carol’s letter goes on to say she loves her people but she isn’t willing to kill anymore. She can’t love anyone because if she does she’ll have to kill to protect them and she just can’t do it anymore. Her note ends asking Tobin and the rest not to come looking for her.
The Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 14 Review
Slowly paced with not one but two road stories about two supporting characters trying to prove something to themselves as well as to the people they care about, episode 14 titled “Twice as Far” is a forgettable, almost uneventful, installment of the horror/drama series until the quick but not surprising death of Denise. The episode has many – in fact, too many – moments reminiscent of under par horror movies trying to build up suspense and tension, with both Eugene and Denise making foolish and stupid decisions out in an apocalyptic world where one wrong turn can mean certain doom. The most interesting part of the episode is in the beginning and end when it focuses on Carol and the inner battle she’s dealing with after realizing she can’t kill anymore and is struggling to try to save her humanity from disappearing.
The reintroduction of Dwight, who seems to now be a member of the Saviors, is anti-climactic and uninteresting. He was a boring, at times annoying character in episode six and remains that way in this episode. Making one side of his face scarred doesn’t make him any more intriguing or menacing as a villain.
With Carol leaving Tobin, Daryl, and the rest of her people in Alexandria to be on her own and the Saviors with their leader Negan soon to make an arrival at the town, will Rick just let Carol go? Will Daryl go out on his own to look for her? Here’s hoping this is not the end of Carol’s story on The Walking Dead.
GRADE: C
