Hey Walking Dead fans. Did you catch last night’s episode? I hope so! And I know you came here looking for Humpy’s hot takes on it, but Wm. Steven Humphrey is out on vacation this week so I’m going to step in to chitty chat with you instead. My name is Campy Draper. A little something about me: I hate The Walking Dead but I’ve watched every episode. This show wields its narrative like a cudgel, and that cudgel is shaped like a fist, and that fist is made of ham.


All right let’s CHIT CHAT.


Ive heard of metal heads, but this is ridiculous!
I've heard of metal heads, but this is ridiculous!

After the pre-emptive murderfest at Negan’s outpost and (self)rescue of Maggie and Carol, Rick and his gang have returned home. Everyone is going about their favorite activities: inventorying supplies in the pantry, walking around with rifles and guarding things, playing Donatello with bo staffs, building PRISONS. Apparently Morgan the ninja-pacifist is constructing a cell so next time a tries to rehabilitate a psychotic murder, he won’t get out and take people hostage. It’s a weird hobby but it keeps him grounded.


Meanwhile, Rosita is rebounding from being dumped by Abraham by hooking up with the dead mayor’s super handsome yet inept son. He wants to cook for her and she turns him down because this is just a sex thing for her. Personally I’d take the food. Food is better than sex, at least the way I do it.


This episode is about smarty pants weakling characters trying to prove they can handle their shit just like the badass characters. One said weakling is Doctor Denise, she tells Daryl and Rosita about some apothecary that she remembers seeing. They offer to check it out for her, but she insists on going along threatening to go on her own if they don’t come with her. So of course they go with her.


All three pile into a truck, but uh oh, just so happens there’s a tree down in the middle of the road. Looks like they’ll be going on foot from here! The only way this could feel more contrived is if they also stumbled on some new hiking boots in their exact size.


With a long walk ahead of them Rosita notices they can make it in half the time if they go along some train tracks. Daryl insists on sticking to the road. Daryl and Dr. Denise take the road leaving Rosita standing at a literal crossroads: does she go with Daryl and Dr. Denise (smart), or go it alone on the train tracks to save time (a pointless risk that no one would take)? She takes the train tracks. But don’t worry! That stupid choice doesn’t have any consequences because they all end up getting to where they’re going seemingly at the SAME TIME.


Meanwhile Abraham and Eugene are out on their own mission, apparently. Eugene, who is weakling number two, insists that he’s no longer a cowardly lion—he’s a survivor now—and Abraham is skeptical. They enter some kind of factory where Eugene says they’re going to start making bullets. Where did this magic bullet factory come from? How did Eugene know about it? Who cares! At least the show will have a good excuse for Rick and the gang to never run out of ammo. Kinda like Hershel’s shotgun from season 2.




Anyway, while Eugene and Abraham are talking a walker starts stumbling towards them. Eugene calls dibs on killing it to prove that he can handle himself now. He tries to whack it with a machete, but the zombie has a head covered in molten lead so his machete just clangs off of it. Abraham ends up having to step in and save Eugene which causes them to have a tiff that ends in Eugene telling Abe that his services as a protector aren’t needed anymore. So Abe is all like “Fine, you can find your own way home. See ya!” It’s the kind of move a parent pulls when they can’t get their kid to leave Chuck E. Cheese.


Back at the apothecary Daryl, Rosita, and Dr. Denise start snooping around. The gang finds a pharmacy that fully stocked, and while Daryl and Rosita start packing all the meds up, Dr. Denise goes searching for the source of a mysterious banging. It’s the kind of dumb move that usually gets a character killed in this show. She ends up finding a walker with a leg cast. Turns out that gimp-zombie ate a fucking baby! There’s full-on a baby shoe in a pool of dried blood. It reminds me of Hemmingway. For sale: baby shoes, slightly chewed.


The sight freaks Dr. Denise out. Looks like she doesn’t have what it takes to face the horrors of this new fucked up world. Daryl and Rosita tell her she did a good job. On their way back home Daryl says it’s cool if they take the train track shortcut.


Dr. Denise finds a car with a blue cooler sitting on the car seat, unfortunately there’s also a walker in there. Denise thinks there could be something useful in there but I’m doubtful, it’s probably just the last two hotdogs leftover from a BBQ, but all the gross water from the melted ice has gotten into the package so they'll just end up throwing them out anyway. Daryl and Rosita tell her to leave it, but Dr. Denise wants that cooler BAD, so she ignores them. This results in a wrasslin' match with the zombie.


Looks like Dr. Denise has what it takes after all. After stabbing the walker in the head, she yaks and says the best line in history of this show: “I just threw up on my glasses.”


Daryl and Rosita berate Dr. Denise about taking a stupid risk, but Denise fires back about how this whole thing was a test for her, and how she invited them on this mission because they’re “good people” but in the middle of her diatribe she’s shot through the head by an arrow!


Do you guys see my point?
"Do you guys see my point?"


What the fuck?! A bunch of Negan’s Saviors come out of the woods with a gun to Eugene’s head. Looks like Eugene got caught bumbling his way back home. One of the Saviors is the fuck-face who stole Daryl’s bike and crossbow. his name is Dwight. And this time Dwight’s face is burned to shit on one side. He's moved from being a metaphorical fuck-face to a literal one. He looks like a poor man’s Two Face. He offers Daryl and Rosita a choice: Take him and his Savior buddies back to their home and let them in so they can take anything and anyone they want, or they’ll kill Eugene. As if anyone would cry over that spilt milquetoast motherfucker.


Eugene spots Abraham hiding behind some barrels. Turns out he didn’t abandon Eugene after all. A big gun fight breaks out and in the middle of it Eugene bites Dwight in the dick! Which is a pretty sweet move if you ask me, but he takes a bullet for his dick-biting troubles. In the end, Dwight and his Savior gang run off into the woods.


Back at the homestead, poor Dr. Denise is dead. Daryl and Carol dig a grave for her. Eugene’s bullet wound is just a graze, which is lucky for him considering that the only doctor has an arrow in her face. Abraham tells him that he’s made it to phase two of bad-assert. I guess dick-biting is some kind of trial, like Luke building his own lightsaber to become a Jedi.


The episode ends randomly with Carol reading a letter she left for her boyfriend in voiceover. Something about how she has to leave the community because she can’t kill anymore. Whatever Carol, you’re just trying to steal Eugene’s dick-biting thunder!


So guys what did you think of this stupid bullshit episode? Let’s chat about it in the comments!