After being given asylum in the Kingdom, Daryl finds adjusting to life within its walls difficult. Meanwhile, Rick and his group meet a new group of survivors in “New Best Friends.”
Tension rises in the Kingdom
Kicking off the episode, Richard has a difficult time interacting with the Saviors that come to pick up their goods. In fact, Morgan ends up defending Richard as he and the Saviors are close to coming to blows - or worse - during the exchange. Morgan and Richard both get a few licks in, but in the end, Morgan’s stick is taken from him and so is Richard’s gun.
The interaction leads to Richard trying to get Daryl to enact a plan that has them taking out a group of Saviors on the road and leaving a trail to bring the Saviors right back to Ezekiel’s new “loner friend.”
Like Richard, Daryl is willing to do just about anything to get people out from under the thumb of the Saviors. Of course, that’s until he realizes that Richard’s plan leaves Carol in the line of fire as the scapegoat for their attack and the likely next victim of the Saviors. Daryl still has at least one line he won’t cross, no matter what he’s been through, and that’s putting Carol in danger. It’s nice to see that no matter how far the core group is pulled from one another, some things never change.
The Junkyard is a strange place
That group Rick came across last week, unfortunately, wasn’t the same group Tara met on the island earlier in the season. Instead, they’re led by Jadis, and they drive a hard bargain. After throwing Rick into a pit walled with garbage in the middle of a junkyard, Jadis agrees that her people will help in Rick’s fight against the Saviors as long as they get guns and part of the spoils of victory.
This deal sounds good in theory, but Jadis reveals during her chat with Rick that they watched and waited for someone to steal the supplies on the houseboat so that they could steal them in turn. These junkyard dogs are crafty and fierce in a way that the Saviors aren’t. Despite the title of the episode pointing to them being the “New Best Friends” that Alexandria needs, something tells me it won’t be so cut and dry.
Will they betray Rick? Will they fall to the Saviors? Or will something else change the game? We’ll have to wait and see.
Long live Carol and Daryl
If you thought we would be waiting for a reunion, you got a pleasant surprise as Daryl followed Ezekiel’s men to find Carol’s cabin. The reunion, however, doesn’t go exactly as the audience might expect, or want for that matter. Instead of Daryl giving Carol the lowdown on the Saviors or just who made it out of the confrontation with them alive, he tells her that they made a deal with the Saviors and that everyone made it back home alive.
On the one hand, like Morgan not telling her, this is a nice gesture - the two of them wanting Carol to be able to live the life she wants on her own terms - but on the other, it does make you wonder just how angry and hurt Carol will be when she learns the truth about which of her friends died at Negan’s hand.
Will Carol eventually join the fight? Who is going to be the one to bring her back to the group? The show can’t go on forever with Carol in a cabin in the woods.
The verdict and what’s next
Though we got glimpses into two distinct storylines tonight that will gradually weave together in the future, this was another case of a very slow moving episode for “The Walking Dead.” The series really needs to pick the momentum back up in season seven.
3 out of 5 stars
Daryl decides to leave the Kingdom to return to the Hilltop, but next week will take us back to the Sanctuary as we learn more about Dwight and see what’s going on with Eugene in “Hostiles and Calamities.”
