The Walking Dead – Out of the Ashes

By: Kelly Kearney

In this week’s episode the flimsy walls of Alexandria are a problem and threats are wandering into an already overtaxed and underfed community. Aaron, who has allowed the stress of war and his ensuing hunger push him to the brink of darkness, joins a group in search of tools and supplies at the burned down community of Hilltop. When they come across a Whisperer hiding amongst a small herd of walkers the one-armed pragmatic peace keeper heads down a dark path fueled by his trauma and fear and it threatens to him rob his humanity, which we have learned from Maggie’s travels is in short supply these days. Speaking of the Widow, she and Negan head to a safe house to wait for the others who took off after the Reaper attack. The tensions between the two are high, culminating in interesting and surprising moment that may be hinting to a change in their volatile dynamic. Meanwhile, Eugene’s group gets their first taste of life at The Commonwealth, but it isn’t all ice cream and family reunions for the foursome; something isn’t quite right about this apocalyptic oasis or his on-air girlfriend Stephanie. So, let’s dig in to this recap and find out what our survivors are facing in “Out of the Ashes.”

 A Phoenix of Fury Rises From the Ashes

After a hyperstylized dream where Aaron (Ross Marquand) faces all the big bads of the past in order to keep his daughter Gracie safe, he wakes in a mood which only gets worse when one of the town’s walls falls over and walkers start meandering through streets. He and the others jump into action and go full tag-team beast mode on the walkers and after clearing the herd, they erect the shoddy barrier wall with simple rope and manpower. From the looks of things these walls won’t hold for long and it is probably one of the many stressors influencing Aaron’s nightmares. If they have any hope of keeping walkers or human threats out of Alexandria they need two things: fuel in the form of food (horse meat á la Carol is almost gone) and tools to patch the walls and protect the people inside, from whatever threat lurks outside. When the Whisperers, along with Negan, raided their town, the walls and hunting lands weren’t the only things they destroyed; they broke their tools too and with it any hope of rebuilding what they lost. Rosita (Christian Serratos), who seems beaten down, sleep deprived and hungry, encourages Carol (Melissa McBride), Aaron and Jerry (Cooper Andrews) to consider cutting their losses and finding a new home; preferably one with food. Aaron immediately disagrees since this is his home and it was long before it was anyone else’s. He isn’t ready to abandon Alexandria yet and, besides, their family is still out there fighting the Reapers and they will need a home to come back to. Carol jumps in with a better suggestion, wondering if some the supplies and tools at Hilltop survived the fire. Anything is possible. So, she, along with Aaron, Lydia (Cassady McClincy) and Jerry agree it’s worth a look to head over to the torched community to scavenge for whatever supplies they can sift out of the ashes.

When they get to Hilltop it looks worse than they imagined. Like some genocidal nuclear blast, everything is fried to a crisp, even some of their friends and neighbors. It is a devastating reminder of what they lost and it’s felt on the painful looks Jerry shoots Carol. The guilt she feels over the consequences of the cave-in and releasing Negan drive her every action now. They all have pain over what happened during the war and they all wear it in different ways. Right now Aaron is wearing it like a warrior hell-bent on revenge because when he spots what looks to be a Whisperer shuffling along with a small pack of walkers he totally loses it. They all take off after the group and slice the dead down like a hot knife through butter, leaving only the Whisperer alive and on his knees begging for mercy. So sorry, but Aaron is all of that today. However, he does have an abundance of rage and plenty of time for some torture and pain. Lydia recognizes the Whisperer named Keith as one of the kinder sycophants of her mother’s pack and asks Aaron to hear him out. The man insists he is alone, and the rest of the Whisperers are either dead or fled the area, but Aaron is done trusting the wrong people and drags the man down to a basement where some other Whisperers were hiding. Things get even more heated when typically level-headed Jerry spots Nabila’s scarf and he is ready to let Aaron go wild on these people. It is obvious they were in Alexandria and Keith lied. In making sure there are no other mini hordes of skin freaks, Aaron drags the Whisperer back outside and ties him up for a quid pro-quo session. He uses a chained-up walker like an attack dog to convince Keith to tell him the truth about where the others are. The man lied once and now Aaron wants the whole truth, even if he has to torture Keith to get it. Lydia can hardly watch and pleads with Aaron to have some mercy; pointing out how they were just a few scared people who already took off and do not seem to be a threat to anyone. Carol must agree because she is cringing from her friend’s dark turn as she watches Aaron refuse to listen and allows the walker to bite Keith on the hand. The man is screaming in agony as Aaron pulls the beast back and threatens to do it again if he doesn’t talk. At this point Carol has seen enough and shoots an arrow into the walker’s head neutering this display of macho revenge torture. She has seen this before; the pain of grief mixed with hate and revenge and it’s a “path you don’t want to go down” she tells him. We don’t often get to see the depths of the bonds made between Carol and Aaron, but their friendship has grown to be one based on truth and respect. Even if they don’t agree on everything, they are friends in the truest sense of the word. They’ve fought side by side and Aaron knows what Carol lost; what they have all lost and the consequences of the actions she took to avenge her pain. Connie, Hilltop and now a growing distance from Daryl were sacrificed in the flames of her rage and she doesn’t want that for Aaron. He has always been one of the good guys and a voice of reason. If he goes dark, well, then, what is even the point of rebuilding? “My mercy prevails over my wrath” Rick once said, and with that restraint, justice was born, and Alexandria thrived.

Aaron sees the error of his ways and gives Keith a knife to cut his hand off hoping it will save his life. Before the thankful man can take off and find his friends, Carol and Lydia give him some food and in payment he gives them a clue about Connie! He saw their two friends escape the cave and eventually get separated. The one they thought was dead is camping out near Alexandria and immediately Carol is packing up and ready to find Connie. Aaron tells her to slow her roll since it is almost dusk, but she is desperate to make things right with Connie and, in doing so, patch things up with Daryl. Like Carol did for Aaron, she heeds his level-headed advice to guide her to the right choice. Eventually, she agrees to wait until morning when it is safer.

Welcome Mat or Propaganda

After a cringeworthy “Welcome to the Commonwealth” video Eugene (Josh McDermitt), Princess (Paola Lázaro) Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura) and Ezekiel (Khary Payton) are given first access to this thriving community of over 50,000 people. These people have it all – ice cream, bakeries, safe streets and job assignments similar to those of life before the fall. The four newcomers are sorted by skills and past employment with Princess landing a gig in retail, something for which she is really pumped about. Yumiko is the only one not given a job and instead handed an invitation to discuss all the opportunities waiting for her in this “great community.” From here the group goes their separate ways with Ezekiel and Princess setting out to explore this new world that looks like the old one but more like someone’s vision of a fake and sanitized version of it and not the real deal. Eugene has his own plans for the day that include meeting up with Stephanie (Chelle Ramos) for strawberry ice cream (not Rocky Road?) while doing his best to convince her to let him use the town’s radio to call back home. While he is charming his way into breaking Commonwealth law, Princess is distracting Mercer (Michael James Shaw) with flirtatious compliments about his eyelashes and muscle tone. While everyone else is busy on Eugene’s plan, Yumiko finally finds her surgeon brother in…a bakery? Apparently so because Tomi (Ian Anthony Dale), the world class doctor, is much happier baking cakes and rolling out dough. He makes Yumiko promise not to hassle him about his life’s choices and in turn he promises her he has never been happier. She wants to believe him, but something in her tone says she doesn’t. She isn’t the only one with trust issues because with this new community, Mercer is on to Princess’ sudden interest in his workout regimen and figures out it is a distraction technique. He eventually catches Eugene using the radio to talk to Rosita! Not that the two friends relayed any useful information between the static and lost transmission. Regardless, the honkytonk from ASZ broke the law and in the first day he was granted immigration status too! He and the others, minus Yumiko, are placed in handcuffs awaiting trial with an outcome that could see them banished for life. As things start to look really bad for Eugene in comes the cheese ball video guy, Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton), who grants them a reprieve from their arrests and trials. Mercer and the other guards are shocked but they uncuff them and leave just as Stephanie informs them of how The Commonwealth always makes you pay, one way or another. What a vaguely ominous threat from Eugene’s cutie-pie. It sure seems like something is as off with her, as it is with this entire place. Stephanie didn’t even offer Eugene rocky road, and she knows it is his favorite. Something is up!

Carl’s Memory

As the adults are off on their own adventures, Judith (Cailey Fleming) is left holding down the fort with the younger Alexandrians. She is doing her usual chores of making her Aunt Carol proud by conducting weapons training and bossing the other kids around. Sometimes it is easy to forget this pint-sized warrior with a massive heart is actually a child trying to survive a deadly world without her parents and big brother. She compartmentalizes her pain behind training and keeping track of her brother and cousin Hershel and doesn’t have time for the nonsense and games like some of the other kids in town play. For example, taunting kid zombies through the cracks in the walls. Judith storms over to a group of older boys and reprimands them for drawing the mini herd led by a young walker (Gus Dean) to the already stressed and leaning walls. The head bully lashes out at Judith for killing his buzz and makes a hurtful remark about her parents abandoning her. It cuts deep and Judith raises her sword to the boys throat threatening him to keep his mouth shut and quit baiting the dead. She comes off as brave and unmoved but then she struts off with tears in her eyes over what he said. Judith does feel alone and is juggling so many balls at once while also trying to hold out hope that someone (a parent, Daryl, Carol  – anyone) makes it home alive. Later that feeling hits her tenfold when she discovers the mean boy broke the wooden keepsake she and Carl made before he died. It is all she has of her brother, and she is as broken as that piece of split wood with the Grimes kids’ painted handprints. Rosita finds her desperately trying to put the DIY art memory back together and the two have a heart to heart about the weight of love laying heavy in our hearts but not on the painted wooden trinket done by a boy and his sister. The memory is what is important and so are the people who love her enough to make sure she never forgets her family and the lessons they taught her. In fact, those lessons are all around her in the town and in every choice she makes. It’s a sweet coming of age moment for a girl who never got a chance to be a child.

Tensions Run Hot

With Eugene’s group in The Commonwealth looking for help and Carol’s group looking for tools and Connie, we are left with Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and her ultimate plan to save Alexandria from starvation while also enacting a bit of revenge on the Reapers. We catch up with her and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) when they finally reach the safe house where they planned to meet the others before the Reapers sent them scattering into the woods. Almost immediately Negan spies the food supplies in the house and is ready to take them back to Alexandria and call an end to this suicide mission. Unlike Maggie, who is hopeful the others are on their way, Negan is a cynical survivor always looking out for his own hide. He has repeatedly said they should get out now before it’s too and late. An argument over whether or not to wait or leave ensues, but Negan relents and agrees to stick it out until morning. If their friends aren’t at the house by sun up then they must be dead and he isn’t going to be next, and he won’t let Maggie die either, even if she doesn’t trust his motives. The next morningNegan tries to leave with the supplies the minute the sun rises, and it sparks a fight between him and Maggie that turns physical. Pushing and screaming, the two go back and forth over the usual accusations until that fine line of hate gets blurred and morphs into a quietly tense and undefinable moment. They don’t get to delve into whatever that was because Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) and Elijah (Okea Eme-Akwari) show up a bit worse for wear but alive and ready for the next leg of this mission. Since Daryl is still M.I.A. Gabriel makes the decision to wait, and at this point, Negan is outnumbered so he keeps quiet, and they all hunker down in the cabin to see if the archer shows up. Next week, it looks like Daryl and the Reapers are on the hunt for Maggie, so waiting around might not have been their best choice. With food and supplies hoarded behind the Reapers’ walls, every decision they make now can break Alexandria or build it up from the ashes.