Seemingly everyone’s life was in danger in yet another gut-wrenching episode of The Walking Dead on Sunday evening.
The episode essentially started with Noah and Deanna’s husband, Reg, in an early morning meeting. Noah asked Reg to teach him how to become an architect so he could help build more walls and houses. Reg gladly told Noah that he could help, but first, the group needed to go out and find micro-inverters for the busted solar grids.
A team of Noah, Glenn, Tara, Aiden, Nicolas, and Eugene set out to a solar warehouse in search of the inventers. After Eugene found what they needed, a walker, wearing riot gear with a grenade strapped to his chest, slowly approached Aiden and Nicolas. Aiden, who was unaware of the grenade, constantly shot the walker until he accidentally hit the grenade and caused an explosion.
The explosion knocked Aiden onto a sharp medal object that went straight through his back and out the front, while it tossed Tara aside and caused her to bump her head. Glenn, Noah, Nicolas, and Eugene aided an unconscious Tara into a small office room where it was safe. Later, Glenn, Noah, and Nicolas realized that Aiden was still alive and tried to go help him. However, they were unable to pull him off the medal piece that he was nailed to.
After a couple attempts trying to tear him off the medal object, Nicolas gave up and told Glenn that they need to leave him behind, which turns out to be a common theme for the weak Alexandrians. With walkers quickly approaching, they ultimately left Aiden behind to die and ran out the warehouse. In the meantime, Eugene carried Tara on his shoulders and walked outside to safety.
Nicolas, Glenn, and Noah tried to escape through the front, but it was populated with hordes of walkers with another horde coming after them from behind. Instead, the three managed to get stuck between revolving doors with walkers on both the outside frame and the inside frame. Eugene then drove by the front of the warehouse with the van they arrived in, and he attracted all the outside walkers using loud music. With one side clear, Glenn ordered Nicolas, who was actually stuck in the frame across Noah and Glenn, that he will attempt to break the glass to make an escape.
However, Nicolas did not listen to Glenn and tried to crack a small hole for himself by pushing the door inward, which created an enough gap for Nicolas to get out but also created a gap for the walkers to pull Noah in, and they started chomping away at him with Glenn still trapped between the doors, watching his friend be eaten alive, with tears running down his cheeks.
Still running away, Nicolas caught up with Eugene, who was still riding the van, and tried to convince Eugene to head back to Alexandria. Graciously, Eugene did not want to leave without his friends, but Nicolas pushed him aside and took control of the wheel before Glenn arrived to the scene, tossed Nicolas out of the van, and punched him twice until he was knocked out.
Meanwhile, Abraham and a handful of Alexandrians were out as well. They were gathering materials to expand the walls. Parked around a construction site, the group was attacked by a herd of walkers. One of the members of Alexandria, Francine, was struggling with walkers as she was hurt because she took a fall, and the other members did not flinch to help her. It was Abraham who saved her life and took out a whole bunch of walkers.
After downing all the biters, Abraham was furious with the other people of Alexandria for not helping Francine while she was on the ground surrounded by walkers. Abraham then took over the operation by assigning duties to everyone to finish out the job.
Back in Alexandria, Carol was forcefully spending time with Jessie’s youngest son, Sam. To get Sam off her hair, she agreed to teach him how to bake cookies. Upon making small talk with Sam, Carol put the pieces together and learned that Jessie’s husband, Pete, was beating her and possibly their children.
Carol reported her discoveries to Rick.
“Pete’s hitting Jessie, maybe Sam too,” she said. “Rick, I know how this is going to go with Pete. There’s only one way it can go. You’re going to have to kill him,” Carol added.
All the while, Father Gabriel paid a visit to Deanna. With Maggie overhearing the conversation, Gabriel badmouthed Rick’s entire group.
“Rick, his group, they’re not good people,” Gabriel told her. “They’ve done things. They’ve done unspeakable things. They can’t be trusted. They’re dangerous.”
On that note, the episode concluded, ending a thrilling, intense episode with a solid cliffhanger. Will Deanna take Gabriel’s words to heart or will she brush them off and allow Rick’s group to continue to run things? We’ll see how things unravel as the final two episodes of the season approach in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, rest in peace, Noah. Even though we didn’t get to learn too much about him, we lost another beloved, loyal character.
Episode 14 – Overall Grade: 9.2/10
