Gareth is also into staving off the inevitable, even while he obsesses over it. Those walkers inside an adjacent school building look like they'll get through the glass. Bob is definitely going to die. Gareth is going to eat Bob's friends, too. Gareth tries to paint this as the inevitable that we can stave off, but that we must accept will happen with some slowly, softly spoken, good-willed prose. During his speech, we realize that Carol killed Gareth's mother, and Gareth also lost his brother in the sacking of Terminus. He can barely disguise his rage at losing his family while he reveals to Bob that Carol and Darryl drove off just as Gareth was about to capture and eat them. So, Bob's leg will have to do.
Bob spends most of Gareth's speech quietly despairing. Calling for help would probably bring more zombies, not his friends. So, when Bob starts racking himself with spasms as he makes strange, indeterminate noises, Team Gareth can only stand around, wondering how to shut him up. Especially when Bob eventually is undeniably laughing. The hysterical villain laugh from your favorite childhood TV show. While calling them idiots. Bob somehow maneuvers his shirt away from his shoulder and Team Gareth gets their first taste (pun intended) of horror. And if that wasn't enough, Bob immediately starts belting out "Tainted meat!" over and over again.
Team Gareth spits out what they can, but they've been feasting on him for a while now, and they're blaming Gareth for the predicament while he reminds them that they no doubt cooked the zombie infection out. But Bob is still chanting "Tainted meat!", so he no longer tastes good.
Well, that shut him up
Back at the church, Sasha gets predictably ambushed by a zombie until the others intervene. They've already noticed their missing, but stumbling around in the dark will achieve nothing. Inside, Maggie finishes her Bible reading, and she puts the book aside on a pew. Returning from their search, Rick and Sasha decide to interrogate Gabriel. Who's still a scared, little man whose survival method has been extreme compliance. He blubbers that he has no idea where Sasha's friends are, or why they're missing, but Rick isn't buying it either. Rick successfully bullies an unarmed, totally frightened man into confessing that during the initial zombie outbreak, Gabriel barricaded himself in the church, and let his parishioners die right outside as their calls for help brought zombies instead.
It's all the fault of the one guy who's been nice to us
Gabriel can still hear his parishioners as they screamed while being eaten. Does Rick realize that attacking a man who freely gave them shelter and helped them find food, and certainly isn't keeping them there, is maybe a bad idea? He certainly doesn't apologize, even after Gabriel practically offers himself up to be killed, as repentance for his fear of helping others. Rick decides it's not worth it.
Especially when there's some thumping noise outside, and they find Bob sprawled out in front of the church. Sasha is horrified when she realizes he's missing a leg; Bob is carried inside. Rick looks around, but the only clue is an "A" painted onto the front of the church. The same letter painted onto the freight car they were held in at Terminus.
Bob's immediate report confirms Rick's suspicion. They've been followed by Team Gareth, who cut off his leg to eat him. Bob repeats that Carol and Darryl left suddenly in a car, and that Team Gareth is holed up next to a building that looked like a school. One wonders why Gareth would ever have released Bob alive to give Rick this info. Bob's last information sends the group into sadness, as Bob reveals his zombie bite to the rest. Gabriel, proving himself a decent person as long as you can get into his church, offers Bob the couch in his office as a deathbed, where Sasha wants to keep vigil over him. Bob's still playing the Glad Game, but Sasha would rather spend his last hours in bitter rage.
Just waiting for the knife part
Abraham's heard enough. While Rick and Co. were gathering food, Abraham actually managed to repair the bus, enabling all who want to leave immediately to do so. And his plan includes shaming a reluctant Eugene and questioning Rosita to come. Rick refuses to let Abraham take the only wheels with him while Carol and Darryl are still missing. Abraham's only compromise is that they'll wait until noon the next day, and in return, Glenn and Maggie will come with him. Tara offers her company instead, but Abraham wants two experienced zombie killers. Rick tries giving Abraham an order not to take the bus, and the two come to yelling and almost blows before Glenn calls it off, and agrees to the deal, with Maggie backing him. Rick tries to object, but Glenn reminds him he's not in charge anymore. He's got until noon tomorrow to find Carol and Darryl if he wants to ride.
Abraham's bus or Rick's Crazy Train... tough decision
To be fair to Rick, it is definitely a terrible decision to try to make it to the bus at night. Sure, it's close. But it's probably also been sabotaged, which Abraham wouldn't be able to figure out until he'd flooded the engine and Team Gareth, or worse, had surrounded the vehicle. Bob was captured because he left alone; their best chance is to stay put until dawn. But, hey, it's a horror show. Good decisions have no place here. Abraham, however, is starting to figure out that trouble follows Rick wherever he goes.
At least Rick has a plan that will put Abraham to good use. Rick checks with Gabriel, who informs him that the nearest school is about a 10-minute walk south of the church, Sasha offers to go, despite Tyrese telling her stay with Bob. But Sasha wants to strike back at Bob's captors. When Tyrese tells her that Bob needs her with him, she places her own knife in Tyrese's hands, and states that Bob really needs to be put down if he passes.
Rick, with Abraham and other assorted fighters makes a big show of carrying their guns off toward the school. The zombies there, sill pawing the glass, are waiting. But Team Gareth is waiting too, in cover by the church. Instead of letting Rick find them at the school, they've simply let the fighters walk off, and Team Gareth quietly approaches the church, five dark figures whose silhouettes can barely be seen. They make almost no sound until they reach the church doors, which they break open. They let Bob be recovered so Team Rick would leave with their weapons and fighters. The church is theirs.
It's like hide and go seek, but with a tasty dinner after
From there, it's a slow walk up the aisle, Gareth flanked by his armed hunters. Only Gabriel remains visible, as the rest are in one of two side-rooms off the altar. Gabriel is openly crying as he prays. He's always certain he's going to die, yet he always seems to live. Gareth, as he creeps up the aisle like some obscene bride, recites the names of all the people Rick left behind, learned when people first appeared in Terminus, or from Baseball Cap Guy. He reminds the hunted that they have almost no guns. And he offers Gabriel the chance to take Judith and go. Gabriel is too afraid to save himself. Besides, no one would ever let him get far with Judith, who he'd never be able or willing to defend. Gabriel kneels, silently crying and praying.
Gareth gets his break when Judith can't stop from crying, probably reacting to the fear of everyone around her as they hide in the room to the right of the altar. Gareth offers them a last chance to come out, lying that maybe they'll let someone live. But, it's really too late for Gareth, who is surprised when Rick, Abraham, and the rest have quietly returned to the church to surround Gareth and his team. Rick even keeps Gareth from getting any ideas of resisting by literally shooting his hand almost clean off. Gareth looks in disgust and fear as his hand is now just blood and pain.
Sucks about your hand, dude
The Hunters surrender almost immediately, and Gareth varies between bargaining for their lives and trying to convince Rick that they were good people once. But they were driven by the distrust of strangers and extreme hunger to cannibalism. Gareth looks straight at Rick, mocking him for ever thinking he was as hungry as Gareth has been. When Gareth wonders if Rick means to let them live, Rick simply tells him they're saving bullets as he lifts the machete with red handles and tells Gareth he's got a promise to keep.
Rick starts the bloodbath by hacking right into Gareth's head, and the rest follow, using knives or gun butts to completely bludgeon Team Gareth until their heads are bloody goo. A few, like Tara, look away, but most of those Rick took are happy to beat their enemies to death. Gabriel, alive, saved by Rick, is almost angry, but more traumatized, that they've turned his church into a slaughterhouse. It's Maggie, daughter of Hershel, who just put her Bible down an hour or so ago, who tells Gabriel that this is shelter. This is just a safe place. There are no more churches. There are just buildings that keep the dead out.
Michonne finds something on one of the dead bodies. She lifts up her sword, back in her hands again. She's back.
The next morning finds everyone standing in Gabriel's office, saying their final goodbyes to Bob. He's still in his good, optimistic mood, while Sasha hovers over him, savoring every final moment and dreading what she's about to lose. Everyone else tries to leave; but Bob calls out for Rick and Judith to stay. Who wouldn't want to see the baby last? Bob reminds Rick that he, too, took people in, without losing his distrust of humanity or his humanity. Once alone, Bob will wander in and out of consciousness, until he speaks his last to Sasha. He tries to give her hope that the nightmare of living now will end, and that she shouldn't let her current nightmare rob her of her decency and goodness. He tries to tell her one last thing to be glad about.
Sasha is all attention, desperate for one last play of the Glad Game. But she'll have to come up with it herself. Because Bob passes just as she leans in. Note how Bob's halting, painful attempts to pass with some dignity contrast with Gareth's self-serving, articulate cannibalism defense. You may not remember anything Gareth said, but you remember he said it so well. You may not remember Bob's tone of voice, but you remember him saying "Nightmares end. They shouldn't end who you are."
In the end, Sasha has to, once again, hand her blade to Tyrese. Sasha leaves, and Tyrese can only bring himself to kneel by Bob's body. It takes a little longer for Tyrese to stab Bob in the forehead. The way the head is turned, we don't see much, but Tyrese would see every gory detail, and he can't take it.
While Sasha finishes the cross on Bob's grave, Bob now in the ground, some of the group are preparing to go. Abraham, Rosita, Eugene, Glenn, Maggie, and Tara are all board. Abraham, in a much better mood, hands Rick a map (really? he had a spare map???) showing his route so Rick can find him once his team is together again. The goodbyes, as Team Abraham is in the bus and Team Rick stays behind, are touching but quick- no good comes from wasting daylight. Abraham drives off, and his final note, scrawled on the bottom of the map, has to apologize for losing his shit and asking him to find them in D.C., will have to speak for him. Abraham thinks a world cured of the zombies will need Rick Grimes. Is Rick ready to be more than a leader of a small band of survivors (has he ever been ready for even that?)?
Rick, despite wanting Carol and Darryl, is in no hurry to actually find them. Instead, he moseys over to Tyrese, who is digging graves for Team Gareth's bodies, represented by blood stains under white sheets next to the holes he's digging. Rick grabs a shovel and starts to help. He asks Tyrese how it would have felt, for Tyrese, who's as sensitive as Gabriel, but braver, if he'd seen Terminus. Tyrese knows the answer right away, telling Rick that seeing a butcher shop would have been the end of him inside. Rick has more faith in Tyrese than that, reassuring Tyrese that he would have survived. Tyrese doesn't contradict him, but I doubt Rick's swayed him.
We jump to that night, with Michonne on guard duty, still looking at her sword as if it's new. Gabriel joins her, after apparently not sending them all away from his four walls and roof. He's still hearing the voices of those he condemned to zombie-hood. Michonne's only comfort is that, eventually, the voices won't be so loud or unending. They're interrupted by rustling in the woods. Gabriel immediately retreats inside, but Michonne makes the horror movie mistake of approaching the dark woods, from which nothing can be seen, totally alone. Maybe the sword back in her hand has made her bold, or stupid.
But she's really just lucky. Because Darryl emerges from the woods. Michonne is relieved, and so is Darryl, who calls to someone else to come out. Is it Carol? Is it someone else? Did they find Beth, and double back for reinforcements? Does Darryl have Beth now? Has Maggie ever noticed that she's missing a sister?
Just taking a really long dump?
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