They chat about who needs a haircut (Abraham, yes; Eugene, never), how long Eugene's super secret zombie-destroying pathogen will need to work (it somehow is slowed by people not burning fossil fuels anymore), whether Rick and the rest are right behind them (hey Maggie, maybe you should wonder where Beth is), and the origins of Eugene's mullet (T. Brooks Ellis, Director of the Human Genome Project, said he looked like a fun guy).
I'm just saying you're no MacGyver
The Fellowship of the Mullet is exultant to be zipping along, and only Eugene looks tense. But then, he always looks tense. Everyone is cautiously thinking about what happens when Eugene finally defeats the dead. Until there's an explosion under the bus, and Abraham loses control. The bus literally jumps into a nearby truck, bounces off it and crashes back into the road, rolling onto its side as the pack of zombies they left behind a minute ago circles around.
Yeeeeee Haawwww!
Abraham would love to save his team, except that he's stuck in a flashback involving bashing in the heads of about four men. He's in the remains of a grocery store, and it appears that he's killed all four men by himself, using cans as blunt objects. He staggers to his feet, calls for someone named Ellen, and wakes up in the driver's seat of the bus, his wedding ring showing, calling for Eugene. Eugene, like everyone else, is groggy and trying to stand as zombies have already surrounded the bus to get in. Rosita points out the engine's on fire, so they'll have to get out fast, defeat all the zombies around them, and then grab their supplies before the bus blows.
Abraham and Glenn lead the charge, with Rosita and Maggie not far behind. Tara stays behind to babysit Eugene, taking out a senior citizen zombie before urging Eugene out of the bus. Eugene is scared shitless, but Tara tells him to be brave. Eugene is convinced that being brave isn't something you can choose to be. Tara tells him that when you're screwed no matter what you do, choose to do the brave thing. It seems to work, as Eugene crawls out the back with her. Tara gets right to work on the zombie pack with the others, who are methodically slicing their way through zombies. Eugene stands next to the bus, knife held out in front of him uselessly.
It's not until Tara is caught from behind by surprise that Eugene acts, but he only gets the thing in the back. That's enough extra time for Tara to turn around and get the zombie in the head, and she's happy to give Eugene credit for the assist. It's kind of his first kill.
The head, Eugene, the head
The bus blows before they can grab the boxes of supplies in the back. Abraham gives the bus one look of frustration and anger, and quickly buries it. He looks like he's spent every moment since Houston swallowing his impatience. And his hand is bleeding again, a wound he got in Gabriel's church somehow the day before. They literally have only gotten fifteen miles from the church before losing the vehicle. Eugene suggests just going back, but Abraham won't even consider it. Forward is the only direction he wants to go the whole episode. Stops are for sleep or grabbing whatever is visible to eat or drink. Everyone's still willing to move forward, but Abraham's obsession with the mission is starting to worry the others. Tara gives everyone the suggestion that the entire series has been waiting for: bikes. No one listens to her, because easy to find transportation that doesn't require gas and can't crash and burn would make the show boring. As they proceed to walk down the road in search of food, water, and maybe another vehicle, Eugene stops to stare at his first dead zombie. Before leaving with the others, he spits on it. Take that, long-dead lady!
Their stop for the night is a town big enough to have its own bookstore. Abraham hums as the Fellowship of the Mullet prepares their night's resting place. Eugene makes fire with something that involves Scotch tape. Everyone contributes pages from miscellaneous books for the fire, which Tara will contain in a bucket, cover with old metal hangers, and place tonight's dinner can on for heating. Maggie grabs water from a toilet tank. Abraham and Glenn position bookshelves across an entrance. It's cozy and ready for Rosita to trim Abraham's hair and re-stitch his hand wound.
The night is peaceful, and Glenn is on early watch, as zombies wander across the store windows, unable to see the humans in the dark store within. It's a good night for talking, and Abraham is a talker, wanting to thank Glenn for keeping on with him even after the bus catastrophe. When Glenn tries to be modest, Abraham launches into a musing on how the people left now are the strong ones. He wanders into telling Glenn that killing has gotten easy. It was hard, once, but now it comes naturally to survivors. Then, he grosses Glenn out by declaring he's going to get some lovin'.
Glenn's a little put off at knowing Rosita and Abraham are screwing; but Eugene takes the opportunity to get in some free porn. Rosita is annoyed at first, but Abraham talks her into ignoring him. Tara isn't so easily mollified, showing up to shoo Eugene away, and thank him for helping her with the zombie earlier. Eugene thanks her instead, because she knew the magic words to make him be brave. While they're baring their souls, Eugene has a bomb to throw at her. He confesses, looking scared at his own actions, that he sabotaged the bus by putting broken glass from the church into the fuel tank of the bus. They weren't supposed to get very far, they certainly weren't supposed to be cruising at top speed when the engine blew. Would Tara's reaction be different if one of them had died?
Instead of smacking Eugene in the face for potentially killing them, and robbing them of their food and water, Tara tries to talk Eugene down from his guilt-induced panic attack. Eugene is frantic, at this point, to prolong their journey. He's sure, and probably for good reason, that once they're in D.C., there's no reason to protect him anymore. He's incapable of surviving on his own, and must rely on the protection of others; he needs those others to protect him as long as possible, even if that means he keeps them from reaching D.C. at all. Tara reminds him that none of them, except Abraham, were fighters before the world turned. That they all get rely on each other. That none of them could survive on their own. Eugene asks Tara why he even confessed to her. Tara, who recently confessed to Maggie her part in Hershel's death, informs him that he's finally becoming human.
Abraham flashes back again, and we get to see Ellen, who's a very pretty lady, presumably his wife once, before the world turned. She looks pretty, but banged up and her clothes are ripped, indicating she'd been raped. And Abraham just literally beat to death her rapists. I'd have stopped hiding at that cash register and picked up a can to join in myself, but Ellen doesn't feel that way. Her husband just beat four men to death, and is covered in their blood. She's not the only one scared. Their two kids hide behind her. No one wants to talk to him, even after he's told them that it's safe now. Abraham doesn't know what to do. He's protected his family, but they look like they want protecting from him.
Lil' out of hand, there
Rosita wraps Abraham's hand in gauze the next morning, asking him if they should stay at the bookstore for a day to rest after being in a bus crash. They have injuries, they lack supplies, this town could be a rest/supply stop for them. Abraham tells them they don't stop. They keep going, looking for supplies and forgetting their aches and pains along the way. The others bring up their lack of water, but Abraham's already got a solution, opening a flap in the cardboard that shielded them from view last night. He's found a vacant fire truck, still loaded with water. It's a ride and and a reservoir, all in one.
Showing us his wedding ring again, Abraham reaches for the start button. It starts on the first try, to Abraham's relief. His hand is healing, Eugene is seated right next to him, and they're on their way... for about two feet, before the engine dies. Abraham curses the world that would give him a truck full of water but make it unable to run. He's angrily wiping off the radiator air intake when Rosita points out the engine air intake is up top. Before he can go and clear zombie guts, though, he's got to make some more. A tire rolling away from the fire station entrance warns them in time of the second zombie pack they've got to eliminate. And the Fellowship of the Mullet gets right to work.
Inventing new head stabs
They're efficient, but there are about twenty-five zombies, and it's starting to look like that's too many when a blast of water sends the squishy head on a weak neck of a zombie flying off. From there, the water cannon literally blasts apart zombies all around. All the rest have to do is try to stay dry.
Eugene stands behind the water cannon. Sure, he's used all the truck's water. But that can be refilled at the river five miles away. Everyone is blown away that Eugene has, for the first time, aided with fighting off the zombies. Remember his first fight, amid corn stalks, that ended with him shooting the truck? After yesterday, wonder now if that was on purpose, too? (yes, it was) For the first time, it looks like Eugene isn't going to sabotage Abraham's vehicle. Abraham takes the opportunity to tell the group that he's seen eight county fairs and a goat rodeo, and Eugene's outdid them all.
Well, those goats don't have Eugene's mullet.
The fire truck lasts them maybe half a day. It goes out on the road somewhere. Probably before they've even hit the river, as they don't appear to have any additional water. Eugene reads a book he shoplifted from the abandoned bookstore, H.G. Wells' The Shape of Things to Come. It's a combination of end-of-the-world, dystopian, utopian fiction written as a fictional history book from about a hundred years from now. In it, World War 2 starts in about 1940, lasts about fifteen years, and leads to worldwide depression. Next is a plague that wipes out huge swaths of humanity. The order that arises out of the chaos is a benign dictatorship that is wiped away in a citizens' bloodless coup, leading to how the human race should always have been. This utopia is populated with geniuses, all geniuses. No wonder Eugene wants to read it.
The fire truck isn't going, and the Fellowship is starting to get real tired of Abraham telling them to walk it off. But, they lack any options. So, no matter how awful the way forward smells, forward it is they must go. And discover quite the roadblock. A horde of zombies wanders around the vast fields and buildings of an industrial livestock/meat operation. So, the smell was a combination of rotting animals and zombies. The smell alone makes them want to turn back and go around, and Rosita is the first to do so, shaking her head at yet another required detour.
Abraham can't handle this. He repeats to himself all the ways in which he will not be detoured, viewing any new delays as defeat. He tries to come up with ways to use the fire truck. But it's out of water. And they can't drive around the zombies, as the road goes straight through them. The zombies will eventually bunch up around the truck, stopping it. Abraham refuses to be defeated by reality. For some reason, he decides to simply grab Eugene. Is he crazy enough to try to drag Eugene through the horde? Does he think the rest will come with him if he does? Instead, the whole group becomes a screaming pile up just outside the horde's hearing. Everyone wants him to let go of Eugene, to accept that they can't go forward for now. Abraham is just too big for anyone to force him to let go of Eugene, who doesn't know what Abraham has planned and doesn't want to find out. All he knows is that Abraham is determined to take them to certain death on Eugene's account. And that's too many deaths on his head.
Eugene finally makes the confession readers of the book all knew was coming: he has no zombie cure. He's not even a scientist. He didn't even know T. Brooks Ellis, Director of the Human Genome. Abraham lets go, the others stare at Eugene in shock and grief. Rosita is already angry about all the people on their journey who died protecting Eugene, and he does a sort of penance by reciting their names. Tara realizes to herself just why Eugene would want to sabotage the bus, and keep delaying their arrival in D.C. Glenn tries to argue that Eugene does, in fact, know a lot. But that's Eugene's only talent. Well, that and lying. Eugene blurts out that he'd never be able to protect himself, and no one else would ever want to protect him. He's wanted to get to D.C., thinking that there would be a bunker there he could stay safely in, and whoever brought him there would get to safety too. So, Eugene's convinced himself it was a victimless crime.
Until yesterday, when Tara showed him that he could choose to be brave. Until today, when Abraham was angry enough to risk the entire group for his mission. With certain death from zombies one way, and certain anger and hatred from humans the other way, Eugene chose to spill his secret.
This is a major break from the comic, where Eugene confesses only after Rick catches him in a related lie so big that Eugene realizes the game's up. Here, Eugene chooses to confess in order to keep them from doing something that will get all killed. Here, Rick isn't around to expose any liar, which makes sense. It isn't Rick that Eugene's been conning from Houston. It's Abraham.
The same Abraham that woke up in that grocery store years ago, to find his wife and kids gone, a note telling him not to come after them all that's left. Abraham does the exact opposite, practically leaping to the door and out, but he's too late. They were eaten almost right away after leaving, their bodies laying around for him to find. He sobs over them for a while, then decides that he has nothing to live for as he rips his dog tags off and takes his gun out of his holster. He's literally about to blow his brains out when the pitiful, truly pitiful, moaning of a total moron with a Tennessee Top Hat drifts through the parking lot. Poor Eugene is truly terrified, and unable to outrun the three zombies shambling after him. Abraham takes pity on him, putting them down each with a quick blow from his gun butt.
Eugene is impressed with his new protector, and panics when Abraham, in no mood for company, wanders away. But, Eugene's clever. He improvises a reason why Abraham shouldn't walk away, calling out that he's got a mission. Abraham turns around. His face is no longer loose and blank. Abraham turns around ready for action. Ready for a mission.
And now, that mission is falling apart. Abraham takes it out directly on Eugene, hitting three times. The third time, Eugene's head goes right into the truck windshield, and he falls like a tree trunk onto the pavement, face first, motionless on the ground. Abraham wants to finish the job, but Rosita has decided that that's enough. She stands in Abraham's way, hand on her gun. While the others turn Eugene over, now concerned that he's dead, all Abraham can do is wander down the road, fall on his knees, and wish he was back at that goat rodeo.
His new mission is to collapse in a puddle
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