We come in peace, we guess
Their caution, their hesitancy to accept that Alexandria, its safety, and its reproduction of normalcy is completely understandable. And Deanna, Alexandria's poker playing, people reading matriarch, completely understands. Actress Tovah Feldshuh, plays her cool, confident, and filming every interview. This means their first interactions are private, but will eventually be known by anyone else interested in watching. The place resembles, more than any other, Zaofu from Legend of Korra. And Deanna resembles Zaofu's multi-talented, almost always calm matriarch. To the point I was expecting metal bending.
Speaking softly, but you know there's a big stick somewhere
One of Deanna's most interesting points, is that she represents a male character from the graphic novel. Instead of Douglas Monroe, we get Deanna. Not so sexually interested in the townspeople (her graphic novel version is a dirty old man), and not really worried if newcomers knock her son out in the driveway while the gate remains open. The newbies are just what she's been looking for, and not just because one can become the constable. You know, despite the episode constantly showing Rick ambivalent about the place, that he's staying when Deanna gives him the time and he just goes ahead and resets his watch.
Alexandria is really just a commune, where Aaron will show them there new homes, all ready for new people to move in and start reading books and re-decorate. Where Carol will dress business casual to cook for those who can't. Where Carl will be asked to play video games, and obsess over the neighbor girl. Where a shower is followed by an impromptu care package and hair cut from neighbor Jesse. Where neighbors will treat little Judith like a celebrity. Deanna assigns work to each community member, after interviewing them and determining what makes them tick. She outright admits it's all very communist, after she's explained that the place was designed as an bourgeoisie environmentalist's wet dream. It really just needs a Trader Joe's. So, basically, I'm totally going to establish a place like this myself one day.
Various characters all react to Deanna's interview. Rick gradually eases into his seat as he and Deanna slowly bond. Daryl clutches the possum he shot right before entering, pacing the floor on the other side of the coffee table. Carol treats it like a an interview for a job she really wants, even whitewashing her dead husband's terrible character and never, on camera, mentioning Sophia. Carl sits with Judith on his lap, practically daring Deanna to even think about refusing shelter to a tweenie who had to end his mother and his baby sister. Carl is practically Oliver Twist. When is AMC going to make the rest of the interviews and post them to the website? One wonders how Eugene's went. Did he admit how dishonest he was? Did Rick ever mention Shane? Did Abraham mention his wife? Did Tara admit to helping the Governor storm the prison? Did Gabriel confess to letting his own parishioners die?
Once interviews are done, the gang finally decides they're willing to give the place a chance. They're even willing to turn in their guns, keeping hand weapons and Darryl's cross bow. But, that cart is full of guns, some of which are pointed directly at the woman who wheels them away. Just sayin'.
The rest of the show is just our survivors camped out in the living room, or Darryl not even willing to come inside. They decide to stay together, for the first two nights. No one complains about this scenario, not even Deanna, who promises that she's working on jobs for them all, even Darryl. The confrontations with zombies could all have been avoided. Rick, somehow, just decides to wander outside the walls, checking each of the bracing poles that, maybe not smartly, have been placed on the outside. Just saying, tension cables on the inside would have done the same job and not be accessible to anyone walking by. He goes to the blender, probably to have one gun Alexandria doesn't confiscate, and discovers it's missing. Did Carl find it and keep it? Carl joins him, after having followed fellow newbie Enid outside the walls, too.
Enid, recently moved into Alexandria, can't hate the place or it's people enough, and she ingeniously has a way of quietly climbing the wall using the holes in the post and a piece of steel rod. Carl's looking for her, maybe thinking she knows some terrible truth about this place, when he finds Rick at the blender and together, the two get in a little zombie-killing practice.
Glen and Tara get stuck with Aidan, who just happens to be Deanna's grown son, and Aidan's friend Number Two. Aidan and Number Two have been playing with a zombie that killed a friend recently. Glen and Tara, despite their toughness, are horrified at the unnecessary risk and ghoulish futility of it. You can't get revenge against the dead, although we've seen Tyrese and Sasha try. Other characters always pull them back, as there's no use in getting angry at predators who have no other function except to hunt you. There's no revenge to be obtained from the dead. You just put them down and move on.
When Glen and Tara storm back into Alexandria's gates, which are just allowed to stand open while they bicker with Aidan and Number Two, a fight ensues. Aidan gets his ROTC ass kicked quick and easy by now hipster-looking Glen.
Have to admit, this was satisfying
Deanna makes a point of announcing to all that these newbies aren't for hazing or treating like servants. They're here, they're valuable to the community, and residents mis-treat them at their own risk. After which, she calmly gives Rick and Michonne the job of dealing with all future fights. Rick scores a police uniform somewhere, including a spiffy black jacket and tie. Carol threatens to hose Darryl down if he doesn't take a shower. And Rick decides that it's okay if the group wants to split up and use the second house they've got. Enid mysteriously returns to Alexandria, because Carl's got to obsess over something for the rest of the season.
Various characters admit to each other that the people of Alexandria are soft. Most haven't been outside the walls for who knows how long. They've had electricity and hot water and hair cuts. A couple like to take stupid risks outside the walls. The gang isn't relaxing their guard because they trust their new neighbors. They just realize that even if Deanna wanted to kill them all, she doesn't have anyone who possibly could. That we know of, at least.
The only problem, the only thing that could screw them all, is, as always, Rick. Michonne and Rick discuss how this place might work out after all. Unfortunately for Rick, it's not a place he built himself with his own family. This place has its own ways, and even a creepy husband for Jesse, who will totally turn out to be a wife-beater. I don't really feel like that's a spoiler. Alexandria's only fault is that Rick is going to get the leeway he needs to take it for himself at the first sign that he doesn't get his way.
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