THE WALKING DEAD SEASON 5 EPISODE 7 – CROSSED

This episode starts with Daryl back at the church which they are trying their best to fortify in order to make it safe for the ones they will be leaving behind when they head off to Atlanta to rescue Carol and Beth. Rick talks to Michonne as he was torn between wanting to stay to protect his kids and going off to save Carol. Michonne offered to go in his place but Rick vowed he owes much more to Carol. And so with one final hug goodbye to Judith, Rick and the others left Michonne, Karl, Judith and Father Gabriel at the church. Michonne and Karl proceed to nail the door shut as Father Gabriel who seemed to be on the verge of having a nervous breakdown (with all the blood and violence he had seen lately) was vigorously trying to scrub away the blood stains on his church floor as if making them clean again would make his memories of it go away.

Tyreese tries his best to talk to Sasha and draw her out but she keeps shutting him and everyone else out. Meanwhile, at the countryside Eugene is still passed out despite efforts of Maggie and Tara to revive him. Eugene remains immobile, just kneeling by the side of the road, obviously still enraged over the recent turn of events until Maggie points a gun at him to calm him down. Rick’s group make plans at an abandoned warehouse to retake their friends/hostages from the hospital. Rick initially planned to take the hospital silently but swiftly, killing anyone who gets in their way. But Tyreese suggested another, less violent way to lure Dawn’s cops out and take them as hostages then seek for an exchange with Dawn. Daryl sided with Ty on the plan and so Rick had no choice but to back down.

Back at the church, Karl tries to teach Father Gabriel how to defend himself but it seems he can’t really handle much violence so instead he excuses himself to lie down. Then, Beth overhears a cop talking to Dawn convincing her to let the new patient die because they just don’t have that much resource anymore. Beth decided to walk over and question whether the cop’s daily use and charging of his DVD is more important than saving one life. But Dawn gives in to the cop’s demand and orders Beth to turn off the machines and if Carol pulls thru on her own then she’s fine. When the cop left, Dawn berated Beth for talking as she had just ‘killed’ Carol. Dawn said she had no choice but to side with the cop and not with Beth. Instead, Dawn gave Beth the key to the drug locker so she would be the one to save Carol by herself. I guess this woman truly is crazy!

Glenn, Tara and Rosita head off to get some water at a nearby creek while Maggie stayed behind to keep watch over Abraham and Eugene. At the creek, while waiting for the water to get clear (as Eugene taught Rosita to do), she tells them the story of how they all ended up being together. They also managed to catch a fish in the river and bring it back to camp for them all to eat. Maggie covers up Eugene to keep the sun away then talks to Abraham to get over himself since they all lost something too when they all learned that there was no cure waiting for them in Washington. Beth was able to get the name of the drug she needs from the doctor then proceeds to get it with the help of some strawberries she gave to an orderly to make a distraction.

Rick and his group then carry out their plan to capture Dawn’s cops by making Noah as bait. They get two but before they can take them back to the warehouse, two more arrive to rescue them. The group gets separated and Daryl gets faced with one of the mean cops and as he lay down on the ground being choked to death, he used a zombie head to take his opponent down. Then Rick arrives but instead of just letting Rick kill the guy he prevailed upon Rick to save the cop saying three hostages are better than two. I guess Daryl had changed from being the guy who would shoot first and ask questions later. The group head back with their hostages to the abandoned warehouse and they craft a plan together with the cops where they learned that some of them are already planning to usurp power from Dawn and were unsatisfied with her leadership. One of them, named Bob, offered to help Rick’s group as he claims to have known Dawn for eight years.

Back at the church, Michonne makes one final check on Fr. Gabriel and tells him that there are just some things they (Rick’s group) need to do in order to survive. But Gabriel responds instead by taking out the floorboards in his room and sneaked out of the church. On his way out, he steps on a nail and limps out into the woods and chanced upon a female walker but as he was about to bash its head with a rock, he saw a crucifix on its neck and so he just left it there. Tyreese was finally able to get through to Sasha who freaks out when Bob’s shirt was ripped. Ty reminds her that it is OK to ask for help and she finally did respond by giving her brother a hug. But she was easily duped by one of Dawn’s cops who gave her a sad story about knowing one of the ‘walkers’ who had already melted to the street and so Sasha offered to help him shoot the walker out of its misery. Instead, he knocks her out and runs off presumably to warn Dawn about Rick and his group.

Despite the many quiet moments of this episode, I guess I still enjoyed it as it deviated from previous episodes that focused on only one group and their story. This time, all three groups were shown and we all got to know what happened to Abraham’s group who were on their way to Washington, Rick’s group who headed to Atlanta to rescue Beth and Carol, and the church group left behind with Fr. Gabriel sneaking off to God knows where. I just hope Gabriel finds whatever is coming for him outside of the church walls. It seems to be like his guilty conscience had been catching up on him lately and I just hope he doesn’t bring his bad karma on the other members of the group as well.

(photo grabbed from the AMC)