The Walking Dead Episode 704 recap and preview for next week
Michonne wakes, uneasy. She slips downstairs, pulls a rifle from its hiding place in the fireplace, and leaves. Rick watches, unbeknownst to Michonne. He is flummoxed. Michonne goes out to a rusted out car in the middle of an enormous field. She climbs atop the car. Sits. Waits. Eventually a zombie stumbles into the field. Michonne shoots – and misses. She shoots again, misses again. A dozen bullets later, and the zombie is still moving towards her. Frustrated, she jumps off the car and slices its head in half like a melon with her sword. She leaves it in the field and starts to walk home. She passes by a deer and sees that one of the bullets caught it in the neck. She looks sad.
In Alexandria, Rosita and Spencer are going out to scavenge for goods for the Saviors for when they come. Negan shows up, his silhouette unmistakable through the tarp-covered gate. Spencer opens up and plays dumb until Rick arrives. He is pissed – Negan said a week. He’s early. Negan claims he missed Rick. A walker wanders up, and Negan dispatches it with a single whack of Lucille. A lot of other Saviors appear – including Daryl. Daryl can’t look at Rick; he is ashamed. Negan has Rick hold Lucille while he takes in the splendor of Alexandria. He is impressed with the place. Rick tries to speak with Daryl, but Negan cuts that out, saying Daryl is “the help.” After staring lustily at Rosita, making her uncomfortable enough to stomp off, Negan demands a tour while his troops search the grounds for cool stuff. Dwight takes a couple of guns from Rosita’s car, then sends her off to go find Daryl’s bike. Spencer joins her.
Negan is “pleased as punch” to see his Saviors taking half the furniture and all sorts of other goodies. One of his men brings him a video camera with Rick’s entrance interview on it. Negan is impressed. He would not have messed with that guy. “But that’s not you anymore.” He asks about “the sick girl,” Maggie, and makes some unsettling comments about wanting to bang the sorrow out of her. Rick doesn’t answer, implying she didn’t make it. As “proof,” Rick takes Negan to an unmarked grave. He is bummed; he was going to take Maggie back to his compound. Gunshots interrupt his soliloquy.
Carl has a gun pointed at Davy, who is taking all their medication, even though they are only supposed to take half their stuff. Carl threatens to show him how dangerous they all are, but Negan declares it is he who decides how much “half” is. Carl relents, and Negan is reminded of how many guns they have. “They are all mine now.” Olivia is waiting for them in the pantry, and takes several of the Saviors to the armory. Negan generously points out to Rick that they aren’t taking any of their food. There isn’t much there, and if they have starved to death, there will be no one to collect for him. Negan wants a thank you, which Rick won’t give. He assures Negan that all the guns are in the armory – to the best of his knowledge.
Sure enough, that is not all the guns. There are two handguns on the inventory list that weren’t in the armory. Rick tries to explain that someone who isn’t there probably has them, but Negan isn’t buying it. He is nervous because of the gun Michonne took, but that was not on the list. Negan wants Rick and his people to find the two missing guns, or he will kill Olivia.
Rick pow-wows with his people in the church, admits that he thought about hiding guns like he had done before, but he is worried the Saviors would find them, or find the Alexandrians with the guns. Even with more bullets, the Saviors win. One guy asks why they care about a couple of guns. Rick can’t put into words the power trip that Negan has been raging on since the world ended. “You weren’t there,” Rick insists of the long night on his knees. “If we give them what they want, we can live in peace.” Another guy asks how they are going to get out of this. “We’re not,” Rick says flatly. “I’m not in charge anymore. Negan is.”
While the Alexandrians are tearing the community apart, looking for those two guns, Rosita and Spencer are retrieving Daryl’s bike. As Spencer pulls it from the brush, he rails against Rick, blaming him for the position they all are in now. He realizes Rosita isn’t listening – she isn’t even there. She has chased something into the woods. Walkers. She moves towards them, but Spencer calls out to her, drawing their attention and making Rosita work fast to kill them. These were the men who killed Denise, and she knew they had guns. That was what she was doing there: getting a single gun, because she knows Negan was going to take all their guns.
Rick finally finds the two missing guns in a hidden cubby in Spencer’s house, beneath some canned food and a bottle of liquor. Outside, a Savior is messing with Enid, who just wants her balloons back. He makes her beg, then drops them. Carl looks to his dad, and is disappointed when all he does is assure his son they will be gone soon. Negan is pleased when Rick turns over the guns, but warns Rick to make sure all his people are on board.
As the Saviors are finishing up, Rosita and Spencer return with the motorcycle. Rick spies Michonne hiding out in a burned-out house at the gate and begs Negan for a minute. He rushes to her, and begs for the rifle. “If you keep it and they find it, someone dies,” Rick implores, “and I’m not losing anyone else!” The two return and Rick hands over the rifle. He is proud of Rick for getting the message. But now that Negan knows Rick can follow the rules, he wants Daryl to stay. Negan gives Daryl the opportunity to state his case, but he says nothing. Negan packs Daryl into the truck, along with the deer Michonne shot. The Saviors took all their guns, most of their beds, and a lot of furniture. Dwight tells Rosita that Daryl can have his motorcycle back, he just has to ask for it.
Negan proudly points out that in Rick’s second meeting with him, no one died. If he wants Negan to leave, Rick just has to say those “two magic words.” With difficulty, Rick says “thank you.” Another walker approaches, and Negan points out how much they need him around. As he takes a candlestick to the walker’s head, Rick tightens his grip on Lucille, which he still has possession of. But he has no fight left in him, and he doesn’t make a move on Negan. Negan hasn’t forgotten about Lucille, and when he returns to Rick to take the bat, he whispers in his ear, “In case you haven’t noticed, I just slipped my dick down your throat, and you thanked me for it.”
As soon as Negan and the Saviors leave, Rick goes to Spencer and tells him he found his guns. Spencer is more concerned that Rick went into his house than he is that Olivia’s life was in danger. The two spar verbally, and when Spencer brings up Abraham and Glenn, Rick threatens to knock his teeth in. Rick leaves, and now it is Rosita’s turn to be furious with Spencer. He could have told her, especially after all the trouble she went through to get the one gun earlier today. Spencer did it because he still doesn’t trust Rick. Rosita pockets the hidden gun, clearly not planning on telling anyone about it. Later that night she finds a shell casing from a shot Negan fired off earlier in the day. She takes it to Eugene. “Make me a bullet.”
Michonne enters the house and sees Rick setting up a “bed” for them. They don’t have mattresses anymore, so it is just some blankets on the floor. She is mad that he handed over a gun they didn’t know they had, and should have hidden more. Rick defends himself: if they play by the “rules,” they get some kind of life. “What kind of life?!” Michonne explodes. Rick finally tells her about Shane, about how he was sleeping with Lori, and how he knows Judith isn’t his. “I love her, she’s my daughter, but she isn’t mine. I had to accept that so I could keep her alive.” He wants to raise her and teach her things; this is how they have to live now to keep people alive. Michonne reminds him it is not his fault when someone dies. “Sometimes. But sometimes it is,” Rick says. “You have to accept how this is now, or it won’t work.” Michonne promises to try.
The next day, Michonne goes out to the field. She doesn’t have a gun, so she just sits. She notices smoke in the air and goes to investigate. Up the road, she sees their mattresses, all in a big, smoldering pile. The Saviors took them and burned them, a final “f*ck you” to Rick and his group.
You can watch a preview and a clip for next week’s episode, titled “Go Getters” and airing on Sunday, November 20.