Post by xystophoros on Feb 20, 2017 20:26:17 GMT
(Also cross-posted to the Soap Opera forum.)
"New Best Friends" begins with King Ezekiel and his royal retainers meeting the Saviors to pay tribute. As usual, the Saviors are terse and insulting, and one of their meth heads, a guy named Gavin, starts a confrontation with Richard by trying to take away Richard's gun. Morgan hits Gavin with his stick, and Gavin takes Morgan's stick. Morgan is very upset by this and asks for his stick back, but Head Savior tells him, "Read the room, sensei" and the Saviors depart.
It's not clear why, out of every other character on the show, the Saviors don't show direct disrespect to King Ezekiel, but they don't. They make everyone else grovel, and they show no regard for the wishes of the people they subjugate, but somehow Ezekiel has managed to strike a deal with them that keeps their existence hidden from his people, and somehow keeps the Saviors from taunting and insulting him the way they do to Rick and Gregory, the Hilltop's leader.
Back at the junkyard, Rick and company are surrounded by a group of stoic, silent people led by a woman whose head looks like a penis. Her name is Jadis, she speaks only in fragmented sentences, and she looks like Anna Wintour if Anna Wintour's stylish grandma clothes were taken away and she was run over by a steamroller. Also, she's prone to dramatic hand-gestures which are apparently meant to convey command, a quirk the writers probably gave themselves enormous props for when they were writing this script.
Penis isn't very welcoming, and she's taken Gabriel hostage (along with stealing Alexandria's food supplies), but despite that, Rick wears a goofy smile during their initial parlay, because he thinks he can recruit Penis and the Junkyard People to his anti-Neganite Crusade.
After proving that Gabriel is alive and unharmed, Penis instructs her minions to "show Rick the up up up," which apparently means taking him to the highest junk pile so he can survey Penis' vast empire of garbage. It's here that Penis admits her people had been keeping watch on a riverboat full of supplies that Rick and Aaron had raided several episodes ago. Why didn't the Junkyard People just scavenge the riverboat supplies themselves?
"We take, we don't bother," Penis gravely informs Rick, meaning her group is either the laziest or most cowardly (or both) group depicted in the show so far.
Despite this, Rick has to "prove" himself to this woman with a phallus-shaped head, and Penis starts the trial by fire by unceremoniously tossing Rick into a junkyard pit where he's forced to face off with one of the zombies from Resident Evil.
Rick defeats the Resident Evil zombie, and any number of the past versions of Rick would have murdered Penis right then and there, but instead he agrees to be her errand boy and bring her "guns, lots and lots of guns" by some nebulous deadline.
The encounter with Penis and the Junkyard People ends with Penis' deputies warning Rick: "Guns. Soon." Then one of her lieutenants, a stick-thin man, adds: "Or else." Or else what? This is a group that's so lazy they won't even scavenge their own supplies and won't confront anyone, but Rick's got it in his head that they'd somehow be capable fighters and would help him take on Negan and the Saviors, if only he completes the quests they give him and earns enough XP. Or else.
Back at The Kingdom, His Majesty accompanies his minions on walker-clearing duty. After tripping one of Emo Carol's wires, Carol turns off the Dashboard Confessional album she'd been blasting and opens the door. Jerry offers Carol a casserole. Then Durl shows up and he has an emotional reunion with Emo Carol. We know it's supposed to be emotional because there's emotional music whilst they hug. Durl, seeing the fragile emotional state of Emo Carol, lies when Emo Carol asks him if anyone was hurt during Alexandria's confrontation with the Saviors.
"They came. We got 'em all," Durl explains.
Later, Morgan calls Durl out for his lie, and the two of them have a nice chat while petting Shiva the tiger. Morgan cries about being the one who has to recruit The Kingdom to Rick's cause, and the episode ends.
Tune in next week for an exciting, highly-anticipated Eugene-centric episode that will probably involve Negan repeating the same dialog and doing the same things he's been doing all season now, just to remind the audience that he's such a tough guy and a badass. People have been waiting for a Eugene-only episode for a long time, and it looks like the writers finally obliged!
"New Best Friends" begins with King Ezekiel and his royal retainers meeting the Saviors to pay tribute. As usual, the Saviors are terse and insulting, and one of their meth heads, a guy named Gavin, starts a confrontation with Richard by trying to take away Richard's gun. Morgan hits Gavin with his stick, and Gavin takes Morgan's stick. Morgan is very upset by this and asks for his stick back, but Head Savior tells him, "Read the room, sensei" and the Saviors depart.
It's not clear why, out of every other character on the show, the Saviors don't show direct disrespect to King Ezekiel, but they don't. They make everyone else grovel, and they show no regard for the wishes of the people they subjugate, but somehow Ezekiel has managed to strike a deal with them that keeps their existence hidden from his people, and somehow keeps the Saviors from taunting and insulting him the way they do to Rick and Gregory, the Hilltop's leader.
Back at the junkyard, Rick and company are surrounded by a group of stoic, silent people led by a woman whose head looks like a penis. Her name is Jadis, she speaks only in fragmented sentences, and she looks like Anna Wintour if Anna Wintour's stylish grandma clothes were taken away and she was run over by a steamroller. Also, she's prone to dramatic hand-gestures which are apparently meant to convey command, a quirk the writers probably gave themselves enormous props for when they were writing this script.
Penis isn't very welcoming, and she's taken Gabriel hostage (along with stealing Alexandria's food supplies), but despite that, Rick wears a goofy smile during their initial parlay, because he thinks he can recruit Penis and the Junkyard People to his anti-Neganite Crusade.
After proving that Gabriel is alive and unharmed, Penis instructs her minions to "show Rick the up up up," which apparently means taking him to the highest junk pile so he can survey Penis' vast empire of garbage. It's here that Penis admits her people had been keeping watch on a riverboat full of supplies that Rick and Aaron had raided several episodes ago. Why didn't the Junkyard People just scavenge the riverboat supplies themselves?
"We take, we don't bother," Penis gravely informs Rick, meaning her group is either the laziest or most cowardly (or both) group depicted in the show so far.
Despite this, Rick has to "prove" himself to this woman with a phallus-shaped head, and Penis starts the trial by fire by unceremoniously tossing Rick into a junkyard pit where he's forced to face off with one of the zombies from Resident Evil.
Rick defeats the Resident Evil zombie, and any number of the past versions of Rick would have murdered Penis right then and there, but instead he agrees to be her errand boy and bring her "guns, lots and lots of guns" by some nebulous deadline.
The encounter with Penis and the Junkyard People ends with Penis' deputies warning Rick: "Guns. Soon." Then one of her lieutenants, a stick-thin man, adds: "Or else." Or else what? This is a group that's so lazy they won't even scavenge their own supplies and won't confront anyone, but Rick's got it in his head that they'd somehow be capable fighters and would help him take on Negan and the Saviors, if only he completes the quests they give him and earns enough XP. Or else.
Back at The Kingdom, His Majesty accompanies his minions on walker-clearing duty. After tripping one of Emo Carol's wires, Carol turns off the Dashboard Confessional album she'd been blasting and opens the door. Jerry offers Carol a casserole. Then Durl shows up and he has an emotional reunion with Emo Carol. We know it's supposed to be emotional because there's emotional music whilst they hug. Durl, seeing the fragile emotional state of Emo Carol, lies when Emo Carol asks him if anyone was hurt during Alexandria's confrontation with the Saviors.
"They came. We got 'em all," Durl explains.
Later, Morgan calls Durl out for his lie, and the two of them have a nice chat while petting Shiva the tiger. Morgan cries about being the one who has to recruit The Kingdom to Rick's cause, and the episode ends.
Tune in next week for an exciting, highly-anticipated Eugene-centric episode that will probably involve Negan repeating the same dialog and doing the same things he's been doing all season now, just to remind the audience that he's such a tough guy and a badass. People have been waiting for a Eugene-only episode for a long time, and it looks like the writers finally obliged!