WARNING: The following article includes spoilers for The Walking Dead Season 10, Episode 12 "Walk With Us," which aired Sunday on AMC.
It’s been an odd week in the real world, making our current circumstances seem far closer to The Walking Dead than any of us would like. Yet, the most recent episode of the series, “Walk With Us,” demonstrates that things could be a lot worse while distracting us from our own troubles with some shocking developments.
The episode starts exactly where the previous episode left off. The Hilltoppers are trapped between Alpha’s horde and their burning community. It’s chaos but everyone keeps fighting.
True to his promise to Daryl in the last episode, Ezekiel leads the kids away from the mayhem. Then he notices that Judith is missing. Judith’s been itching to get into the fight from the beginning and she’s taken the opportunity to slay some walkers. We all know Judith can handle herself by now, but as she takes out a group of zombies, she stabs a Whisperer disguised as one. Before she can deliver the killing blow, he begs for his life, stopping Judith in her tracks. He then succumbs to his wounds as she watches the disconcerting sight. Earl finds Judith and leads her away.
As the battle rages on, Yumiko pulls back her bow to shoot a walker when she notices Magna staggering behind it. She freezes.
From Hilltop’s overlook, Carol watches the fight below as the community’s home burns.
THE WHISPERERS
The next day, the Whisperers are out killing the guardians that were hurt in the attack. Negan angers Alpha when he doesn’t take their lives by stabbing them through the heart instead of the head. Even in death, Alpha’s Whisperers don’t get out of their service to her. Negan comments the Whisperers don’t know how to savor a victory, but Alpha counters it’s not a victory because she doesn’t have everything she wants. Beta overhears and promises her he’ll get Lydia back for her. Beta then orders Negan to gather the walkers.
In a nearby clearing in the woods, Negan goes after a zombie that seems to be stumbling along to a jaunty beat in its head. Negan can’t bring himself to herd it to the horde, though. Instead, he bats it upside the head. As he gets ready to take out others that are coming his way, he sees Lydia limping in the distance.
He runs after her, only to encounter Aaron, who’s dragging a badly injured comrade along. Negan tries to convince Aaron to spare his life. Aaron won’t hear of it, but before he can take action against Negan, zombies start to approach from all sides. Negan scampers off as Aaron takes care of the problem.
Negan catches up with Lydia. She tries to fight him, but he easily subdues her.
KELLY, ALTON & MARY
Kelly and Alton are walking to a rendezvous point away from Hilltop. Alden’s carrying a crying Adam and Mary is walking a few feet behind them. Mary asks to help with the baby but Alden won’t let her. Finally, after he can’t comfort Adam, Alden relents. Mary calms her nephew almost immediately.
The small group stops for a moment to rest and eat when Mary hears something. She tells them they have to move moments before walkers are upon them. Mary makes sure Kelly, Alden and Adam are safe and then leads the walkers away. She kills them all, but just as she is reveling in her victory, Beta sneaks up behind her. As soon as she turns toward him, he stabs her in the abdomen. She tears at his mask, ripping part of it off. This leads Beta to jab the knife in deeper, killing her.
As he drags Mary’s body away, Beta encounters another Whisperer who’s thrilled to see him -- it's not clear whether this is because he recognizes him as Beta or because he can now recognize the famous person who’s rumored to be under Beta's mask. Either way, when the man won’t be sufficiently quiet, Beta kills him too.
He then waits for Mary to reanimate as a zombie. As she staggers toward Beta, Alden shoots Mary with an arrow from afar, causing Beta to run off.
YUMIKO, MAGNA, CAROL & EUGENE
Yumiko has reunited with Magna who is miraculously still alive but has clearly been through a lot. After being trapped in the cave, she and Connie found their way into Alpha’s horde, disguised themselves as zombies and went along with it when it was released for the attack on Hilltop. However, at some point, Connie and Magna got separated, and Magna never found Connie again.
Yumiko and Magna are in a group with Eugene, who’s trying to gather his destroyed radio equipment, and Carol. When Yumiko sees Carol retreat, she confronts her and asks why she hasn’t apologized to Magna for what happened. Carol says it won’t help and starts a bitter monologue, which Yumkio interrupts by punching Carol in the face. Magna isn’t nearly as upset at Carol as Yumiko is. Instead she tells Yumiko that she was right to kick her out and they should stay broken up.
Carol has settled down on a nearby log. When Eugene goes to check on her, she asks Eugene if he knows what it’s like to go after something so completely that you piss off everyone and, in the end, still have nothing to show for it. Eugene says he does and tells Carol he’s going to miss his big meeting with Stephanie because of what happened at Hilltop. Carol says if it’s important, he should still go.
DARYL, ROSITA, JERRY, EZEKIEL & THE KIDS
Daryl, Rosita, Jerry, Jerry’s injured wife and some others make it to the Hilltop rendezvous point. They expect the kids to be there but they’re nowhere to be found.
Instead, they’re holed up in a house with Earl. They lost Ezekiel at some point as they fled Hilltop and don’t know what happened to him. Earl doesn’t let the kids know, but he’s in bad shape. Judith goes to see him in another room. He’s honest with her -- he’s going to die and turn soon. She needs to keep the rest of the kids safe from him.
After she leaves, he gathers his courage and drives his head into a large nail. While the other kids sleep, Judith approaches Earl as he reanimates.
Meanwhile, Jerry and Daryl find Ezekiel under a metal panel. His first thought when he gets up is of the kids. He takes off to their location. The trio open the door to the house and the children come running out… except Judith. Daryl enters and finds her sitting in the corner with a permanently deceased Earl a few feet away. Daryl sits next to her and she quietly leans on him for comfort.
ALPHA & NEGAN &…
Back at the Whisperers’ camp, Negan tells Alpha that he found what she's been looking for. Negan has Lydia tied up in a house, but she’s struggling as hard as she can to break free. As Negan takes Alpha to her, Alpha informs him that she wants Negan to create a new tribe and roam the Earth. Negan points out that if Alpha were really looking for an heir, it would be Lydia. Then he tells her a story about losing his wife to pancreatic cancer before the zombie apocalypse.
After she died, Negan says he stopped feeling anything. According to him, that’s been his strength. In Negan’s mind his inability to feel means he’s dead, but Alpha, he observes, is just pretending to be. He then proceeds to question her whole Whisperer philosophy, and notes that denying emotions and saying people are animals isn’t really a strength. He thinks Alpha’s plan to kill Lydia is wrong because Alpha still loves her daughter.
Alpha agrees that she loves Lydia, but says killing her will set her free. Alpha and Negan kiss and then walk with purpose towards the shack where Negan has Lydia. Their conversation has delayed them enough that Lydia’s had time to break her bonds and free herself.
It turns out Lydia was never in any real danger from Alpha, though. When Alpha opens the door to the shack, no one’s there. Negan lied to her, Lydia is somewhere completely different. As Alpha turns around to question Negan, he slashes her throat. Alpha then exhibits some pretty genuine emotions as she dies.
The next we see her, Negan is rolling Alpha’s zombified head towards someone. It’s Carol. She’s not at all surprised to see him. “Took you long enough,” she informs him. So, after all this time we know it was Carol who let Negan out of the prison in Alexandria. In fact, she’s been playing a long game to claim Alpha’s life this whole time, and her plan has now hurt and killed many of her own people. Clearly, Carol has a lot to answer for. That might have to wait, though. Once Beta discovers Alpha’s gone, the Whisperer War could become even more brutal.
The Walking Dead stars Norman Reedus, Danai Gurira, Melissa McBride, Josh McDermitt, Christian Serratos, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Seth Gilliam, Ross Marquand, Khary Payton, Cooper Andrews and Samantha Morton. It airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on AMC.