*Spoilers*

After lasts week’s episode dealing with the aftermath of the initial attack at Sanctuary and how the Saviors were coping, this week decided to jump to the point that everyone returned home… well nearly everyone. Rick, appearing to have completely overlooked/forgotten about his helicopter encounter, decides to head off on his own little apparent suicide mission to see the filthy trash people (who have been rather absent from this so-called “war” that has been the key focus of this season so far).
So the title of the episode is “The King, the Widow, and Rick,” and these are the primary focal point of the episode, other than a little side story with Carl, introducing a character from the comic books, and another over the top storyline with Rosita and Michonne, as neither of these characters have actually done anything since the start of the season, and the writers felt they needed to bring them into it. It seems that with such a big cast, the writers struggle to fit everyone in, so they need to devote an entire episode to them, allowing us to see a few of their uninteresting storylines which take us away from main point of the season. I am dreading when we have the obligatory Enid episode which will no doubt be on the horizon.


So let’s go through the main stories of the episode…
First up is Carl’s rather slow story following on from his appearance in the season première when he found a strange dirty looking man, only for him to be scared off by Rick wildly firing his gun into the air.
Well Carl is now mucking around in woods on his own (as the creators need to use their woodland land that they own as much as possible to get their money’s worth) and randomly bumping into this man once again. It appears he has been living on his own for some time, drinking filthy rain water out of a plastic bag.
It turns out this character is Siddiq, which is a character in the comics who, at this time, has no real back story but appears more frequently in the current comics timeline. So it was quite interesting to see what the show made of him and his first appearance, given that there is nothing to draw a reference to. As this season (and the last few seasons really) have been drawn heavily from the comics and you can always see the moments that the creators try and recreate straight out of the pages.
This story is the only one that had any real zombie action in it, when Siddiq and Carl get into a little scuffle with them. It is interesting to note that Siddiq believes that they should be killed to allow their souls to rest, and even appears to go out of his way to kill them (which causes their undead predicament), so it will be intriguing to see if this causes any further issues, such as deliberately focusing on killing Walkers and putting himself in danger.
Carl gave him the “Questions” test as if to invite him to join their community. Introducing new characters at this time makes me feel as if the show is intending on continuing, despite the record low ratings, as well as my own personal feelings on this matter.

Elsewhere, miserable Rosita and Michonne decide to go and take a look a Sanctuary for themselves and along the way they run into a couple of Saviors who appear to be hooking up a vehicle with speakers in an attempt to lure the Walkers away from Sanctuary.
Rosita continues to make stupid mistakes that the writers think look cool (such as attempting to kill Negan and missing firing from point blank range). This time she decides to fire an RPG at a single Savior, comically turning him into a cloud of pink mist, whilst the other Savior jumps into the vehicle and drives off, leaving Michonne and Rosita standing there thinking “Damn… I wish I had a rocket propelled grenade to fire at it!”. Thankfully Daryl; the boy wonder, and Tara (of all people) show up to crash the vehicle and kill the escaping Savior (who was most likely trying to lure the dead away from Sanctuary to help her terminally ill father and her children trapped inside… but I guess we will never know now).
It seems that Daryl and Tara have decided to kill Dwight for his past crimes, and they take Rosita and Michonne to see what fate has befallen Negan’s Sanctuary.
It did answer a few questions with regards to the fact that the united forces have snipers posted all around to fire at anyone attempting to open the door, as well as telling us that the entire first half of the season has only been a day and a half.
However, the shots from the snipers show them having clear line of sight to the balcony that Negan and his lieutenants were standing on in the first episode of the season, allowing them to easily kill him without the need to starving all the innocent people inside. But let’s not focus on that.

Daryl is continuing his vendetta, now recruiting a few extra team members to join him on his quest for revenge, and appears to be hatching some plan to speed up the fall of Sanctuary, but I have a feeling this might lead to their escape.

Moving on, Maggie is dealing with what to do with the prisoners captured by Jesus previously. Jesus is now giving them food and treating them humanely, despite everyone else wanting them dead. Maggie is starting to come around to Jesus’ side of thinking, but I think that this might have something to do with Gregory constantly whispering in her ear what she SHOULD be doing, and if Maggie is anything like my wife, she will do the complete opposite just to spite me.

Why is that weasel Savior still alive? The one with the long hair that everyone hates and appears to be pissing off everyone, including other Saviors? Surely this guy needs to die. I have a feeling he will cause a lot more issues before he is finally put down, but I eagerly away the moment when that happens.

Maggie arranged for a prison yard to be constructing inside the Hilltop to keep the Saviors in, as keeping them locked up to the outside wall does seem a little harsh. It appears that most of the Saviors are thankful for this… other than the weasel one who is hell bent on causing trouble.
Gregory thinks that this is a bad idea and that they should just be executed, as these people cannot be trusted, at which point Maggie has him locked up in there as well! Gregory naturally tried to resist and ended up getting his head busted open, and now sorrowfully and bleeding, sits inside the prison yard with a bunch of murderers who have clearly seen him change his allegiance back over to the Hilltop’s side. So I can imagine he is just starting his soon to be hell of a time.

Finally we have Rick who has decided to single handedly go and deal with the trash people. We see their leader, and the rest of the trash people, being just odd. Really odd. They are naked in aprons, making garbage statues and talking in their Neanderthal way. I mean if Siddiq has been living in the woods on his own for years, why are these trash people talking like this?
Anyway, Rick turns up their on his own and tries to convince them to join their side, using those poloroids he has been collecting as evidence of the Savior’s fall from grace (which answers that question as well).
The trash people reject Rick’s offer and lock him up (naked) inside a shipping container.


Now, the thing is you know where you stand with the Saviors. They are your enemy. You shoot to kill them, or take out their leader and have the people living under them through fear turned over to your side. And I thought this would be the case with the Trash people… but Rick stupidly believes that he can turn them over to the side of good and justice.
The trash people have already betrayed them and proven that they cannot be trusted. They are a clear enemy and need to be completely wiped out. They appear unable to adjust to normal lives, which is what the great goal is, and rather than being left alone, they are getting involved and killing people. They need to die. It’s as simple as that. I know Rick obviously has a plan, as he is not stupid enough to just go in there unarmed and on his own, but really he just needed a large strike force to take them out and be done with them.
That’s my opinion on this anyway.

Overall, while the episode is moves the story forward and does answer a few questions here and there, it was a much slower episode than the others that we have seen. The moments with Gregory were enjoyable for me, as you may know, if you have been following my reviews, that I have a soft spot for the man and really like his character, maybe even sympathising with him a little.
But unfortunately it was a rather forgettable episode, which will hopefully build up the story for a big pay-off later on in the season. Here’s to hoping anyway.