We start this episode off at The Kingdom, where King Ezekiel (Khary Payton) and his guardians are preparing a truck. This isn’t just any regular preparation though, instead they put one small basket in the back, tie it down, and then put a cantaloupe in the basket. King Ezekiel checks out the small piece of fruit in the big, empty truck before taking a step back and letting his team close the doors.
Interesting… could he be setting a trap for the Saviors?
In the next shot we return to Carol (Melissa McBride), who awakes in the middle of the night from a nightmare that has left her in tears. Once the sun rises she hits the road with nothing but her backpack, a rifle and a large knife. She makes it back to the Kingdom safely, and devises a clever plan to take out the handful of walkers at the gate when she arrives.
As she’s doing this the gate guards, including Benjamin, emerge to find she’s already done their job for them. Carol breezes past them without a word, but Benjamin follows her inside to see if she’s okay. Carol turns to address him, but only to ask one question: “Where’s Morgan?” Benjamin takes her to Morgan, and without even saying hello she starts asking questions.
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She wants to know why Jesus (Tom Payne) brought Daryl (Norman Reedus) and the rest of the group to meet Ezekiel. Morgan tells her that they wanted to start “working together” on “things.” Then Carol asks for the truth about the Saviors, and if what Daryl said was true: is everyone okay? Morgan won’t answer her and instead tells her that she needs to find Daryl and talk to him.
This brings Carol to tears because it confirms her obvious suspicions, that no, not everyone is okay, and something is terribly wrong. Morgan offers to go back to Alexandria with Carol right at that very moment so she can get the answers she’s looking for, but she refuses. Instead she leaves the Kingdom, only to be stopped once more by Benjamin. He mentions that they have a “drop” today, but he would willingly miss it to walk her home and see how she does things. It’s the “drop” that got Carol to stop and listen, but then she brushes him off once more before walking through the gates.
On her way home, Carol comes across a walker she had only knocked down — not killed. The walker now has a massive head wound that put it out of it’s misery, and for a moment she looks around to see if anyone else is there. When she keeps walking back to the cottage we see someone lurking around the corner, and a moment later it’s revealed to be Richard. Once Carol is gone he walks back around the brick building to a hole in the ground where nothing but a backpack with the name “Katy” is inside. He hesitates for a moment before he keeps digging, covering the backpack up. Weird.
The Saviors Give The Kingdom Trouble
Meanwhile, King Ezekiel gets some bad news: some of the Kingdom’s crops are infested and need to be burned and started all over again. This gives us some insight into that opening scene, which means a dreadful meeting with the Saviors is upon us. In another part of the Kingdom, Benjamin comes to grab Morgan for their drop, but first gives him back his book and hands over an additional gift: a painting for his wall. Before they leave, Richard approaches Morgan and apologizes for how tense things have been between them. However, he does tell him that he still thinks he’s wrong about not wanting to kill, and that one day he won’t have a choice.
They come across a road block on their way to meet the Saviors. It’s a line of shopping carts in the form of an arrow that leads them behind a brick building where a shallow grave has been dug. We immediately recognize that it’s where Richard was, which means he set this trap to freak everyone out. Over the grave is a sign that reads, “Bury me here.” Nice touch, Richard!
It’s unclear what Richard was trying to accomplish, but his little stunt ends up making them late to meet with the Saviors. Ezekiel’s right hand man, Jerry, gets hit in the head by one of the Saviors, which leaves the King stunned. Things get worse when they see the “offering” is only a few cantaloupes. Apparently the Saviors asked for 12 but the Kingdom only brought 11. Another one of Richard’s stunts? The Saviors force the Kingdom folk to hand over their guns, and then the leader gives the okay to handle the situation. One Savior puts his gun cocked into Richard’s face (talk about karma), but when Richard tells him to just “do it” the guy turns his gun and shoots Benjamin in the leg. Oh, no!
Benjamin falls to the floor and Morgan immediately drops to help him, but when Ezekiel begs to be able to leave and get Benjamin help the Savior leader refuses. Instead he tells him that he has to bring the balance — one mere cantaloupe — tomorrow. Not more, not less… or someone else gets hurt. Ezekiel agrees and they are finally allowed to leave, but Morgan warns that they need to stop at Carol’s because if they don’t Benjamin will bleed out. Richard watches in horror as they load the boy into the back of the truck, and it’s clear to see the guilt is all over his face. This isn’t how he wanted things to go down.
When they get to Carol’s house they bring Benjamin inside and lay him on the table. He’s losing a lot of blood, too much, and as Morgan begs the boy to stay with him he looks up and tells him “it’s okay.” Benjamin quotes the book back to Morgan, the same book that was given to him, and then the boy dies. Rough.
Morgan Finds Out What Really Happened
Devastated, Morgan leaves Carol’s house without a word. On his way home he stops where the grave site that made them late is and we see him starting to lose it. In one shot he’s screaming at the top of his lungs in the middle of the road, in another he’s holding his knife to his wrist while sitting in the grave. Shots from the past, from “Clear”, are shown, and we even see a brief glimpse of his son from season one. It all comes to a head when Morgan kicks a recycling bucket and it reveals a hidden cantaloupe. He has a flashback to seeing Richard near the bucket, and suddenly it clicks: this is Richard’s fault.
That night Morgan returns to the Kingdom with the bucket and the cantaloupe, which he throws at Richard when he storms into his room. Richard is silent for a moment before admitting that it should have been him. Gavin, the Savior from the meeting, had previously promised he would be killed first if anything went down. He was sure it would be him who died, not Benjamin, but he was wrong. Richard then goes into his sob story, revealing how he lost his wife and daughter because he wasn’t brave enough to “do something” back then. He tells Morgan they can “use” Benjamin’s death to convince Ezekiel to join the fight, and even claims he’ll tell everyone what he did, but that it will still be him to lead the army.
The next morning we return to the scene where Ezekiel is closing the truck on just one cantaloupe, and now it all makes sense. When they arrive at the meeting point Morgan asks Richard if he told Ezekiel like he promised, but he didn’t. Ezekiel overhears them whispering and demands to know what they are talking about, but Richard is saved by the Saviors who chose to arrive right at that moment. The leader asks how the kid is and the silence he receives in return tells him that Benjamin is dead. This upsets him, so much so that he tells Jared, the Savior who shot Benjamin, to start walking back now or he will kill him. Surprising, no? Not very Savior-like.
Once Jared is on his merry way, the leader asks for the cantaloupe. Richard is the one to deliver it, and as he begins speaking to the leader Morgan grabs his stick and attacks him from behind. He gets Richard on the ground and starts choking him as Ezekiel screams for him to stop, but he doesn’t. We watch as he slams Richard’s head into the ground twice, then the camera shows Ezekiel’s face as Richard’s gurgling sounds come to an end. Once Richard is dead, Morgan turns to Ezekiel and delivers the truth: that he set the whole thing up, and it’s his fault Benjamin is dead. Then he gets up and tells the Saviors that he wanted them to know that they get it, they understand what needs to be done… which is exactly what Richard was trying to accomplish.
Morgan Finally Tells Carol What She Already Knows
Ezekiel tries to take Morgan back to the Kingdom but he refuses, especially after accidentally calling Benjamin by his real sons name, Duane. This confuses Ezekiel, but eventually he and the Kingdom people leave him behind. We watch as Morgan uses a knife to cut through Richard’s skull and make sure he won’t come back from the dead. Morgan then drags Richard’s body back to the shallow grave and buries him there, finding the “Katy” backpack in the pile of dirt. Katy must have been Richard’s daughter, which Morgan realizes, and adds the backpack to the grave before finishing burying him.
Morgan’s next stop? Carol’s house.
He tells her he killed Richard and that it’s his fault Benjamin is dead, then asks if she really wants to know the truth about the Saviors and Alexandria. She says yes, so Morgan tells her that Negan beat Glenn and Abraham to death with a baseball bat. She’s stunned by this, tears streaming down her face, but Morgan continues and reveals that Olivia and Spencer were also killed. Before leaving Morgan tells Carol that Rick and the group now work for the Saviors, then tells her he’s going away again. Carol refuses to let him leave and instead asks them to switch places, letting him reluctantly take the house.
The next time we see Carol she’s carrying an overnight bag and arriving at the Kingdom. She heads straight for Ezekiel, who is planting new crops with the help of Benjamin’s little brother, Henry. Ezekiel is surprised to see her, but then she tells him that she’s going to be there now because they need to get ready to fight. He agrees, but tells her they won’t be fighting today. The last thing we see is Ezekiel, Carol and Henry planting together in a quiet Kingdom. But, war is coming.
Tell us, — Did you think Benjamin was going to be killed off so soon? Do YOU think that Ezekiel will really start fighting with Alexandria?
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