Cassidy Frazee and Rachel Tsoumbakos have recapped the latest and greatest episode of season 6 yet, episode 13: The Same Boat.
If you love reading show recaps and are a fan of American Horror Story, Fear The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Humans, iZombie, Orphan Black or Vikings, you really should check out their site The Snarking Dead for all your recaps and show news. Now onto this week's Walking Dead recap! – Sarah, Managing Editor
If you love reading show recaps and are a fan of American Horror Story, Fear The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Humans, iZombie, Orphan Black or Vikings, you really should check out their site The Snarking Dead for all your recaps and show news. Now onto this week's Walking Dead recap! – Sarah, Managing Editor
You know what, I think this might be my favorite episode ever of AMC’s The Walking Dead! While it only centred on two main characters, Carol and Maggie, it did address that huge elephant in the the room: the fact that Rick’s group are no longer (and may never have been) the good guys in the zombie apocalypse.
CF: I have to say I loved this episode as well, and it’s at the top of those I consider the best, if not the best. Again, it’s one of those “character building” shows that I spoke about in one of my videos, and we know a lot of people hate them because “nothing happened,” a comment I saw a couple of times today. Still . . . the acting was tense as hell, and I really didn’t know what the hell was going to happen until the end.
RT: On Twitter plenty of people were complaining this episode was boring, but without the character building, there is no way this show would be as huge as it is. Fans love these characters so much because AMC invests enough time in them.
While plenty happened in Episode 13 (entitled “The Same Boat”) of Season 6 of AMC’s The Walking Dead, it is probably best to surmise it this way:
CF: I have to say I loved this episode as well, and it’s at the top of those I consider the best, if not the best. Again, it’s one of those “character building” shows that I spoke about in one of my videos, and we know a lot of people hate them because “nothing happened,” a comment I saw a couple of times today. Still . . . the acting was tense as hell, and I really didn’t know what the hell was going to happen until the end.
RT: On Twitter plenty of people were complaining this episode was boring, but without the character building, there is no way this show would be as huge as it is. Fans love these characters so much because AMC invests enough time in them.
While plenty happened in Episode 13 (entitled “The Same Boat”) of Season 6 of AMC’s The Walking Dead, it is probably best to surmise it this way:
- This episode overlaps a little with episode 12 of The Walking Dead in that it starts a little before the previous episode finishes. Carol (Melissa McBride) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan) find themselves scouting a perimeter yet still get themselves captured by the hands of one of Negan’s groups. The group consists of Angry Ginger Spice Paula (Alicia Witt), Token Guy Donnie (Rus Blackwell), Stupid Old Hippy Molly (Jill Jane Clements) and the Maggie Clone Michelle (Jeananne Goossen). We soon get a feel for this group and it can be summed up in one way; they are survivors who will do anything to survive. Oops, sounds a bit like Rick’s group.
RT: Yes, absolutely! Besides the obvious Terminus vibe with the slaughterhouse, there were a few moments there at the end where I could see Rick channeling the Governor.
- Even though this group has survived by being ruthless up until this point, they revert to being old-school baddie stupid and fall for Carol’s Oscar-winning performance as meek, religious Carol (even though she is the one who shot Token Guy) and don’t kill the pregnant one who obviously is not only hot tempered but fit enough that she doesn’t even look pregnant. Once Angry Ginger Spice starts monologuing I know Carol and Maggie are going to be okay.
RT: Agree with this 100%! Melissa McBride is just bloody AWESOME in this episode. I could have watched her for another hour or so as she roped in Negan’s group. If there was ever someone the Governor would be perfectly paired with…
- At some point after Maggie and Carol are taken hostage, negotiations between Negan’s group and Rick’s group begin. Right off the bat we discover Primo (played by Jimmy Gonzales and is the guy who Rick took hostage in Episode 12) is Negan’s group’s medical go to guy so it is important for that group to make the switch. However, everyone knows three is a crowd and considering Angry Ginger Spice’s group has two hostages to Rick’s one, it seems like the best solution is to kill one of their hostages. Which they don’t, but they totally act like they could.
- The smartest in Angry Ginger Spice’s group seems to be–by far– the Maggie Clone. Which is also the best way for AMC to compare the two groups. After all, at some point, Maggie Clone was pregnant just like Maggie is now and the audience can start to compare the two groups. Right away the audience can feel a compassion for Maggie Clone that is never achieved with Angry Ginger Spice, even when she is hit by Token Guy and Carol tries to confide in her. We also learn that Maggie Clone lost the tip of her little finger because she tried to steal some gas so she could look for her boyfriend. Apparently the boyfriend was blown up. Pretty sure Daryl (Norman Reedus) knows something about that…
RT: Maggie Clone also had a fairly substantial mole on her chin.
- So Maggie and Carol end up in a place that is very obviously an abattoir which immediately makes me think of Terminus and I am pretty sure AMC meant that, because, even though we are all cheering for Rick’s group, and can see the similarities between Negan’s group and Rick’s in this episode, the similarities are the same for all the groups encountered over six seasons of The Walking Dead.
- Through this whole episode, even though Carol is being meek, religious Carol, on the sly she is also being MacGyver Carol. Everything that is said, she is mentally taking note of. Every opportunity to grab an implement is achieved. Every opportunity to show herself as a hyperventilating weak shit is owned. Even though Maggie Clone is relatively smart, she still asks Carol why someone like her has made it this far. C’mon guys, you are badarses! You should know that no one like the character Carol is playing for you has made it this far. Don’t ask dumb questions and don’ t take people at face value.
RT: Oh, really good point! See, while I know Negan is one motherfucker, I haven’t read his section of the comics, so didn’t make that connection at all.
- Along with MacGyver Carol, Maggie has turned into the Uber Shitkicking Mother. She takes down Token guy with a swift kick when he gets stuck into Carol. She also goes full Angry Ginger Spice at the end of the episode. Even with all these indicators, Negan’s group think she isn’t a threat *shaking my head*
RT: I have lived through pregnant hormones twice. I remember being that mad at times ;-)
- Just to raise tensions even higher, Stupid Old Hippy lights up and we know how Carol gets around smokers. She totally calls the hippy on smoking around the baby and the hippy stops, not before she coughs up half a lung and announces she’s dying anyway. Then, later on, after Maggie and Carol have been separated, Stupid Old Hippy shares a ciggie with Carol. How many times can this group comment on the fact Carol is weak and not realise she is playing them all for fools? Considering so far in season 6 of The Walking Dead Carol has been anti-smoking twice and has now become a smoker, we totally know this group is going down somehow involving Carol and a cigarette.
- Token Guy is complaining his arm is burning like a bitch thanks to Carol shooting him and it become pretty obvious he is now a liability to the group. but at least we know there is more to Negan’s group than those Daryl blew up, the one’s Rick annihilated in Episode 12 and this group. They are also only 30 minutes away. And that the slaughterhouse where Maggie and Carol are being held hostage has a lot of stored gas. Now if only there were a smoker in the house…
- So negotiations are underway between Negan’s group and Rick’s. Angry Ginger Spice is pissy that Rick contacted her before she got back to him but, in the end, a deal is struck and Rick agrees to meet them at a designated point in 10 minutes time. Except, Angry Ginger Spice totally knows Rick is closer than he is letting on because there is no static on the walkie-talkie. Oh honey, that is going to be the least of your problems once MacGyver Carol gets her plan started.
RT: I wondered this too. Maybe there’s some zombie apocalypse etiquette AMC haven’t told us about yet? There was one scene where she flipped between Rick and her group on the walkie-talkie so quickly it took me a moment to realise she was talking to different people. Wouldn’t that conversation be awkward if she accidentally spilled the group’s plans to Rick because she forgot to press the right button?
- It is at this point that the “Same Boat” principle really explodes. Angry Ginger Spice and Carol discuss just what happened to get them both to this point and it is then that Negan’s group discovers what happened to the group that Daryl blew up. So it then becomes a tit for tat as they try to justify their behaviours and the audience is fully wondering just why they picked Team Rick when both sides are as homicidal and fucked up as the other. (If you want to read more on the comparisons between Negan’s and Rick’s groups and why neither of them are the good guys, you can check out my Inquisitr article here.) Angry Ginger Spice continues her dead woman walking monologuing and we are all enlightened to the fact that apparently she is the hard egg and not the coffee when it comes to some stupid inspirational email that shaped her life before the zombie apocalypse. But what this really tells us is that baddies who monologue will ALWAYS wind up dead.
- So, in order for Carol’s plan to work, Angry Ginger Spice’s group leaves Carol and Maggie alone to their own devices. Both start trying to escape. Within what seems like nano seconds, Carol has already nearly bumped into Stupid Old Hippy, found Maggie, discussed just how much she may be losing her killer edge and found Token Guy dead, abandoned and starting to turn.
- So Carol hooks up Token Guy and he bites Stupid Old Hippy when she returns. Maggie bashes the woman’s face in and Carol is starting to look a little green around the gills. Except this time it is for reals and not for the Oscar.
- Angry Ginger Spice returns and realises everything is FUBAR.
- So a shoot out involving Angry Ginger Spice, Carol and Maggie inevitably occurs while they are in a bunch of walkers that have been held in place and used as a way to keep Carol and Maggie from escaping. ON A SIDE NOTE: This episode of The Walking Dead seems to involve a lot of walker “kills” via stabs to the chest and neck. AMC you are slipping rather badly here.
- In the midst of this shootout, Carol is telling Angry Ginger Spice to run, to escape, rather than having to kill her. Yeah, I am pretty sure Morgan (Lennie James) has gotten into her head and has thrown her off her game. In the end though, survival takes over for Carol and her and Maggie not only manage to escape, but kill everyone (including the group that were initially 30 minutes away), torch the place (see, sometimes smoking is a good thing) and bump into the rest of Rick’s group (who were totally not going to meet them at the rendezvous point, just like the second half of Angry Ginger Spices group weren’t either).
- For Glenn and Maggie fans and for shippers who want Daryl and Carol to become Caryl, there was plenty of happy reunions for both couples. Although it’s PG, non-sexual this-is-not-HBO kinds of hugging it out.
- Finally, Rick (Andrew Lincoln) gives Primo one last chance to fess up to where Negan is “Have we killed him yet?” Oh honey, your Negan pain hasn’t even begun yet. When Primo gets all cocky and announces he is Negan, Rick just shoots that shit at point blank range and the audience fully get just how much all the remaining groups in The Walking Dead are in the same boat.
RT: Rick never does anything half-arsed. If he is going to be the Governator, he is going to do it at full velocity ;-)
What did you think of Episode 13 of Season 6 of The Walking Dead? Let us know your thoughts by commenting below!
CF: My vote is–best episode of the season. Because the acting was so bad ass.
[Photo Credits: AMC]
CF: My vote is–best episode of the season. Because the acting was so bad ass.
[Photo Credits: AMC]