Violet recaps Season 5 Episode 14 of The Walking Dead, titled Spend, where a group goes out to an electronics warehouse for supplies! Following the recap, both Violet and Josh share their thoughts about the episode.
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Episode Recap of The Walking Dead, Season 5 Episode 14: Spend
The episode begins with Father Gabriel entering an area that has been designated as a church. He begins ripping out the pages of a bible, and appears very distressed.
Daryl heads out on his motorcycle on a recruiting mission, with Aaron driving behind.
Noah meets up with Deanna’s husband, Reg, for an early morning meeting. Noah wants to continue meeting in the mornings so that Reg can teach him how to build things. Reg gives Noah a notebook to write in.
Glenn, Tara, Noah, and Eugene head out with Aiden and Nicholas to get some supplies to repair the power grid. Eugene is reluctant to take a gun, but Noah makes him take it.
Glenn and the others arrive at the electronics warehouse. They split up to do a perimeter check. Tara and Eugene end up together, and Eugene reiterates that he doesn’t belong on this mission. He admits to being a coward. Meanwhile, Glenn and Noah find a horde of walkers wandering around the front of the building.
The group goes into the warehouse through a back door. They discover that the walkers are trapped in a fenced in area inside. Eugene and Tara walk down the aisles, and Eugene identifies the micro-inverters that they need. In another area of the warehouse, a walker wearing armor approaches Aiden, who shoots it repeatedly, ignoring Glenn’s advice to let it come closer. Aiden ends up shooting a grenade that the walker was wearing, causing an explosion.
When the group awakens, the warehouse is filled with smoke. Glenn shines his flashlight and sees that Aiden has been impaled, and appears to be dead. They then realize that the blast let the walkers loose.
They discover that Tara has suffered a head injury and is passed out on the floor, bleeding. A walker approaches her and Eugene, and Glenn sees this and tells Eugene to take the shot. He hesitates, and is attacked by another walker. Glenn comes to the rescue, and they all run and hide inside of an office.
While in the office, the others see that Aiden is still alive. Eugene says he’ll stay with Tara while Glenn, Noah, and Nicholas go save Aiden.
Eugene picks Tara up to bring her to the van, and shoots a few walkers on his way out. Glenn and Nicholas try to remove Aiden from the metal parts that have pinned him, while Noah tries to hold off the approaching walkers as the flare dies out. Nicholas gets scared, and reminds Aiden, “You left them. We both did. That’s who we are,” then apologizes and runs off. Glenn starts to try again on his own, as Aiden confesses that he and Nicholas panicked and left the others. The walker horde closes in, forcing Glenn and Noah to run, and leave Aiden to be eaten alive.
Nicholas runs out the front revolving door, but a horde of walkers is just outside. Glenn and Noah quickly catch up. Nicholas ends up in one section of the revolving doors, while Glenn and Noah end up in another section. They fight to hold the doors in place and keep the walkers out.
Eugene drives the van in front of the building blasting loud music and honking, which draws the walkers in front toward the van. Glenn comes up with a plan to break the glass. He tries a couple of times, but Nicholas gets scared and forces his way outside, which puts Glenn and Noah’s section of the revolving door in harm’s way. The walkers grab Noah, and Glenn is unable to hold onto him. The walkers push Glenn’s section of the door again to safety, and the walkers rip Noah apart while Glenn watches.
Nicholas catches up with Eugene in the van, and forces him out, as Eugene unsuccessfully tries to fight back. But just then, Glenn runs up and pulls Nicholas out of the van, and punches him, knocking him out. They load him in the van and drive back, with Eugene pointing a gun at an unconscious Nicholas.
Rick happens across Jessie cleaning up her kids’ owl project in the garage. Apparently someone came in and destroyed it. Rick says he’ll ask around.
Later, Pete, Jessie’s husband, stops by to see Rick. Pete offers Rick a beer, which he declines. He seems a little drunk, and they have an awkward exchange, wherein Pete says they should be friends.
Carol finds Sam, Jessie’s son, hiding inside of the closet in her house. He says he wants more cookies. She tries to make him leave, but he asks her to teach him how to make them. She says he’ll have to steal the chocolate, and he agrees.
Sam returns to Carol’s house with the stolen chocolate, and they bake cookies together. Carol isn’t really interested in talking to him, but he keeps trying to talk to her anyway. He admits that he’s the one who broke the owl statue. He asks Carol why she stole the guns, and he asks for one. He says it’s not for him, but won’t answer Carol when she asks who it’s for. Then he runs off.
Carol goes to Jessie’s house and knocks on the door. Pete answers, and she asks about Sam. Pete seems a little hostile. When Carol asks to talk to Jessie, he says that it’s not a good time, and slams the door in her face.
Meanwhile, Abraham is working on the construction crew, which has left Alexandia to collect supplies from the nearby mall that was never finished being built. The crew gets overrun by walkers approaching from the woods, and they all fire guns at the walkers. However, Francine falls from the crane. The others just want to leave her and fall back, but Abraham saves her. He helps her back up into the cab of the crane, then gets surrounded by walkers. He fights them off one by one with Francine’s help. Two of the construction guys decide to come back and help.
It seems that the construction crew has killed off all the attacking walkers, and Abraham confronts the construction supervisor about leaving people behind to die. He tries to explain that they “have a system,” and tries to get Francine to back up what he’s saying, but she punches him in the face. The two men want to call it a day, but Abraham and Francine are willing to keep working. Abraham starts calling the shots.
The construction supervisor meets with Deanna, Reg, and Maggie, and recommends that Abraham lead the construction crew. Deanna agrees that she’ll make it official when Abraham returns. Maggie vouches for Abraham, and assures her that their group knows what they’re doing.
Father Gabriel stops by Deanna’s house to speak to her privately. However, Maggie overhears what he says. Father Gabriel tells Deanna that Rick and his group are not good people, and that they have done unspeakable things. He goes on to say that they’re dangerous, and the day will come when they’ll destroy everything here. He apologizes for not coming to her sooner, and says he hopes it isn’t too late.
Carol tells Rick that Pete’s hitting Jessie, and maybe Sam too. She says there’s only one way this can go with Pete: Rick is going to have to kill him.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 5 Episode 14 of The Walking Dead: Spend
Ahhh, I didn’t expect to lose someone again so soon! And what a gruesome death it was. I feel terrible for Glenn that he had to sit there and watch helplessly as Noah died, and that he tried to save him, but couldn’t. Glenn is such a good person, and this episode proved that, if you didn’t know it already. He still tried to save Aiden after Nicholas ran off, up until the last possible second, and then after Nicholas caused Noah’s death, he could have done much worse to him than he did, but instead, he did the right thing, and brought him back.
But ugh, Father Gabriel, what are you doing?! Why would you tell Deanna that?? I don’t understand why he would randomly turn on the group, especially after they saved him, and have been keeping him alive. Not to mention that this whole thing about Rick’s group not being good people seems to have come out of left field. We’ve seen that they’re good. He’s seen that they’re good. Anything bad that they did was to defend themselves and for their own survival. It’s just really frustrating that he would even think to tell Deanna those things.
Seeing that Maggie overheard what he said, she’s surely going to report this back to Rick, and the group will go into defense mode. The timing of Father Gabriel telling Deanna all this couldn’t be worse. Glenn’s group is going to come back without Deanna’s son, and that’s probably going to make her suspicious of what really happened out there.
Also, it seems like the Alexandrians have adopted a “system” of leaving people behind if their own lives are threatened at all. This is obviously opposite to the system that Rick’s group has, which is trying to their hardest to save one another, and a willingness to risk their lives for others, which appears to be something that the Alexandrians lack. In that way, the Alexandrians and Father Gabriel have a similar mindset, if you think back to how Father Gabriel left members of his congregation outside of the church to die, rather than left any risk come to his own life. Yet he still insists on condemning Rick’s group. How very hypocritical of him.
That brings us to Carol and her conclusion that she has jumped to, that Pete’s beating his wife and kids, and therefore Rick has to kill him. What? How is that the “only” way this can go? Carol just likes to kill problem people, apparently. Yes, I know that she’s been in the shoes of the battered wife, but to say that the only option is to kill Pete is a bit extreme. I’m not sure how Rick is going to react to her suggestion. On the one hand, he would probably like to kill Pete, so that he can have Jessie. We’ve already seen him want to pull his gun on Pete, just for putting his arm around Jessie. On the other hand, Rick is the one who banished Carol for killing people, so it seems like he wouldn’t go for this.
Then we also have to consider what’s going to happen after Glenn’s group returns, and what Deanna is going to do with the information that Father Gabriel has given her. Maybe all hell is about to break loose in Alexandria. There’s only 2 episodes left, so who knows? All I know is that The Walking Dead definitely has my attention right now!
Josh’s Thoughts: The Walking Dead, Season 5 Episode 14: Spend
This episode of the Walking Dead really got the tension really ratcheted up. It is a sad episode though. Aiden seemed to actually be coming around, following Glenn’s suggestions. Of course whenever that happens, tragedy is just around the corner. Nicholas, on the other hand, was a punk and a coward. I really wished he would have been eaten.
If Nicholas had followed Glenn’s plan, everyone would have made it out alive. Unfortunately, the one who pays in the end for it is Noah. In a rather gruesome way too.
Then moving over to Abraham, working on expanding the wall, that group is just as incompetent. Abraham has to pull the group together, because apparently this “community” is “every man for themselves.” It seems like an unusual methodology for a group that is literally walled into to their society.
I really don’t understand how this group has survived this long though. Have they just been losing people one after another? If they are losing this many people with their new, more experienced helpers in Rick and the gang, what did they do before? We even have the guy formerly the leader of the construction crew handing his post over to Abraham because he knows how overwhelmed he is.
But it looks like there might be some strife between the new group and Rick, especially after the talk Deanna has with Father Gabriel. Deanna doesn’t seem to be buying what he is selling yet, as he sounds like a crazy person, but when Glenn comes back without Aiden, Deanna might be looking at things differently. I guess we will see if that means Rick will make his play to take over the camp.
The final thoughts I have regarding the episode is about Carol and Rick’s conversation about Sam and Jessie. Firstly, Carol says that Jessie’s husband is beating the family. Carol has been in this situation before, so she might be able to identify the signs, but no one has specific proof yet. A death sentence for speculation doesn’t make sense to me. But on top of that, a death sentence for that crime doesn’t make sense either. I guess a fitting punishment is hard to make, since there isn’t a prison, courts, or judges anymore. But if Deanna is so set on recreating society, maybe laws and a judicial systems would be a good place to start. But still, I don’t think it is up to Rick and Carol what happens to Jessie’s husband, especially when Carol threatened this kid with death just the other day. It could be said that it was an empty threat. If it was anyone else but Carol I would agree, but we have seen what Carol will do for what she believes is right.
Scenes from The Walking Dead, Season 5 Episode 15: Try
Here are scenes from the next episode of The Walking Dead:
