Violet recaps Season 5 Episode 2 of The Walking Dead, titled Strangers, where the gang meets a new “friend”! 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 2: Strangers
Rick tells Tara he knows that she didn’t want to be with the Governor, and that’s why he tried to talk to her. It seems he is officially welcoming her into the group. Tyreese talks to Carol, and says that the others have to accept what she did at the prison. However, he says they don’t need to tell the others about the girls, and that he just needs to forget it. As the group continues to travel, they come across a walker. Michonne instinctively reaches for her sword — which is no longer there, so she has to beat it to death with her gun. That night, Rick talks to Carol about their differences, and asks if she’ll have the group. She, of course, agrees. Later, Daryl and Carol are keeping watch, and she says she doesn’t want to talk about it, that she just needs to forget it. They think they hear something, but it turns out to be nothing.
The next day, the group takes a look around, as Daryl thinks someone has been watching them. They find nothing, and continue on. Sasha and Bob’s relationship seems to be flourishing. They hear someone calling for help, and Carl convinces Rick and the others to go check it out. A priest is on top of a large rock, surrounded by walkers trying to get to him. The group is able to quickly take out the walkers. The man, Gabriel, promptly vomits. Rick asks if he has any weapons, but he says he has none. Rick pats him down while asking the 3 questions (How many walkers have you killed? How many people have you killed? Why?). He answers that he has killed no walkers and no people, because “the Lord abhors violence.” He leads them to his church in the middle of the woods.
When they reach the church, Rick and the others enter with their weapons drawn and take a look around. The coast seems clear. Abraham wants to fix up the short bus that the priest has, and head to D.C., but Rick wants to gather supplies first, and the others let Abraham know that they’re doing what Rick does. Father Gabriel explains that he had been heading to a food bank that’s overrun with about a dozen walkers. Rick is confident they can take ’em. He insists that Father Gabriel come with them. Tyreese and Carl stay behind to watch the baby. Rick tells Carl that he doesn’t trust Gabriel, and that’s why he’s bringing him with them. He also makes it clear to Carl that he is not safe, and makes him promise to never let his guard down. However, Carl reminds Rick that they’re strong enough to help people, and that they don’t have to be afraid. But Rick is sure that Gabriel is hiding something.
On the way to the food bank, Rick tells Bob that he hasn’t decided if they’re going to Washington, D.C. However, Bob is confident that Washington is going to happen. Meanwhile, Daryl and Carol go out to get water. They find a car and leave it for backup in case things don’t go well at the church. Maggie, Tara, and Glenn go scavenging and find some silencers.
Gabriel, Rick, Michonne, Sashsa, and Bob reach the food bank. The floorboards in the middle of the food bank are broken open, as well as the ceiling above, and there are several walkers in the flooded basement down below – where all the food is being kept on shelves. They come up with a plan to use the shelves to block the walkers. Gabriel tries to stay behind, but Rick makes him come down with them.
They hop down and barricade themselves behind the shelves, using knives to take out the walkers that approach. However, Gabriel gets spooked by one particular walker and swims away. That same walker continues to approach him. The others give up their hiding spot and push over the shelf, then go after the other walkers, while Rick saves Gabriel from the walker who was coming after him. Bob gets grabbed by a walker and pulled underwater. He tries to fight it off with his bare hands, and Sasha gets a container and bashes its head in. The group wheels a nice haul of food back to the church.
When they get back to the church, Carl points out some deep scratches on the back of the church to Rick, which look like someone was trying to get in. He also shows Rick something that was carved into the church: “You’ll burn for this.”
That night, the group feasts on the food they collected. Abraham makes a speech about going to Washington, D.C., and Rick says they’re in. Tara confesses to Maggie that she was at the prison with the Governor, and Maggie seems to forgive her. Rick confronts Gabriel about the fact that he’s hiding something, and threatens to kill him if what he’s hiding hurts his group in any way. Carol goes out to the car that she had found. Daryl follows her. Just then, they see a car speed down the road, and Daryl recognizes it as the car that took Beth. He smashes out the rear headlights of their car, tells Carol to get in, and they follow the car.
Bob goes outside and cries by a tree – but he is suddenly knocked out by a hooded figure. When he awakens, Gareth is there, along with others, around a campfire. While Gareth explains how they’re upset that Bob’s people took their home and are now forced to hunt, we see the group back at church having a good time, while Gabriel looks at a picture of himself with the woman who had attacked him as a walker at the food bank. We then see that Gareth and the others have chopped off Bob’s leg and are eating it.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 5 Episode 2 of The Walking Dead: Strangers
Compared to last week’s explosive season premiere, this episode seemed kind of dull. But I guess every episode can’t be as awesome as last week’s episode was, and that we have to have a few “meh” episodes so that we can appreciate the great episodes that much more. The only action we got in this episode was when they picked off the walkers that were trying to get to Father Gabriel up on the rock (which was pretty quick and easy) and the scene with the walkers in the flooded basement (which would have been easy but for Gabriel freaking out). It seemed like this episode was mostly just a way to introduce us to Father Gabriel and suggest that he’s hiding something, set Daryl and Carol on the path to go find Beth, and let us know that Gareth the cannibal is still around – and pissed at the group.
So there are a few questions that come out of this episode. I will start with what is Father Gabriel hiding? It seems like it has something to do with that woman with the glasses in the picture with him, the same woman who had attacked him as a walker at the food bank. Was that his wife (yes, wife, because his church is Episcopal, which allows their priests to marry)? Was it someone he was in love with? Was he having an affair with her? Is that one of the sins that he is hiding? What are those marks on the back of the church about? Were members of his congregation trying to get in, but he wouldn’t let them? That would be my guess. There were probably people who were trying to flee from a horde of walkers, and ran to the church, but Gabriel didn’t want to let them in, for fear that the walkers would get in too. However, with Rick confronting Gabriel, threatening to kill him if what he’s hiding affects the group, it tends to foreshadow that it is in fact something that might hurt the group. Could be a red herring though.
Another question is what was up with Bob? When he snuck out of the church and went outside and cried, I thought that maybe he had been bitten, and that he was trying to seclude himself from the group before he turned. In fact, when it was revealed that Gareth’s group had cut off his leg, at first I thought they were going to tell him that they did him a favor by cutting off his walker bite. But I guess that wasn’t the case, since they were eating his leg. They wouldn’t do that if it was infected. Unless they didn’t notice, and they’re going to start turning soon? Not really sure what was going on there, or what Bob was so upset about, assuming he had not been bitten. So, how long are they going to keep Bob alive while they cut off his limbs little by little to eat them?
For now, the group feels relatively safe, considering they have place to sort of call home temporarily, and that they are protected by a secure structure, rather than being out in the open as they have been while traveling. Of course, the church is only a place to stop and regroup before they head out to Washington, D.C., now that Rick has decided that the group will join Abraham and Eugene in their journey for the cure. But as Rick told Carl in this episode, they are not safe, even if it feels like it. And now that Gareth has attacked the group, they are definitely not safe.
Hopefully next episode we get a little more excitement, and find out what happened to Beth!
Josh’s Thoughts: The Walking Dead, Season 5 Episode 2: Strangers
So, this priest is definitely shifty, I am with Rick on him hiding something–to a point at least. But I have a feeling that what this priest may be hiding is perhaps not a directly evil thing, but I have a feeling that he at the very least let a bunch of other people die. The scratch marks on the windows outside that Carl found clearly indicate that people were trying to get in, and the priest decided to not let them. I guess on one hand, you can’t trust anyone, but on the other hand, a lot of innocent people died. I also bet this priest wasn’t too excited to share his food.
One other suspicion I sort of have is that this priest may not have been a priest for a very long time–if at all. I kind of wonder if he perhaps took that role as a survival mechanism. I believe the priest is in the comics, but I can’t quite remember his part, and we all know that the comics and show have drifted away from each other quite a bit. It seems that in the food bank, the priest recognized the walker in glasses, and I suspect that he knew the girl before she died, and now that she has turned, she is even more scary than a random stranger walker, because you have no association with a stranger walker, but if you let someone turn, that has to be a haunting reminder of what you did.
As for the “Bob-A-Que”, I have a feeling this story line is going to follow the comics priest closely. So despite Bob’s sad situation now, I believe the joke will eventually be on the cannibals and Gareth. Hopefully what I think is going to happen does in fact happen, as I think that would be a great thing to see on screen.
I really hope that Daryl and Carol are able to catch up to the car that took Beth. I really want to see what has happened to her. I bet it is not anything good. I hope that Daryl and Carol are able to save her, and figure out what is going on.
The one other correlation I wonder about is the cross on the car, and the priest. Is this intentional? Is this something I am missing from the comics? Hmm….I guess we will have to wait and see.
Scenes from The Walking Dead, Season 5 Episode 3: Four Walls and a Roof
Here are scenes from the next episode of The Walking Dead, titled Four Walls and a Roof:
