[WARNING: THIS IS A RECAP SO THERE WILL BE SPOILERS]

During Thanksgiving break, The Walking Dead fans were given an early holiday gift. Glenn is alive! Yes, we can finally brag about it to our friends who were so convinced that Glenn was dead, and finally laugh at those memes about Oscar the Grouch inviting Glenn into a trashcan. However, although episode 7 starts off on a positive note with Glenn’s fate being revealed, our hope is short lived, as usual, as the episode ends with the watchtower of Alexandria crumbling down, and breaking the walls that kept the Walkers out in the process.

So, the wall collapsed.

Episode 8 of AMC’s The Walking Dead “Start to Finish” begins with a heartwarming scene of Jessie’s son, Sam, on the ground coloring with crayons. Then, we see a plate of a half-eaten cookie Sam left that’s infested with ants that are coming from the open window.

Like the ants that were invading Jessie’s house at the beginning of the episode, the Walkers start invading Alexandria. Rick shoots a few of them with his revolver, but there are far too many of them. He backs up with Deanna.

Meanwhile, Carol runs inside a building with Morgan, but not before falling down and hurting her head. Deanna falls down amidst the chaos as well and gets cut pretty badly on the ribcage. Rick helps her up. And as the Walkers approach Maggie, she trips and falls on her bottom.

Jeez, now’s really not the time to be falling, guys.

Maggie get’s back on her feet and starts to climb a ladder off a wall that’s still standing in order to get away from the Walkers. The ladder falls down, and she dangles from the edge there for a moment with the Walkers grasping at her feet, before making it up the wall to safety. Who else was screaming at their television screen, while watching this whole scene unfold?

Now for the others… Eugene picks up a walkie-talkie from the grass and we hear Daryl’s voice saying, “Anybody?” Then, a Walker approaches Eugene and he stutters a nervous, “Help.”

Well, now we know who the owner of the strange voice is from the ending of episode 6 “Always Accountable.”

Tara and Rosita save Eugene and they hurry inside the garage of a house to take refuge.

Rick, Carl, Deanna, Ron, Michonne, and Father Gabriel go to Jessie’s house to take refuge.

Great–we’re all safe! For now, anyway…

Outside the walls, Glenn and Enid bicker for a bit. Glenn tells her that people are still alive, but the teenager is reluctant to go and find out. She responds to him by saying, “This is how it happens. This is how it always happens.” It’s surprising to see that Glenn does not share this mentality given his experiences at Terminus, the prison, the farm, etc. It’s nice to see that he’s still as hopeful as ever.

Carol, on the other hand, is not hopeful. She has a bruise on her forehead from the fall she took on earlier, and has to share a room with Morgan. They don’t exactly share the same ideals, by the way. She wants to kill the evil“Wolf” that’s tied up and in the care of Denise, but Morgan won’t let Carol because “all life is precious.”

At Jessie’s, Michonne tries to clean up Deanna’s wounds, but stops suddenly when she finds a Walker bite on the woman’s rib-cage. Deanna is upset at first, but she quickly recovers and starts to tell Michonne that she’s okay with dying because she’s content.

“I’m lucky, Michonne. Working with my family towards a better future was all I ever wanted. That’s what I got. I got to do what I wanted right up to the end.”

So, that’s why episode is called “Start to Finish…”

Michonne says she doesn’t know what she wants, to which Deanna responds, “You better.”

Throughout the show, Michonne has always been selfless. There has not been a single episode where she demonstrates otherwise. She has been always been supportive of the group, specifically Rick, and has knocked some sense into him (literally) when he needed to be brought back to his senses. She’s also defended the Alexandrians on multiple occasions instead of calling them out for their weakness against Walkers (like Rick and Carol did) due to their lack of experience. There hasn’t been a single moment where she’s tried to do something for herself. Anything. It can be as simple as eating some of the group’s rations, but she hasn’t even done that.

So, of course she doesn’t know what she wants. She’s been so busy looking out for others that she hasn’t had time to look after herself. Hopefully, after her chat with Deanna, Michonne will set goals for herself soon.

Goals that don’t involve slaughtering a bunch of Walkers, of course.

While Deanna and Michonne chat, Carl goes into the garage to check on Ron.

Ron isn’t doing very well, by the way. Ron’s killer dad was killed by Carl’s dad, and now Carl’s dad has a thing with Ron’s mom.

It’s no wonder this guy acts like Prince Hamlet.

Carl tries to console Ron, but he won’t accept it. He locks the garage door and pulls out a gun from his back pocket. Before he can point his gun at Carl though, Carl shoves Ron against the wall, making him drop the gun. The teenagers fight, and Ron finds a shovel and tries to strike at Carl. Carl ducks, and the shovel hits the glass window behind him. The window shatters and the noise attracts the Walkers from the outside. Rick knocks down the garage door with an ax to save them just as the Walkers start to break inside the garage. Ron and Carl scramble inside the house and they all work together to stack furniture against the broken door to prevent the Walkers from entering any further. When Rick and Jessie question if the boys were fighting, Carl lies to protect Ron from getting in trouble. Apparently, they “dropped a shelf looking for tools.”

This was very mature of Carl; however, I do not think it was a very smart move. As Glenn said back in season 2,

“Lies get people killed.”

Anyway, Rick goes to check on Deanna again, but not before we have a mini heart attack and think that she’s turned into a Walker and is eating baby Judith. Turns out, she’s still alive and is hunched over at Judith’s crib because she wanted to see the baby one last time, but her legs gave out. Rick lowers his ax and carries the woman back to bed.  

Meanwhile, Carol and Morgan have a showdown. Morgan still won’t let Carol kill the evil “Wolf.”

Carol says, “I will kill you [Morgan] to kill him because I don’t want anyone else to die!”

She says this sadly because she knows that she is capable of doing so, and doesn’t want to. Morgan is a great guy, after all. However, his whole “don’t kill anyone because all life is precious” philosophy is easier said than done in this tragic world full of Walkers and malicious people like the Wolves.  

In the end, Morgan knocks Carol unconscious and the Wolf takes this opportunity to knock Morgan unconscious. Rosita, Eugene, and Tara enter the room in time with their guns and hold the Wolf at gunpoint. The Wolf isn’t scared though. He holds a knife against Denise’s throat and orders the trio to drop their weapons and kick them at him. Rosita, Eugene, and Tara do so. The Wolf takes a gun from the floor and his hostage and then exits the building.

Rick, Carl, Michonne, Jessie, Sam, Ron, and Father Gabriel leave Jessie’s house wearing bed-sheets covered in Walker guts. Even baby Judith, who’s being held by Carl, has a bloody sheet over her. They do this to mask their scent and blend in with the Walkers. The group leave the house holding hands and start to make their way towards the armory, while a bunch of flesh-eating Walkers roam around them casually.

Sam then picks the worst possible time to ask his mother a question.

Sam repeatedly asks Jessie, “Mom? Mom? Mom?” with each spoken word coming out louder.
The episode ends with this cliffhanger. Will the Walkers react to Sam’s ruckus? I guess we’ll have to wait to find out. Stay tuned! The Walking Dead season 6 returns on February 14, 2016.