When Rick & co. were set upon by a mysterious group of hooded, armed strangers in the closing moments of last week's mid-season premiere, Rick responded by… smiling. That unexpected character beat pays off in this week's episode, in which Rick seems to have finally found his army. Here are the seven standout moments from "New Best Friends."
1) The Saviors take Morgan's stick.
Not. Okay. With. This. After Richard, who's growing increasingly frustrated by Ezekiel's refusal to act, gets into a standoff with the Saviors, he and Morgan are both forced to hand over their weapons. The saddest part is that Morgan only puts up a half-hearted resistance, leading Daryl to pull him aside later and essentially ask WTF gives. Everyone in this show has been hardened almost beyond recognition by loss, but in Morgan's mind, his own recklessness got his son killed, so now he seems incapable of being anything other than cautious and passive.
Daryl and Richard seem like they should be on the same page, both of them equally keen to take the fight to the Saviors—but things go south pretty fast, once Richard starts talking about a female "loner" who left the Kingdom to live alone in the forest. Richard wants to let the Saviors attack and kill Carol in order to prove a point to Ezekiel, which does not sit well with Daryl.
2) Jadis is the badass female leader this show needs.
That mysterious hooded group who ambushed Rick & co. last week is led by Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh), an inscrutable woman of few words whose presence is instantly intriguing. She barely reacts when Gabriel threatens her second-in-command with a knife, clearly in impeccable command of her emotions, and calmly tells Rick, "We own your lives. Wanna buy them back?" Though a few men are visible in the background, this appears to be a tribe led and steered wholly by women, which sets up a compelling contrast to the toxic masculinity of Negan's regime.
3) Daryl and Carol reunite.
Finally!!! These two have such a rich history together, and it's always interesting to watch how vulnerable they make each other. Their reunion did not end up going in the direction I expected—more on that later. Side note: I understand that she's isolated herself in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and that's probably bad, but Carol's forest cabin existence seems like serious #lifegoals material. Just her and a log fire and a bunch of books? Sign me UP.
4) Rick proves himself to Jadis.
Alright, so throwing Rick into a makeshift cage made out of garbage piles and forcing him to do battle with a walker clad in a spiky suit of armor feels more like a hazing ritual than anything. I was honestly unsure whether Jadis was just screwing with him for the sake of it—but Rick being Rick, he took the whole thing in stride. Just like with that smile last week, his newfound determination to beat Negan is translating into this pedal-to-the-metal, zero-f*cks-given attitude and I am here for it.
5) Richonne remain a dream team.
Even when they are separated by literal piles of garbage, they are united! Michonne directing Rick on how to win the fight was great; their celebratory hug was great, but best of all was Rick running back to grab that wire cat statue for Michonne. A callback, of course, to this wonderful early bonding moment between Michonne and Carl, where she stole the rainbow cat statue.
6) "We have a deal."
After last week's disappointments, Rick finally has his army—on the condition that his group provide "a lot of guns" for Jadis and her people. There's bound to be bumps along the way with this partnership, but Rick and Jadis seem pretty evenly matched so far on the basis of their bartering. Now I'm just waiting for the Negan/Jadis face-off. I just feel like she's going to be deeply unimpressed by him, and it's going to be glorious.
7) Daryl's huge lie to Carol.
I was fully expecting Daryl and Carol's time in her cabin to culminate with an incredibly emotional scene where Daryl tells her about Glenn and Abraham, and confesses his guilt for indirectly causing Glenn's death. What happens instead is a genuine surprise: when she tearfully asks if the Saviors came, and did anyone get hurt, Daryl tells her that everyone's all right.
Later, Morgan figures out Daryl's lie, because he knows that if Carol knew the truth about what Negan had done, she'd be there fighting alongside them—leading the charge, in fact. So did Daryl lie to Carol to protect her, because he wants her to stay safe at the cabin and not risk losing her in the battle against the Saviors? Regardless, there's going to be hell to pay when she inevitably discovers the truth.
