The Details

• Daryl and Aaron continue tracking the Wolves, a group the community has not yet encountered, but promises to be wicked.
• Deanna grieves her son’s death, and Nicholas says that Glenn was the one that was cowardly.
• Glenn confronts Nicholas, telling him not to go outside the walls ever again, for everyone’s safety. Nicholas goes outside to shoot some walkers.
• Carl almost gets his first kiss (!).
• Sasha goes on the offense, shooting walkers in the woods around the community. When Michonne tries to bring her back, Sasha claims not to belong. In addition to the loss of her boyfriend and then her brother, Sasha regrets telling Noah that he wouldn’t make it.
• Rick brawls with Pete for abusing Jessie. When the others arrive to stop it, Rick goes a little crazy, giving a speech about fighting or dying…until Michonne knocks him out cold.

The Big Q

Is life just fight or die?

The Impact

This is Rick’s obvious thesis, but the only character that seems to agree is Sasha, whose actions aren’t bringing her any closer to healing. These indicate a negative answer to the Big Q, although we can’t deny the role that “fight” plays in our world. Life is hard, and you can either “fight” to engage with it or give up (a kind of death). This episode also contains healthy examples of life: taking time to grieve, confronting someone to move past conflict, following a lead to protect the ones we love, and my personal favorite, hanging out in the hollow of a tree with someone beloved to you. As Enid says in the tree, “We’re living in their [the Walkers’] world,” meaning life operates according to the rule of the Walkers: consume others to survive, a.k.a. fight. Enid, by indicating that this is how the Walkers “live,” suggests that humans are wired not to fight, but rather, to love and to live through love.

Doesn’t life feel like a fight sometimes? How is it like and unlike a fight?