The Walking Dead Season7 Episode 3 "The Cell"

Who Are You?

Dwight watches episodes of "Who's the Boss." He plays a game with a woman who drinks every time she loses. He carves figures out of woods. He cuts in line to get food at the Saviors food pantry. He watches several Saviors beat up a man. He writes down the number 39. At a bed numbered 39 he rummages through someone's belonging and takes some mustard and pickles. He takes food from others at the Saviors compound. When Negan walks by everyone bows. Dwight sits eating his sandwich. He watches as a couple of men choral a zombie in a zombie filled enclosure. He is mesmerized watching this zombie on a pike stand up and fall down and stand up again. He makes a sandwich out of dog food. He takes it to Daryl who is sitting naked in a cell. Daryl eats the sandwich. Dwight closes and locks the door leaving Daryl in the dark.

Daryl lies in the dark as music plays. The door opens and Dwight comes in with another sandwich. Daryl eats it. He says nothing. The door closes and the music stops. Daryl shakes when the music starts again. Dwight throws the sandwich on the floor. Daryl picks it up and eats it. Dwight throws some clothes at Daryl. The next time we see Daryl he is clothed. Dwight walks in with the crossbow. He grabs Daryl and walks him down the hall. Two men mop the hallway. Daryl gets pushed into a doctor's office. Dwight's wife, Sherry, is there. When she tries to talk to Daryl Dwight yells at her not to talk to him. Dwight notices a pregnancy test. It is negative. Sherry tells Daryl to do whatever they say. Dwight tells her not to talk to Daryl. The doctor examines Daryl's wound. It will heal if he lets it. The doctor tells Daryl, "Negan will take care of you. Trust me." As they walk back Negan comes down the hall. He wants to talk to Dwight. Daryl is told to sit on a chair as another Savior points a gun at him. He looks into the room where Dwight was watching TV at the beginning of the episode. When Dwight comes back he takes Daryl outside to the zombie enclosure. He pushes Daryl toward the fence. He has the choice to be like the zombies or be like Dwight. We see the new zombie was the man who had bed number 39 that was beat up at the beginning of the episode. Punishment for defiant attitude?

Daryl gets tossed back in his cell. Dwight says, "Make it easy on yourself." Daryl responds, "I ain't never gonna kneel." "Yeah, I said that too." Dwight adds.  Daryl replies, "Yeah, I know." Dwight says, "See, that's the thing man, You don't. But your gonna." The music starts again. Daryl tries to break down the door to his cell. Negan tells Dwight how Daryl is going crazy. "Some people are harder to break than others." Negan offers Dwight the opportunity to sleep with Sherry or any other woman that he wants as long as the woman says yes. When Dwight doesn't say anything Negan asks if there is anything wrong with his penis after Eugene bit it. Dwight says nothing is wrong. He said no because he hasn't earned it yet. Negan responds, "You earn what you take." A woman on a walkie talke says they have an orange situation. Someone has left with some stuff. Dwight volunteers to go and Negan says he should send someone else since that is grunt work. Dwight takes off down the road on Daryl's motorcycle. He drives past a statue of a praying angel that has zombie arms attached to it.

Dwight stops when he comes to an overpass. The music plays again. Another man brings Daryl the sandwich. Daryl takes it and stares at the man. He eats his sandwich. The man shakes his head and closes the door but doesn't lock it. The music stops then starts again. Daryl looks under the door.  He pushes on it slowly and it opens. Daryl quietly makes his way down the hall. The music plays in the background. He stops when he sees a man at a door. Then he quickly makes his way down the hall as several men come his way. Dwight pushes the bike to the overpass. Several zombies lie across the road. He stomps the head of one of the zombies. He continues cautiously. Most of the zombies are mangled in some way (missing legs, etc). All of a sudden a zombie falls over the overpass so Dwight jumps out of its way. Dwight gets grabbed by one of the road zombies and has to shoot it. Daryl is about to go down another hallway when he is grabbed from behind by Sherry. She warns him, "Go back while you can. You know I did. Whatever he's done to you. There's more. There's always more. You won't get away. And when you get back, it'll be worse." Daryl makes his way outside to where there are several motorcycles. Just as he is about to get to them he is surrounded by several Saviors. It was a trap. Negan walks out and asks, "Are you we pissing our pants yet?"

Negan asks "Who are you?" All the Saviors answer, "Negan." Daryl failed to understand that Negan is everywhere. Negan gives Daryl three choices, "One, you wind up on a spike and work for me as a dead man. Two, you get out of your cell, you work for points and you're gonna wish you were dead. Or three, you work for me you get yourself a new pair of shoes and live like a king. You should know there is no door number four. This is it. This is the only way." He goes to hit Daryl with Lucille but stops short. Daryl doesn't flinch. Negan likes that Daryl doesn't scary easily. Negan walks away and the Saviors beat Daryl. Dwight continues pushing the bike down the road. The front wheel is flat. As he walks he sees a man fighting off a zombie. He tackles the man. Daryl sits in his cell. He notices someone standing outside his door. Sherry is there. "There's so many things I wish I'd never found out. I wish I didn't try. . . Back in the woods, after I lost Tina, when we took your stuff, when we decided to go back, I told you I was sorry. And you said 'You're gonna be'. I am." The man Dwight attacks was the one he was sent to retrieve. The man tells him to let him go. Dwight says he can't. The man says, "We used to be friendly. After everything he did to you, to your wife." Dwight replies, "Look, there's no place to go. Everything's his or will be." The man replies, "I know." Dwight orders him,  "Keep walking." "It's okay if you do it. I get it. Hell, I want you to, please." Dwight tells him to shut up and keep walking because there's no other way. To which the man replies. "See that's what he tells us. That there's no choice. No way but his way. Thug walks in with a baseball bat and a smile, and we're all so scared that we gave up everything. Well, there's only one of him and all of us. So why are we living like this?!" Dwight responds,"Because look where we are. We were losing and now we're not!" The man says, "When we got there we thought we would be okay. We thought we knew how to fight the monsters." The man kneels down. Dwight points his gun at him and yells at him to get up. The man says, "There's nothing back there for me. This is the last time I am going to kneel." Dwight threatens to harm all those the man cared about. The man responds, "Okay, D. You won." He gets up and says, "But you know there's nothing left." (Nothing left for him or nothing left of his friend D?) As the man walks down the road Dwight shoots him.

Sherry smokes in a stairwell. Dwight walks up to her and asks if he can have a cigarette. He asks, "He good to you?" She says yes. Good. "Are you happy?" she asks him. Yes. He says, "I did the right thing. It's a hell of a lot better than being dead." "Yeah." she says. The music plays. Daryl sits in his cell. The music stops. The door opens and Dwight offers Daryl the sandwich. Daryl turns away. "Eat. You got your friend killed. I got Tina killed. And don't pretend like you don't know the score." Daryl throws the sandwich at him. To which Dwight replies, "You should be dead. But Negan's taken a shine to you. You're lucky, don't forget." He tapes the photo of Glenn's dead body on the wall. Daryl rips it down. Then he picks it up and looks at it. A different song plays. Daryl shakes his head. Dwight stands outside of Daryl's cell. Daryl cries. Dwight looks sad and walks away. The next morning Dwight opens the cell door and finds Daryl lying on the floor a puddle of sick by his head. Dwight takes Daryl to a room where Negan waits for them. Negan offers Daryl a glass of water. When Daryl doesn't drink he has Dwight get him a straw. He tells Daryl that Dwight used to work for points. Tina, Dwight's sister in law, needed medicine. Negan offered to marry Tina. Next think he knows Dwight, Sherry, and Tina have run off with all the medicine. "I can't let something like that stand. There are rules. Cost me an arm and a leg going after him. And you know what, Dwighty boy? He still got away. But here's the thing. D, he saw the light. He manned up. He came back. He asked for my forgiveness. I like that. Made me take notice." Negan points Lucille at Daryl. Negan was going to kill Dwight but Sherry said she would marry Negan. That wasn't enough so Dwight got the iron. And now he is one of Negan's top guys. "I think you can be that guy. I think you are ready to be that guy. You look around here. This, well this can all be yours. All you gotta do is answer one simple question. 'Who are  you?'" Daryl says nothing. Negan asks again. Daryl responds, "Daryl." Negan says, "He made his choice." Dwight throws Daryl in his cell. He yells at Daryl, "You're gonna wind up in that room or hanging on the fence!" Daryl tells him, "I get why you did it. Why you took it. You were thinking of someone else. That's why I can't." Dwight stands outside looking at the zombie enclosure. He sees the man he shot on the road. He is now a zombie in the enclosure.

Final thoughts
- I liked the use of the TV show "Who's the Boss" to illustrate the theme of the episode. Who is your boss? Negan or yourself?
- Apparently on this show sanctuary equals torture and/or death. Terminus was described as a sanctuary and we all know what that turned out to be.
- No matter how hard Dwight tries to be like Daryl (wearing his vest, using his crossbow, and riding his bike) he is just a pale imitation. I also think Dwight is jealous of Daryl. Negan likes Daryl and wants him to be one of his henchmen. He didn't want Dwight until he manned up.
- Is it just me or is "Easy Street" a super catchy tune? But I can also understand how listening to any song over and over again can be torture.
- I feel bad for Dwight. He tried to do the best he could for his family but just made one bad choice after another. If only they had gone back to Alexandria with Daryl. He and Sherry might have a better life. I think both he and Sherry know this. I think that is why he is trying to convince Daryl to become a henchman. He knows what it is like to earn points and be punished by Negan.
- There is a lot of religious imagery in this episode. The angel statue, angel wings on Daryl's vest, sanctuary, the Saviors.
- I think it is interesting that even though Negan offers Dwight the opportunity to have sex with any woman in sanctuary he adds the caveat that the women still have to give their permission. I guess rape is a no-no in Sanctuary. Probably the only good thing about Sanctuary.
- Punishments for defying Negan: become a zombie, iron to the face, death by Lucille.