The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 14 "Still Gotta Mean Something"

You didn't lose you.

Jadis running away from machine gun fire. She hides the body of one of her people under junk and then lies in a pool of blood pretending to be dead as her people are gunned down. One of the Saviors spits on her and says she should have played the game. She closes her eyes. When she gets up all is quiet. She takes off her blood soaked clothes. She is now in the nightgown Rick last saw her in. A door to a room that looks like an Ikea showroom is opened. Lucille is inside. Jadis walks in and begins to cry. She packs a suitcase. She grabs Lucille and looks down at her watch. She opens up a metal container and we see Negan is chained up. He wants to know what is going on.

Carol chops firewood. Ezekiel walks up to her and says the escaped prisoners could be on their way back to Sanctuary. They must go after them in search of Henry. Carol says Maggie needs her at Hilltop. He tells her she is choosing to stay and wants to know why. Is it because she believes Henry is already dead? "Or can you no allow yourself to believe otherwise? You told me to pretend to make it real until is is so, an you cannot." She says, "It may not be so." He is worried for Henry. He accuses her of being stopped by cowardice. She goes back to chopping wood.

Daryl says hi to Tara. She tells him that she hasn't been sick since she was shot a day ago so the doctor thinks she'll be fine. He says that she's tough but she says that it just means Dwight's arrow was clean. Daryl say, "Or it means you got lucky. Could be anything. It's not like a bite. Sometimes nothing happens." He says that if Dwight knew about Negan's plan he could have sent them a warning message. Tara defends Dwight saying he might not have been able to warn them. He asks her if that means Dwight gets a free pass and she says yes. If she had killed him in the woods she might be dead now from a zombie blood infected injury. She tells him, "Look, do what you gotta do. But know it's just for you. I'm out." Daryl doesn't respond.

Michonne cries as she read the letter Carl left for her. Rick comes in and wipes her tears. She asks if he wants to read her letter. He shakes his head no. He is going out to get food. She asks what Carl wrote to Rick. He hasn't read the letter yet. He can't. She says he has to. She knows what it is like to lose a child. "I did it too . . . when it happened to me. You keep moving to move away from it. Andrea stopped me. And now I'm stopping you. Carl wrote that because he wanted you to read it. It was one of the last things he ever did." She tells him he's staying and leaves him alone. Rick takes a deep breath and grabs the letter from Carl.

Carol stops chopping wood when she sees Morgan. She asks if he going to look for Henry and he says he is going after the escaped Saviors. She says he doesn't have to but he says he does. "I could've before and I should've. I was supposed to. See, we're the same, and I was supposed to. And I thought that . . . Thought I had to. Thought it'd be different." Carol says she is going with him. She grabs her guns and they go.

Maggie is meeting with Dianne and Rosita. Cars are set up to warn if the Saviors come back but they don't have enough ammo for another attack. Daryl comes in and says going hand to hand is their only option. He thinks the Saviors must be low on ammo too since they had to get through the hoard of zombies at Sanctuary to get out. Rosita realizes that the Saviors can make more bullets since they have Eugene.

Jadis sits and looks at her watch. She is still holding Lucille. Negan lies on a tarp on the floor still chained up. He says, "I smell it. Whatever the holy hell happened here, I smell it." Jadis pours salt over a wheel barrow filled with wood. "That's what that fire is about, that salt, burning it away. I told you people are a resource. I don't throw resources like that away. I got a lot of confidence that most people can be put on the right path, my path. I wouldn't have killed all your people. No. That was the work of someone not following the program. But this? This is my mistake. I'll own this. I took a chance on someone, thought I was doing the right thing, and all I did was punch myself in the dick. I am sorry for this. I really am. I'm sorry that you lost all you had. But I know, in some way, I can help get it back." She swings Lucille towards his face and stops short of hitting him with her.

Morgan and Carol make their way through the woods looking for the Saviors. She finds a turnip on the floor. They are on the right track. Morgan sees someone he thinks is Henry. He runs after him calling out "Henry." He gets to a clearing and sees Henry. Henry turns around and has a bloody wound on his neck. He says, "You know what it is. You were supposed to!" Morgan says to himself, "You're not here. He's not here." Carol comes up and sees Morgan shouting to no one. He says, "He's dead. You know he is." She says she didn't come out to the woods to look for Henry but to keep an eye on Morgan. He says, "You save people. I've seen it again and again. But you can't save the dead, Carol." She says he's not dead. He knows. He doesn't die. He just sees death again and again. He notices something behind her and walks towards it. He finds a zombie that has recently been killed. He knows the escapees went through there.

Rick looks at his/Carl's sheriff''s hat. It sits in a bag on the floor by Judith who is playing with her toys. He gets up and is outside with his rifle. He walks up to Alden and asks where the escaped Saviors went. Alden says he guesses they went back to Sanctuary. They didn't have a specific plan. He asks how Alden would get back to Sanctuary with someone that was injured. Does he have a place where he could hide out for a while? He tells Rick about an old dive bar a few miles away. He was taken there once and asked what it would take to turn the bar into an outpost. It's located half way between Hilltop and Sanctuary. Rick walks away. Alden calls after Rick and asks him to do him a favor. He asks for Rick to not kill more than he has to. They made the wrong choice in escaping. Rick could bring them back. Rick says he could and walks away.

Jadis's watch alarm goes off. She throws Lucille in the wood pile. Negan wants to talk but she just walks away. He scoots himself away. Jadis comes back pushing a zombie that's attached to a dolly. Negan shoots at her. He has a flare in one hand and a gun in the other. He says she must not really want to do what she is getting ready to do because she left him by a bag full of guns. He also found a bunch of photographs. Negan wants to talk.

Carl and Morgan come out to the road and see a herd of walkers crossing further down the road. Carol wants to wait for the herd to pass. Morgan doesn't want to lose the trail. As they make their way towards the herd Carol notices something. A zombie comes towards them. It has been stabbed in the stomach with Henry's stick. Morgan grabs the stick and kills the zombie with it. Carol begins to cry. She tells Morgan to stop. The zombie came from the other road. Maybe they could follow it and find Henry. Morgan replies, "We take that road, you know what we'll find." She says she doesn't know. "I won't know unless I go, unless I try. And you can try too." He says no. "You save people. I watch 'em die. I have to. I'm supposed to." Carol remind him that when she tried to run he found her. He saved her. "You knew I could come back. You can too." He says he's not strong like her. "I was there that whole time watchin' em. Knowing that something would happen. I knew it. I saw it. I was waiting for it to happen, and then it did, like it  . . . Like it always does. So I just have to. I have to kill 'em. I have to." He hands Carol Henry's stick. She takes it and pleads but he just walks away towards the woods.

Jadis walks out and tells Negan to leave the pictures alone. He wants to know what it going on. Does she kill people with that zombie thing? She says that people are a resource (using his same words). The pictures are all she has left. He took everything. "You took away me." He says, "My wife's name was Lucille. She got me through. I didn't give her shit, and she got me through. Just life. Regular life. The bat . . . the bat got me through this. So I named it after her. That's it. Nothing more to do with her than that. But it is the last little piece of her that I got left." Lucille means to him what those pictures mean for Jadis. Her alarm goes off. She looks up and pushes the dolly. She fights him for the flare. It lands in the water. A helicopter approaches. Negan says, "What the shit?" The helicopter turns around and flies away. Jadis calls after it with another flare in her hand. She puts the flare above Lucille. He tells her he didn't burn her pictures. He says, "You burn her and all you have is ashes." She says, "No, I get to hurt you." He says, "I didn't do it. I can settle it. Okay?" She moves the flare away and cries.

Rick makes his way through the woods. He stumbles upon the herd. Morgan comes up behind him. Rick has to remind Morgan that he knows him. Morgan tells, "I'm not right." Rick says Morgan shouldn't be out there. Morgan says he's not going anywhere. Rick says that they are both out there looking for the Saviors. "Then, we finish it, you and me." They continue on their search together. They come out to the road and find a foot and an arm lying there. Someone knocks Rick to the ground.

Rick wakes up in the old bar. He and Morgan are tied up. The Saviors look down on two of their own who are sick. One of them says the reason they don't look well is because they hacked off some of their body parts. Now we know who the foot and arm belong to. Jared and one of the Saviors want to leave them behind. They are dying anyway. One of the Saviors doesn't want to abandon his friends even if the rules say to. Rick asks Morgan how long he was out. "Just long enough to end up here." Not all of the Saviors want to return to Sanctuary with Jared. Jared says bringing Rick to Negan will be a win for them. Jared announces that now that Rick is awake they will leave the injured men behind and head to Sanctuary. Just as he is about to kill one of the injured men with a mic stand Rick stops him by saying his truck is nearby and they can take the sick men to the Hilltop's doctor. They could all go back with Rick and Morgan. Rick then echoes what Alden said to him earlier. "You didn't want this. You made a split-second choice, and you chose wrong, but it's not too late." If they set them free and cooperate Rick will give them a fresh start at Hilltop. He gives them his word. Jared doesn't believe Rick but Saviors want to talk about it. Rick says they don't have much time because a herd is headed their way. Jared says Rick is lying. Rick and Morgan came to kill them. Morgan says, "You know, you're right. I cam here to do what I was supposed to do. To kill every last one of you." Jared points his rifle at Morgan's head and Morgan warns him to save his bullets because the herd is coming. He says it'll be a shame when the zombies eat them because he won't have anyone left to kill. Jared wants to leave. Morgan shouts that he doesn't die, nobody dies, everybody turns. Jared goes to shoot him but one of the other Saviors stops him. The herd comes in. They begin to shoot at the zombies. Some of the zombies eat the injured men. Rick shouts to be cut loose to help them. Jared won't let them but he gets knocked out and the others cut Rick and Morgan loose. They fight the zombies as they try to escape together. Rick turns to Morgan and hey exchange a look. Rick uses his ax to kill a Savior and Morgan uses his stick. They kill the remaining Saviors except Jared who ran ahead. Morgan follows Jared. He sees ghost Henry again. Jared hits him from behind. He has Morgan's stick pointed at Morgan's neck. Morgan pushes him off towards the zombies. He closes a gate and holds Jared at the gate while the zombies eat him. Rick walks among the dying Saviors. Rick admits to a dying Savior that he lied. The Savior says, "We could have lived  . . . after this." Rick points his gun at him and shoots. Morgan joins him and says, "Everybody turns." Rick says, "You saved me. I would've died. Maybe on that street, right in front of your house. You didn't know me. Why'd you do it?" Morgan says, "Because my son was there." Rick looks at himself in a mirror.

Negan walks around the dump with Lucille. He tells Jadis, "You didn't lose you. You should know that." She stares at her photographs. He wants to know what happened there today. She just stares at him. He says he could go with her. She doesn't want to follow his path. He says he will visit. Maybe one day she'll want to share.

Carol walks through the woods in the dark alone. She finds a piece of Henry's armor covered in blood. A zombie can be heard and Henry screams for someone to help him. She runs towards the sound. He is hiding among the roots of a tree by a river fighting off three zombies. Carol fights off the zombies and hugs him. He cries and says he is sorry. She tells him it's okay and that she is sorry. She was wrong he can survive. Jerry smiles at the gate. He goes down to Ezekiel and says, "Dude." In comes Carol with Henry.

Carol tells Ezekiel he was right. He says she is not a coward. She tells him about Sophia. Being with her people allowed her to find herself. A better self. "Still if feels like it could just be swept away again. But that doesn't mean it will, and it doesn't mean that I couldn't find myself again if it does." The gate opens and in walk Rick and Morgan. Morgan walks up to Henry and checks his neck to make sure he is real. He say, "I killed them. I killed the man who killed your brother. I did. I killed him." He smiles. Henry says, "I'm sorry." Morgan tells him to never be sorry. Rick walks past Alden and Alden knows his friends are dead. Morgan sits on a log crying. Jadis opens the door to her room and unpacks. She lies down on her bed and looks up.

Negan drives. He stops and opens the door. He says, "If shit could shit, it still wouldn't look as shitty as you. Get in." We don't see who he is talking to. He pulls up to Sanctuary. One of the Saviors on guard says he knew Negan was alive. Negan tells him to keep it a secret. He wants it to be a surprise. Through binoculars we see the Saviors outside of Eugene's outpost. Rosita and Daryl are watching. Rosita says they don't need to take out the machines. They take out the man (Eugene).

Rick gets dressed after a shower. He turns to the dresser and opens the drawer that contains Carl's letter to him. He pulls it out. Michonne walks in. He thanks her and apologizes. She says he doesn't have to be sorry. He says he loves her and she says it back. Rick opens the letter and begins to read.




Final Thoughts
- Negan's apology to Jadis seems sincere. It's interesting that she never says a word.
- We finally got some back story on Negan and Lucille. I was not surprised. I assumed that Lucille was named after someone that meant a lot to him. He wouldn't react the way he does to other people holding her if she was just a bat. 
- Is Jadis in the military? Who does the helicopter belong to? Will we meet the group who owns it?
- I love scenes between Morgan and Carol.
- Henry was hiding in a similar location to where Rick left Sophia after saving her. While Sophie died Henry lived, probably because he know how to fight.
- I was not surprised at all that Rick lied to the Saviors about giving them a chance to join Hilltop. He mas out for revenge and not ready to forgive anyone. It wasn't until he got this out of his system was he able to read Carl's letter. Will he be able to do what Carl asks of him.