The Walking Dead S7E4 recap: Service

The Walking Dead returns with “Service.” Only a few days have passed since Rick and Negan parted ways but a lot has changed. Here’s Undead Walking’s complete recap of the episode.

Michonne is out in the woods and she jumps onto an old car, surveying the area. Rick checks on Judith, who seems to have grown a ton since we last saw her.

Eugene and Rosita go to the gate with Spencer. They see Negan’s shadow outside. “Little pig, little pig, let me in,” he calls. Eugene gives Rosita a look while Spencer goes to the gate. He asks who Negan is, and Negan hopes he’s joking because he knows that he and Lucille make quite an impression. Rick walks up and says that it’s only e been a few days, not the week Negan promised. A Walker approaches and Negan beats it down. He calls out to his group to get ready. Among the group is Dwight, and Daryl, wearing his A suit. Negan says he’s doing Rick a great favor, taking down the Walker instead of pitching a fit that the man in the gate doesn’t know who he is. He hands Lucille to Rick as he walks past the gate and into the friendly confines of Alexandria.

Negan has come to collect.

Negan seems to like what he sees, confirming that he may not have known about Alexandria. Rick sees Daryl and wants to talk to him, but Negan says that Rick isn’t allowed to talk to Daryl. Rosita is there, and Negan issues the same warning to her, knowing that she probably has some beef with him after their last encounter. She walks away from him and Negan comments on the suspense between them. Rick has supplies set aside, but that’s not how things work. Negan’s men move out to search the houses and see what they have to choose from.

Negan wants a tour of Alexandria from Rick, and Dwight moves in on Rosita. He brushes Spencer off when he tries to intervene. Dwight, still on a power trip, takes her weapons, and then he takes the weapons stashed in the car. Then he tells her to fetch Daryl’s bike, but she says it isn’t there. Dwight suspects that she knows where it is, though, and after taking off her hat and trying to intimidate her, he lets her get into the car. He drains her canteen and tells her not to take too long.

Michonne watches from her perch on the car. She spots a Walker in the distance and aims at it, but she misses the shot. She fires several more realizes that she can’t hit it, so she uses her sword to kill it. Then, as she walks away, she sees that her random shots have struck and killed a deer. The sight makes tears rise in her eyes.

Negan’s men remove furniture from the houses, which really tickles Negan’s balls. Or so he says. One of the men brings him a video camera and Negan is hoping it’s a different kind of video. However, it’s Rick talking about how he’s killed people. Negan baits Rick and says Rick isn’t that man anymore. Negan asks about Maggie and asks how she’s doing after losing her husband. Father Gabriel walks up and asks if he’s there to pay his respects. Negan starts laughing, but then he realizes that she didn’t make it. He says that’s a real shame, and that the group didn’t need that to happen. They move to the cemetery and see the freshly dug grave. Negan says he would have brought Maggie back with him. He liked her spirit. It’s a shame she had to die. All of sudden there’s a gunshot, so they go off to see what’s going on.

Wait…Maggie is dead? Or is this a bluff?

Carl has a gun pointed at one of Negan’s men. Carl is upset that they’re taking all of the medicine and that’s not what they said. Negan appreciates Carl’s attitude, but that’s not how Negan does business. Half of their stuff is whatever Negan says half is. This brings up an important point. Rick has a lot of guns. Now Negan wants all of the guns. Where are Negan’s guns?

Olivia is standing at the ready when Negan and Rick show up. Negan asks if she’s running the show in the storage facility, and he asks her to lead the way. Negan says that he wants Rick to know he isn’t taking any of their food, but he comments that Rick has a “fat lady” in charge of rations. Rick doesn’t know what to say, so Negan explains that he’s very reasonable about the way he’s doing business. He wants to know if Rick is really cooperating or not. He asks if Rick is hiding anything, which Rick verifies to the best of his knowledge.

Rosita and Spencer stop the car at the train tracks and look around the area. The bike is still there, hidden under some bushes. Spencer grabs it and walks it back to the tracks. Spencer says it sucks to have to obey but this is where Rick has brought them. Maybe, he says, if Rick had thought things through certain people might still be with them. All of a sudden she ducks into the woods.

The guns have been loaded into the van, along with other weapons. Daryl is helping to load them up. One of the men comes out with a bazooka. He knows that this is the weapon that took out the Little Dick gang. He’s going to have fun with that weapon. One of Negan’s people comes out with Olivia. The books are incorrect—two guns are missing. Negan says that he doesn’t enjoy killing women, but this was her job and she did a bad job. That, Negan says, is life and death.

Rick lays Lucille on the altar and then talks to the group of people assembled in the church. He says he thought about hiding the guns, but if the Savior found the guns with them, then they’re in trouble. Hiding the guns isn’t the answer. He says that there are two guns missing from the armory, and someone needs to turn them in. If the guns aren’t found, Olivia will die. One of the men stands up and asks why Negan’s men care. Two guns won’t matter. He wishes he had the guns, but he didn’t. Aaron’s boyfriend stands up and says even if they find the guns, how will they get out of this? Rick says he’s not in charge anymore. This is their life now. Eugene looks around and notes that not everyone is there.

Rosita is following a herd of Walkers in the woods. She quickly kills as many Walkers as possible and she takes their guns. These are the Walkers who killed Denise. Rosita knows that Negan is going to take their guns. Spencer looks away, and she tells him that this isn’t their life.

Rick is searching Spencer’s house and he looks outside the window and sees Negan relaxing on the lawn furniture with Olivia. Father Gabriel comes in to say that they still haven’t found anything. He knows things are going to work out, and that they’ll find a way to move forward. Gabriel has faith in the group, and in Rick. He says they weren’t always friends but they are now. Rick thanks Gabriel for his quick thinking with the graves, which confirms that Maggie isn’t buried there and the gun are for show. Aaron confirms that they haven’t found anything, but that they’ll keep looking. Rick finds a loose floorboard and finds the guns inside them, in a bag.

Outside, one of Negan’s men harasses Enid, who stands her ground. She asks for her green balloons and wants them back. He makes her ask repeatedly before giving them back. Hopefully Negan gets control of that one.

Negan takes the guns from Rick and gives him a warning—if they don’t get things together, they’re going to start over again, and Rick knows how that will go.

Negan’s men drive the vans to the gates. Rick spots Michonne and asks for a moment. She sees Rick with Lucille and he explains that Negan asked him to hold it. Rick wants the gun back from her and he tells her that he needs her gun back because he doesn’t want to lose anyone else. Michonne walks up with the deer carcass. Rick gives the gun to Negan, which Negan appreciates. Rick wants Daryl to stay, but Negan says no. But then he gives Daryl a chance to plead his case. However, Daryl doesn’t respond.

Negan tells Rick that they’ll be back, and he hopes that they’ll have something interesting for them or else Lucille will have her way. Dwight takes the bike from Spencer and offers her hat back to her. She tells him she found his dead friends in the woods. Daryl watches Dwight on his bike, and Dwight tells him he can have it back if he asks.

Negan wants Rick to say the magic words, and Rick does. Negan thanks him for his efforts, just as a Walker approaches. Negan takes care of it and says that they can help each other. But before he leaves, he takes Lucille from Rick and then says that he made Rick say thank you to him for taking their beds and guns.

Rick closes the gate and then comes back to talk to Spencer. He explains that they took the guns from his house and took the guns because they were missing. Rick isn’t happy that Spencer was hiding food and guns. Spencer being Spencer taunts Rick about the situation they’re in. But Rick doesn’t bite. Instead, he walks away and Rosita gets in his face. She wants to know what he was thinking. Spencer says he’s had them for a while, because he was worried about Rick being in charge. Spencer agrees that this doesn’t have to be their life.

With the beds gone, Rick makes a nest of pillows and blankets. Michonne walks in and says that the rifle was from their outpost and it wasn’t on the list. She says she didn’t have any others, but everything they have now is from fighting. Rick says they’ll play by the rules and carve out a life for themselves. Rick tells her the story of Shane and how Shane rescued Lori and Carl. Rick knows that Judith isn’t his daughter, but he loves her anyway. He accepted that so he could keep her alive, and he pledges he’ll die before she does. He wants to protect her and teach her to survive. He accepted this way of life with Negan so that they can survive.

Michonne goes out the next day and sits on the old car. She turns around and looks into the distance, and then she goes off to see what she saw in the woods. It’s their mattresses. Negan’s men burned their mattresses in the road.

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Rosita grabs the bullet casing and takes it to Eugene. She asks him to make a bullet.

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9pm on AMC.

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The Walking Dead S7E4 recap: “Service”

By Sarabeth Pollock | Nov 13, 2016

The Walking Dead returns with “Service.” Only a few days have passed since Rick and Negan parted ways but a lot has changed. Here’s Undead Walking’s complete recap of the episode.

More from Undead Walking