The Walking Dead season 9 episode 4 recap: The Obliged

Daryl offers Rick a ride to Alexandria on his bike. Rick hops on and off they go.

Michonne and Judith are coloring on the porch when someone knocks at the door. It’s Nora. She admits it’s “mostly bad” news. The crows are eating too many tomatoes. And Negan won’t eat. He hasn’t eaten for two days. Michonne says she’ll handle it.

Daryl and Rick drive down the road. Rick realizes that Daryl isn’t taking him to Alexandria. He tells Rick that the message didn’t go through and things are going to go down the way they were supposed to before. Unfortunately, the two men start fighting (as they tend to do) and they roll down the hill and fall right into a giant pit. Now they’re stuck, and that’s what they get for fighting.

The prison is dark when Michonne arrives. She has a tray of food. She tells Negan that the hunger strike is over, but he says he’s just not in the mood to eat. She tells him to eat because he’s alive. She’ll be back in an hour and she expects the food to be gone. He taunts her and says he wants her to stay and talk with him. He knows she’s drafting rules and he says that being there is proof of rules. She sits down and listens.

Stuck in the hole, there is no way out. Rick says he knows why Maggie is doing what she’s doing. But Daryl knows what a dead Negan means to her. He also reminds Rick that if not for Glenn, Rick would be dead and he never would have been reunited with his family. Daryl drops an F-bomb he’s so mad. Rick reminds Daryl that he spared Dwight’s life, but Daryl says that Negan is being paraded as a symbol. Daryl lets it slip that Oceanside was behind the Savior deaths, and Rick can’t believe Daryl didn’t say anything. Rick reminds him that if Negan dies then he becomes a martyr. Then they all died for nothing. Daryl says that Rick keeps asking them to have faith but he thinks Rick doesn’t have faith in all of them. He would die for Rick, and Carl, but Rick needs to stop right now and listen. He has to let Negan go because it’s not going to work out. Rick shakes his head. He never asked for people to follow him, but Daryl says that he should have.

Back in Alexandria, Negan notes that his day seems much better than Michonne because he day sounds boring. He doesn’t think he should be stuck in a cell, and he thinks she’s meant to be the warrior out fighting. Michonne fires back that they’re rebuilding civilization. Negan says he’s glad his wife never saw him life his. Michonne jokes that he must have been an a-hole before but he says she was an angel. She asks what happened. Cancer. They wanted to have a child together, a kid like Carl. He says she was lucky to have him. Michonne says she sees Carl everywhere. Negan asks if she sees Carl in the cell. “Everywhere,” she replies. Negan asks about her son, and she says that Andre didn’t make it. But she’s at peace. Negan says it’s better that way, because his wife wasn’t made for this world now. But she made him “not weak” and they were built for war. He says that the outside is where they belong. He knows that she is grateful Andre is gone because he would have made her weak. She grabs the tray and storms out.