Shannis Reacts: The Walking Dead, S7 Ep 6, “Swear”

Oh look! It’s that naggy “no spoilers” zombie again!

We’ve talked about this. It’s a recap. There are spoilers.

There are ALWAYS spoilers.

Let’s begin.

Oh but wait. Check out this cute photo from AMC of the best moment from last week’s episode:

Okay. Moving along.

My eyes are fragile tonight. This episode better happen in daylight.

The beach! Finally a beach!

Personally, I would have aimed for a damn beach YEARS AGO. I mean, why bother surviving the zombie apocalypse for THIS long if you’re not going to just do whatever the hell you feel like doing? Go to the beach! Read lots of books! Come on!

Ok. So. Tara has washed up on the beach. This can’t be good. And a young woman and a tweenage girl find her and bicker over whether or not to spear her through the head even though the woman knows she’s still alive.

Oh cool, another psychotic little girl who wants to murder people. This show is so fun.

I forgot my stopwatch. But we got three minutes of episode and four minutes of ads, according to the DVR. That’s some b.s.

Flashback to Heath and Tara in their RV, talking about the crap they’ve found on their two week trip. Eight cans of okra and some aspirin. Negan doesn’t want your cans of okra. I’m just guessing.

And now they’re having one of those existential conversations about what they’re really doing all of this for, and Heath is like, “You’re in this for yourself. We all are.”

Heath is so judgy. Damn.

He probably has a point though.

Back to Tara and these new people. So do we have another cultish compound near Ocean City? Is that the deal?

Of course, Ocean City already IS a cultish compound. Have you ever been there? Total nightmare. It’s like those crappy traveling carnivals that used to pop up in the mall parking lot once a year, but the size of a whole city and with a boardwalk and a million ugly people.

The only good thing in Ocean City is the place with the really great fries.

OH, and when you drive home at the end of a weekend, the traffic is like those videos you see of people evacuating from Florida when a hurricane is on the way, only slower moving. And god forbid you have to pee. You’ll wind up in line at the one fast food restaurant between Ocean City and Annapolis with 100 other women who also have all had to pee for the last two hours, so it takes everyone ten minutes to pee once they’re finally inside the single bathroom.

Don’t ever let your boyfriend take you to Ocean City on a holiday weekend. That’s all I’m saying.

I’m thinking this is actually further south, though. Down in Virginia. The beach is too wild.

Anyway.

Tara follows the young woman into the woods. Why in the name of all that is holy in this world and the next do these people continue to enter the woods? Stay outta the damn woods, assholes!

Oh look! Women carrying around laundry baskets!

Maybe this is a women-only cult. That’d be an exciting change.

It’s fascinating to me, by the way, that we can only imagine cultishness when we imagine the aftermath of apocalypse. Cultishness and eventual authoritarianism. That’s pretty much it. No utopias. And no peace. What does this say about us?

It IS all women. And honestly I feel like Tara is right to look at wigged out by that as she does. These don’t look like friendly women. And they have legit tactics. Like clickers, to alert one another, like the Americans did after landing on Pacific islands during World War II.

Aaaand they are shooting at her. See. Nothing good ever happens in the woods.

Of course there is some vaguely batty older woman who seems to be in charge.

Natania. That’s… not a real name.

She lets Tara live. FOR NOW.

Ads. That was 12 minutes of action, 3 minutes of ads. Now they are just messing with us. Because 12 minutes is kind of long!

This episode is going back and forth between “right now” and whatever happened to lead up to Tara washing up on the beach. So right now, the question is what happens to Heath. And we see him and Tara walking across a bridge, where they’ve found the remains of some kind of settlement. And a giant pile of dry concrete that spilled out of the back of a dump truck. Tara’s all, “Oh heyyyyyy, let’s see what’s under it!”

SPOILER ALERT: IT’S WALKERS. It’s always, ALWAYS walkers.

OMG. When will these people learn they are in a zombie show?? Don’t go tugging stuff out of a giant pile of dry concrete!

Back to the lady cult. Tara is chained to a heating unit in the waiting area of the ladies’ cult office. And now the ladies have come out to speak to her. Tara tells them lies about a fishing boat. What?? Why not just tell a version of the truth? Weirdo.

Ah. She got knocked off the bridge after waking the walkers buried under the cement.

These women are like, we don’t mess around. We normally kill on sight.

More women should be like this. Just in general. Probably. Just kill on sight. Give fewer people the benefit of the doubt.

This is just a working thesis. Don’t quote me on it if I ever run for office.

I mean, I can’t run for office because I’m not a citizen. But if I could, you know.

Anyway.

The mean-faced lady leads Tara through the dark woods and we assume she’s leading her to some crappy hole in the ground. But really it’s the matriarch’s house. And it’s dinner time. They have yellow Fiesta Ware.

If I can keep my Fiesta Ware, maybe I’ll stick around after the zombies come.

Ads again at :32. Four minutes of them. Hmmmm.

The matriarch is offering to let Tara stay. And her friend too. Tara says her friend is a man, and asks where all the men are. All the men and boys were killed in a skirmish with another group, which we eventually find out was the Saviors. This is why they usually kill on sight: they can’t trust anyone.

Now Tara tells them the truth about where she is from. And how she wants to go back because she has a girlfriend there she wants to get home to, and other people she cares about. And she tries to convince them to work with her group.

DON’T DO IT, LADIES. Her group sucks!

Natania the matriarch says she can leave. But they’re going to send someone back with her.

And NOW we’ve reached the ridiculous amount of ads. That was five minutes of show, five minutes of ads.

The matriarch sends the mean faced lady and another one out with Tara. I feel like this will go poorly.

Yep. Sure enough, they try to kill Tara the first chance they get. No surprises there. They really can’t trust her. I can’t blame them. I like her well enough too, but if I’m trying to keep my little colony a secret, I wouldn’t let anyone leave it alive either.

And now: Cindy to Tara’s rescue. (Cindy is the young woman who found Tara on the beach in the first place.)

They get away from the two escorts who were trying to kill Tara. Then they stop to figure out their next moves. Tara tries to convince Cindy to just leave with her, fearing that Cindy will get into a lot of trouble if she goes back to the lady cult without having killed Tara. And then Cindy is preaching some weird version of the same truth that Heath was saying earlier. That none of them HAVE TO do the things they’ve done. They do them because they’ve decided that’s the person they want to be. And she has me until she says that no one is really evil. And then Tara and I both call bullshit. Because there ARE evil people. So many evil people.

This is why we (the collective “we”) like this show though. This enduring question about what we become when life turns to garbage. And until we get an answer to that question that we can all live with, we’re going to keep watching this show, or others like it.

Bunch of zombies on a bridge. Come on, Tara. You can outrun them. Cindy will have your back with her gun.

So far, so good. Except I keep waiting for Cindy to turn on Tara and shoot her in the back.

See. I don’t trust anyone on this show. I’m SMART.

Cindy is out of ammo.

But Tara makes it past the worst of the zombies just as she runs out, and comes to the other side of the bridge. First though, she sees a zombie that might be Heath because of the braided hair… but the zombie turns around and it’s a lady zombie, with boobs and a dress.

And can someone please tell me who’s been taking care of this lady zombie’s braids this whole time??? Is there a zombie salon right on up the road where you can go and get your braids touched up? Come on now.

And now a flashback shows what happened to Heath… maybe. But it also appears he drove away. And there is a mysterious key card on the ground by the fresh tire tracks. It’s either a breadcrumb from Heath, or a breadcrumb from the Saviors, who may or may not have Heath.

This show is so confusing.

Tara glances back. The two crabby ladies have caught up with Cindy and are leading her away. She’ll be fine though.

Now Tara is walking home alone.

She finds this old boat. Then she ends up hiding in a souvenir shop. And eating beef jerky. And taking a pair of sunglasses.

And she makes it back to Alexandria and Eugene greets her, sobbing. Because Denise is dead.

The episode ends with Rosita begging Tara to tell her she found a place with guns and ammo. Long pause. And Tara says no. Both because she wants to be that better person she believe she is, and, I’m guessing, because she wants to keep the place to herself in case she needs it one day.

I liked this episode. I like Tara. Even though I consider her a “newbie” character, I appreciate getting to know her this way rather than with a backstory too early on. Because as I always say, I don’t care about your backstory if I don’t care about you.

Also she is super pretty in real life.

Also tonight, Alanna Masterson (Tara) is on the Talking Dead. She did all her own stunts for this episode! We like a sister who does all her own stunts.

As long as they aren’t too dangerous.

So long until next week, lovelies!