‘The Walking Dead’ Season 7 Episode 13: Live Recap & Review [SPOILERS]

(AMC/The Walking Dead)

Tonight is “Bury Me Here,” the latest episode from The Walking Dead. It looks like it’s going to be Kingdom-centric, although fans are also worried about Sasha and Rosita’s future after a very dark conversation that they had near the end of last week’s episode.

This post will have spoilers through Season 7 Episode 13. We will be updating this post with a recap and review of the show live as it airs. So keep coming back for more details about what happens tonight.

The show began with the shortest intro yet, which some fans joked was so that The Walking Dead could get in more commercials today. And it really did seem like there were quite a few commercials.

After the commercial break, Carol killed a bunch of zombies and went over to The Kingdom to confront Morgan. She wanted to know if what Daryl told her about no one dying was true. Morgan told her that she needed to ask Daryl about that, and he would be willing to go with her right now. Instead, Carol left and went back to her home, clearly upset.

Benjamin wanted to skip his drop and go with her to learn how she kills walkers so well. Carol turned him down and told him that he needed to still go on his drop. He was clearly impressed with her hunting and zombie-killing skills, and was disappointed in her decision.

Before the break, Richard was shown burying his daughter Katy’s backpack.

After the commercial, Ezekiel and Shiva are hanging out when a community member comes to talk to them. The plants have weevils and they’re losing crops, “but it can all grow back,” she says. Shiva looks majestic in this scene.

Ben gives a painting to Morgan, furthering his character development and fans’ concern about his future. In The Walking Dead, when a character develops a backstory unexpectedly, bad things can happen.

Richard warns Morgan not to beat himself up when the time comes that he can’t be a good man anymore, in a disturbing conversation. (Morgan later takes this advice to heart, but maybe not in the way Richard had expected.)

Jerry takes cobbler with him, and they all head out for a drop meeting with The Saviors. They don’t get far when they realize that the road’s blocked by a long row of shopping carts. It’s very creepy. The shopping carts are arranged as an arrow and they follow it to an open grave with a sign, “Bury Me Here.”

“This world drives one man mad,” Ezekiel says. “…It is mere luck we are not all insane.”

Benjamin tells him they’re not insane because Ezekiel made them another world, a world separate from what drives men mad.

Next, they arrive for their meeting with the Saviors. Ezekiel is told there aren’t any kings. The Saviors tell them things are unnecessarily tense every time they meet up. Unfortunately, they only have a few melons to offer them this time. The Saviors tell them they want their guns. “You can give up your guns or you can try to use them.”

Ezekiel says he’ll give them the guns if they give Morgan’s stick back. They won’t play ball. “I gave you a choice, what is it going to be?”

Ezekiel offers to give the Saviors their guns. The Saviors tell them things are about to get emotional because there are only 11 melons, not 12. Ezekiel counted them when they left and there were 12 but now there really are only 11.

They said they had to pay for this happening. One of the Saviors looked like he was going to shoot Richard but then he turned his gun next to Richard and shot instead. At that point, there was a commercial break.

The show returned and revealed that Benjamin was shot but not dead. They needed to return tomorrow with one melon, “no more or less.” And they needed to get Benjamin help fast because he was bleeding out.

Benjamin was brought to Carol’s house to get fixed up. He was in danger of bleeding out as they worked on him. Benjamin said something to Morgan that was hard to catch.

Benjamin died. The next scene showed him covered in a sheet in Carol’s home. Morgan left angry.

For a moment, it looked like Morgan was going to lose his mind and go crazy again. He was having flashbacks of his old life. He kicked a box and found the missing melon beneath it. That’s when he remembered Richard showing up, saying, “Get your gun up.”

Fans at this point were wondering if Richard created the shopping cart road block so he could steal a melon and start a war. Did Richard expect to be the one who died, so he dug his own grave, only for Benjamin to be killed? How will Morgan react after the commercial break? And is Morgan going to go insane again? He was seeing “Clear” and other flashbacks in his mind. Perhaps it’s a form of PTSD that he just can’t get rid of.

After the commercial break, Richard confessed to Morgan. Gavin said he’d be next, so he thought he would be the one killed when he stole the melon. He didn’t expect it to be Ben.

Richard talked about being in the camp when it all started, and how he always heard babies crying. “I knew they had problems, but I didn’t think they were mine to solve.” He did nothing back then and his wife died. Then his daughter. He wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

Richard wants to turn things around, gain the Saviors’ trust back, and then kill them, joining with Alexandria and the Hilltop.

“You have to kill,” he told Morgan, “or you might as well kill yourself. Someone had to die. I tried to be the one. … So I’ll be the one to lead our army to crush the Saviors.”

(Writer’s note: Although Richard’s passionate, he doesn’t seem like the right one to lead them. He made the decision on his own and left them unprepared. That’s not what a good leader does.)

We return to the scene that started right before the opening credits: with one melon in a truck for tribute.

Richard didn’t tell Ezekiel the truth, Morgan finds out as they wait for the Saviors at the drop. But there’s no time to explain this to Ezekiel. The Saviors arrive and find out Ben died. The leader is NOT happy about that. He’s very upset that Ben died, and that’s a surprising reaction.

Richard delivers them the single melon.

And that’s when the unexpected happens. Watch the scene below:

Morgan rushes forward and beats Richard in front of the Saviors. He loses it, reverts back to his old self, and beats and strangles Richard to death in front of everyone. “He blocked the road yesterday… It was all him. And we had your offering when we left, had it all, he took one from the cargo and he hid it when we stopped,” Morgan said. “He wanted to get something started between the Kingdom and the Saviors. We wanted to show you that we get it. We understand what it is that we need to do.”

In doing this, Morgan gained the Saviors’ trust, just like Richard had suggested. He carried out Richard’s plan, by killing Richard — just like Richard had wanted.

But then Morgan accidentally said, “That’s why Duane had to die.” Instead of saying Benjamin. Duane is Morgan’s son, and seeing Benjamin die must have brought up his memories and feelings from when his son died.

Ezekiel doesn’t want Morgan to be alone, but Morgan won’t go with him.

Morgan buries someone, kills zombies, and goes to Carol. He tells her what happened, how the Saviors killed Abraham and Glenn. Then how Spencer and Olivia were killed too. How Rick wants to fight them and that’s why Jesus brought them. He tells her what happened with Richard.

“Where are you going?”

Morgan says he’s going to kill them one by one. Carol stops him. “You can go and not go,” she tells him — which is what Ezekiel told her. She takes her bag and goes to the Kingdom to see Ezekiel.

“I’m going to be here now,” she tells him. “We have to get ready.” We have to fight, she tells him.

“We do,” he agrees. “But not today.”

Instead of going back to Alexandria, Carol went to the Kingdom to help them. Did you expect her to make that decision?

At the end we see Morgan. It looks like he’s now at the home where Carol was staying. And he’s turning his staff into a spear.