‘The Walking Dead’ recap: Season six premiere is the ‘First Time Again’ for Rick and friends

Welcome back, “Dead” heads. Where were we?

Oh yes, cringing at last season’s finale: the climactic town hall/trial to decide whether Rick would be allowed to remain in Alexandria after fighting Pete (the doctor/drunk) and waving a gun at everyone.

That meeting devolved into chaos after Pete (hammered, of course) accidentally shot and killed Reg, the husband of community leader Deanna. She told Rick to shoot Pete in retaliation, and he pulled the trigger on the community’s first public execution just as his long-lost friend and new pacifist Morgan showed up. Quite the bang-up reunion.

So Alexandria was left with the shocked and suspicious original residents, and the road-hardened, interloping Grimes Gang, glaring at each other across a deep divide, even as some truly dangerous outsiders known only as The Wolves were closing in on their sanctuary.

If it feels like that all went down only yesterday, perhaps that’s because Sunday night’s season six premiere “First Time Again” picked up right where we left off: Rick pulling the trigger on Pete, and Morgan calling his name.

That scene - and other numerous flashbacks - are depicted in black-and-white as the showrunners alternate between the past and the present (shown in color). For sanity’s sake, let’s just run through this 90-minute premiere recap in chronological order.

 

After the beating - er, meeting - we’re given a glimmer of good news: Tara, who’d been unconscious since the disastrous supply run that resulted in Nicholas killing Noah in a revolving door of death, awakens in the infirmary. “Thank God - nothing happened to your hair,” she says upon seeing Eugene’s mullet.

Glenn and Nicholas come in, battered and bloody - Nicholas had drawn Glenn out into the woods and shot him, and Glenn barely refrained from beating his attacker to death. But good-hearted Glenn waves it off as just a scratch. Then any remaining good cheer is sucked from the room when Tara asks about Noah, and we all remember that he’s one of the many bodies that has piled up since they got to Alexandria. The Grimes Gang may just be the worst housegests ever.

 

Rick quarantines Morgan in (I believe) the same bare room where he was kept after attacking Pete. “I don’t take chances anymore,” he says by way of explanation - but looking ludicrous, since he’s the one covered in blood and packing heat after just killing someone. Morgan’s possessions, meanwhile, consist of a wooden staff, a rabbit’s foot, a book entitled “The Art of Peace,” and the tattered map to Washington, D.C. where Abraham had scrawled, “The world is gonna need Rick Grimes.”

The next morning, Rick comes upon Daryl - who had gone out looking for “good people” to recruit with Aaron, but alas, sprung a trap set by The Wolves that nearly got them killed. (Although they did find Morgan.)

Rick recognizes The Wolves as a threat, and decides Daryl doesn’t need to bring any more newbies into Alexandria. “People out there, they gotta take care of themselves, just like us,” he says, forgetting his own people were on their last legs when the Alexandrians took them in. Daryl disagrees with Rick, but the two of them drop the issue for the time being - although I’m sure we’ll see their brotherhood tested as the season progresses.

 

Most of the flashbacks catch us up with each character by using Rick as a lens, and next we have our fearless leader walking up to Morgan practicing with his staff in his little time-out room. He wants to know where Morgan learned to wield his weapon. “I ask, you answer. It’s common courtesy, right?” he says - echoing how Morgan first addressed Rick when he found him in the series pilot.

That elicits a smile from Morgan, who remarks that, “We gotta get to know each other again. For the first time. Again.” That gets Rick to crack a smile as well. So - how long until these two old hosses turn on each other?

Across the compound, an unarmed Eugene has been stuck standing guard at the gate because the woman on duty asked him to take over for a few ticks, and never returned. A car rolls up with three Alexandrians that we haven’t met yet, including Heath, who has an impressive head of dreads. Mr. Mullet calls out to Dr. Dreads, “It’s good to see someone like me fully respecting the hair game.” The look on Heath’s face before he walks away is priceless.

Back to Rick: He takes Morgan around Alexandria, explaining the town’s problem: “They just lived. They haven’t had to survive. It still might be too late for them to come around.”

In Rick’s mind, there’s either the people who “get it” - live by the gun, die by the gun, trust no one, and do what needs to be done - and those that don’t - those that will slow them down or make them vulnerable. It’s uncomfortably close to the Terminus motto of, “You’re either the butcher, or the cattle.”

They come upon Reverend Stokes helping to bury the bodies of Reg and Pete, but Rick demands they throw the latter’s body out in the woods because he’s a murderer. Curiously, Deanna agrees - whether she’s in shock over the back-to-back deaths of her husband and son, or those deaths have converted her to the gospel of Grimes - she completely falls in line with everything Ricks says. Pete’s body can be taken out west, where they don’t go. Yes, Rick’s right, people should now be armed inside the walls and trained on how to use their weapons.

It will be interesting to see how long this alliance lasts.

Pete’s oldest son, Ron, witnesses this, and follows Rick and Morgan as they drive out west to bury his father’s body.

This gives Morgan the opportunity to try and draw out the nice-guy Rick he believes is still buried somewhere inside. He tries to reason that just because Rick had the power - and the reason - to kill Pete, doesn’t mean he had to do that. “You do have a cell,” he points out. When Rick argues that Pete was a killer, Morgan reminds him, “I’m a killer. I am, and you are, too.”

But then both men are distracted by a low humming sound, almost like the drone of a hive of sick bees. They walk through the brush until it stops suddenly, dropping into a quarry, where thousands upon thousands of zombies have been tapped since the apocalypse began. And the semitrucks forming makeshift barriers to hem them in are on the verge of collapse.

They’re momentarily distracted by this new problem as Ron comes running through the woods with a couple of walkers on his tail. Rick tackles him before he runs to his death over the edge of the cliff, and Morgan dispatches the zombies into the pit. Rick tries talking sense into Ron, explaining how dangerous it is out here, but this kid doesn’t want to hear any of it. Would you? This is the guy who killed his father and is burying him in the woods. Clearly, this kid is going to be a problem.

Then Rick holds a meeting with the whole town at Deanna;s house to discuss this new threat, and comes up with a pretty audacious plan: To actually lead the walkers out of the quarry and far away from Alexandria, like the Pied Piper of zombies.

The Alexandrians immediately disagree. It’s far too dangerous. Couldn’t they just shore up any weak spots in the barriers? The most vocal opponent is Carter (played by Ethan Embry of “Can’t Hardly Wait” and “Empire Records.”)

But Rick points out that walkers are already squeezing out of the cracks. This is a chance for them to get ahead of the situation and be proactive. And Deanna, of course, agrees with him, and tells everyone, “We’re going to do as Rick says,” while she looks out the window, literally turning her back on her people.

So Rick draws up a plan: They’ll lure the walkers out using Daryl on his motorcycle, and Sasha and Abraham in a car. Walkers tend to travel in herds, each one following the one or two in front if it, so as long as they can keep them on one straight path, they should be able to corral them wherever they want. A couple of teams will be running alongside the herd in the woods, firing off flares to keep the zombies moving forward, and also dispatching any that start wandering off the road. And then Glenn, Nicholas and Heath are set to take care of some noisy, distracting walkers trapped behind the plateglass window of an adjacent tractor stop.

But when does anything on “The Walking Dead” ever go according to plan?

The day before launching the ambitious operation, as Rick is walking the team through the procedure, one of the semis blocking the road at the top of the quarry collapses - and the dress rehearsal becomex opening night.

Initially, all goes more or less according to plan. There’s a great shot of Daryl on his bike ahead of what looks like the longest, rottingest, most shufflingest marathon of zombies upon zombies filling the road behind him.

And Glenn, Nicholas and Heath just manage to take care of the zombies at the tractor shop in the nick of time - even allowing some bonding between Glenn and Nicholas, as the latter seems to have truly reformed and want to learn to take care of himself.

But just as they’re in the home stretch, ready to lead the horde of monsters 20 miles or so away from Alexandria, Carter gets bitten in the face by a walker in the woods, and he starts screaming.

This tragedy comes right after a flashback where Carter almost kills Eugene after our mulleted scientist overheard a group of Alexandrians talking mutiny against Rick. Rick comes upon this scene, and draws his gun on Carter, bellowing, “You think you can take this place away from us? Away from ME?!”

But he doesn’t pull the trigger. He sits outside with Morgan, and says he realizes that he doesn’t have to kill him - even though it would be easier - because Carter doesn’t “get” it. He’s gonna die no matter what.

And then flash forward to the present, and Carter is screaming and bleeding out. Rick dispatches the walker that attacked him, but Carter is too far gone, so Rick kills him in front of Morgan and Michonne.

And then the sound of an airhorn pierces the air, and Rick’s team freezes in horror.

The blaring sound continues, coming from the direction of Alexandria, and the back half of this massive swarm of walkers begins turning off the road and spilling into the woods. As Rick and his team start racing toward home, the camera pulls back into an aerial shot of hundreds upon hundreds of walkers slouching toward Alexandria, as the incessant horn contains to wail.