AMC’s The Walking Dead
11×03: “Hunted”
Directed by Frederick E.O. Toye
Written by Vivian Tse

* For a recap & review of 11×02, click here.
* For a recap & review of 11×04, click here.
Maggie and the others are being attacked on the road by the Reapers, struggling to survive. One of the Reapers nearly gets her but winds up with a noose around the neck, pulled into the trees. Maggie gets back to her feet and throws a sickle into the trees at another Reaper. Looks like she’s been separated from her group, too. On top of that, the Reapers continue to hunt her as she makes her way alone through the wastelands.
In Alexandria, people are working to fix the place, more and more. Aaron sees Carol gearing up. She wants to track the horses, but he thinks it’s an impossible task. She knows the horses are needed, especially since the food’s been getting so scarce. Meanwhile, Judith and the other kids talk about worrying over their parents “running off doing things.” Can’t be an easy way to grow up, not like in “the olden times.”

Maggie makes it to a building, where she takes shelter from the Reapers hunting her. She makes her way downstairs with a flashlight; zombie noises are heard somewhere in the distance. Maggie’s no slouch, though. She’s used to doing this stuff by herself, setting up a couple bottles at the doors to get warning should any deadies come shuffling. But further inside she gets surprised by a zombie, though she stabs it and sends it flying over a railing down the stairwell. She continues on going upstairs, only to run into a Reaper at the top. And she sends the Reaper falling, but this guy doesn’t stay down like the zombie. She goes further until she’s upstairs, where she comes upon Alden, as well as a couple Reapers who attack them. Thankfully Maggie and Alden survive. Negan’s there, too. He kind of protects Maggie from a flash bang that gets tossed. In the midst of it all poor Alden got cut up pretty bad. Negan’s worried about their plan. He thinks they’ve got to keep off the roads, since the Reapers are hunting them, but Maggie reminds him they have to get food or else people will start to literally starve.
So they keep going.
In the woods somewhere, Father Gabriel’s injured, praying to God for strength. He pulls a screwdriver from his knee, then gets up to pursue a Reaper with whom he’s obviously been fighting. He follows the man until he finds the guy bleeding, lying against a stump, praying. The man asks for prayers, but Gabriel’s not inclined to show mercy. “God isn‘t here anymore,” says the priest, right before swinging a killing blow.
Soon, Maggie, Negan, and Alden find their friend Agatha, along with their other injured buddy Duncan, who’s not doing very well, bleeding out. Maggie feels responsible, of course, but these things happen in the post-zombie apocalypse world unfortunately. Still never easy to have to put a knife into your dead friends’ brains to make sure they don’t reanimate.

Rosita’s out foraging when she gets a visit from Carol, Magna, and Kelly. The ladies are going horse wrangling together. Not the easiest task. They try for one horse, only for it to run off. They’ve already tried it a couple times. Carol’s becoming more frustrated all the time. She and Rosita talk, the latter telling the former about having dreams of Abraham trying to to tell her something before being “shot in the head.” An ominous message. The group of women eventually stumble onto several of the horses, dead and chopped to bits, their limbs scattered. Definitely time to go back home. Except on the way the women hear the pounding of hooves. They see several of the horses running wild and free, heading to the dairy farm, which makes it easier for them to keep the horses in. Now, the ladies are able to properly work at getting their horses home, they don’t even have to use the lassos anymore. A sweet moment between them and the horses.
Again, Negan tries to talk to Maggie, insisting he can help and that her friends realised this was true. She doesn’t give a shit. There’s nothing that can ever bridge these two; no bond will ever form between Maggie and the man who murdered her husband. Along their trek in the woods the group sees a zombie, burned, tied to a tree; above it, a sign reads JUDAS. Then there are zombies coming out of the woodwork, everywhere. The group have to pick up the pace, trying to help Alden as he struggles to walk. Agatha gets bitten in the chaos. Negan has to pull Maggie out of there before getting bogged down with walkers swarming Agatha.

Back at Alexandria, Magna tells Carol to not give Kelly “false hope” about finding Connie again. Afterwards, Carol goes to the barn with one of the horses and cuts its throat, because they’ve got to have food, one way or another. Judith and the kids reluctantly take their servings of horse a bit later. Hershel’s eaten it before on the road with his mom, so he advises to take “small bites.” He’s had to resort to eating spiders before; horse, in comparison, is a delicacy.
On the road, Maggie’s crew need a rest and they need shelter from the road, in case of more Reapers. They arrive at what used to be a church, once upon a time. Inside, Alden attempts to tell Maggie how important she is to the group, that she’s a kind of moral compass, who’ll always try to do what’s best for everyone. He also tries explaining he’s “dead weight,” he doesn’t want to be the reason Maggie won’t make it back. That’s not a decision Maggie finds easy to make, nor should it be easy. She wants to blame everything, where they are currently overall, on Negan, yet she still must make a decision, in spite of where the blame ultimately lies. She gives Alden a few supplies, insisting they’ll be back. But who knows if he’ll survive until that time, particularly with the Reapers out there. That leaves Maggie and Negan as road buddies, for the time being.