AMC’s The Walking Dead
11×08: “For Blood”
Directed by Sharat Raju
Written by Erik Mountain

* For a recap & review of 11×07, click here.
* For a recap & review of 11×09, click here.
The Reapers are preparing for bad news at Meridian, having spotted the swirling horde closing in nearby. Pope’s sure there is a meaning to it, that it isn’t meaningless. Daryl offers to lead the horde away, to cut down on risk, and Pope thinks that sounds best but sends one of his men to do the work instead. A guy called Wells plays “Pied Piper” to the walkers, taking them deeper into the woods elsewhere. But he gets himself trapped between two parts of the horde, and walkers come at him endlessly, until our survivors hiding amongst the zombies stab him, making him into food.

A storm’s raging at Alexandria and everybody’s locked down tight. The kids are all scared, and the grownups are trying to rush around to board the place up. There’s even a fire, and pieces of the wall have started to fall, blowing around the streets. This means three teams have to split up: one to protect people at the house, one to repair the wall, one to put out the fire. Connie wants to help, offering to go along with Carol, and Kelly won’t sit back doing nothing, either. Even Virgil, who’s not in great shape, wants to lend a hand to these folks.
Back at Meridian, obviously no one can contact Wells, and Pope knows the man’s dead. Pope also knows an enemy’s out there, so Leah questions why he’d send someone out there; he just pontificates and gets a bit nasty with Leah in response. He’s ready for a war. Later, Pope and Daryl talk alone. Pope relates Daryl to a dog he used to know and the latter replies: “Don‘t worry, I ain‘t gonna lick you.” He tries to use Daryl for more info, and Daryl does what he can to talk while not giving much up. Soon, the zombie horde has moved back towards Meridian again. But now land mines are going off.
Sad to see Judith having to go without her parents. She’s still so strong and she’s learned so much from them. It’s just incredibly sad that Judith is all alone, even if she has a community full of people. Virgil attempts to make the little girl feel better, telling her Michonne is still with her and she’s still with Michonne, no matter where they are in the world. They get interrupted when a zombie nearly nabs one of the kids. Thankfully nobody’s hurt, yet that won’t stop all the walkers banging on the door, trying to get inside. So ass-kicking Rosita takes a weapon and goes out onto the porch, fighting viciously to take down walker after walker after walker.

While Pope continues pontificating, as usual, Daryl spies a few people among the zombie horde, sure that it’s his friends. Maggie and Gabriel are now near the walls of Meridian, where Daryl’s just turned up, offering another smoke to one of the Reapers. Daryl kills the guy instead of having a cig together and he shows Gabriel and Maggie where to go so they can get inside the walls. Meanwhile, Negan and Elijah take a little shrapnel fire from the mines exploding around them. Once inside, Maggie and Gabriel split up, intending to slip in and out with the food.

The Reapers have a big weapon they’ve created, essentially a massive launcher that’ll shoot a ton of fireworks. They can basically explode a hole field of zombies with it. Not good if there are still humans among the horde, though. Daryl keeps picking away at Leah’s belief in Pope and the Reapers, trying to see if the woman he knows is still in there after all this time. He’s gradually attempting to see if he can get her out of there, or if she’s ready to go down with the ship. Though even Leah wonders how things might be if they’d “never left that cabin.” Now Pope wants to set off the weapon. So Daryl tells Leah his people are out there “walking with the dead,” that they’ve come back for the food. He urges her not to kill them. But she’s angry he lied to her. Pope shows up and says he wants Daryl to be the one to find Maggie and bring her to him.
Speaking of Mags, she’s hotwiring a truck. She uses it to send the thing flying through the gate, opening Meridian up to the zombie horde outside. GOOD LORD WHAT A BAD ASS SHE IS! This causes chaos, sending Reapers to the gate to try holding off whatever walkers they can, and Pope’s upstairs ready to fire off their weapon, even if his own men are in the way now. Pope is full of religious power, believing he and the Reapers are chosen by the Lord, so that makes all his decisions just fine. Daryl’s about to attack Pope when Leah goes for the kill on Pope instead. Then they prevent the weapon from firing. Down below, Maggie fights her way through Reapers and zombies, as Gabriel covers from above with sniper fire.
What does Leah do? She calls over the radio telling the other Reapers that Pope’s dead and it was Daryl who killed him. What a cold move. She’s so far gone, there’s no coming back. This leaves Daryl with no choice but to leave.

Things at Alexandria are no better than before. Judith’s helping do what she can as the grownups hold off the zombies outside. She worries because she can’t find Gracie, discovering her friend in the basement, where the windows have broken and the place is flooding. When they come back upstairs there are zombies inside the house, so they rush back into the basement with nowhere else to go.
At Meridian, Leah’s decided to light the big weapon after all.
And off it goes.